Sir Ken Robinson literature review

Sir Ken Robinson is an education and creativity expert. I have come accross a talk he did at the TED conference in 2006.

Are Schools Killing Creativity

In this talk, Robinson gives examples of children (under the age of 10) who, like most children, are artistic and learn through visual, auditory and kinesthetic means. These learning practices, such as drawing, dancing etc are encouraged at this young age but as the child matures, it is customary to discourage such learning measures in favour of an academic education. Robinson believes that this has a negative effect on people. Children slowly become more and more inhibited as their education progesses.
In all countries around the world, creative subjects are given the least learning space, in terms of the number of hours taught per week. Robinson says:

“My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.”

I agree with this statement. In my own place of work, I regulary see pupils who are not academically minded, flurishing in creative subjects. Robinson gives an example of how Gillian Lyn, choreographer of 'Cats', was taken to see a doctor during her school years as her mother thought that she may be ill. Lyn was 'unable to sit still'. These days she may have been diagnosed with ADHD, which medication is prescribed for. Luckily the doctor Lyn saw, performed a small experiment on her rather than medicating her. He left her in a room on her own and turned on the radio. Lyn immediately began to dance. This child was not ill. She had simply not yet found her true calling. She is now a millionaire, highly successful and regarded as one of the world's leading choreographers.

What I found so useful about Robinson's talk was that he understands and explains to the audience that success can not be solely recognised by academic achievment. What does success actually mean? To today's educational board, success means passing exams with an A*-C grade. Most importantly in English, Maths and Science. I myself had to re-take my GCSE science exam in 2010 at the age of 29 so I can go on to teach dance!!! Why is a C grade in science imperritive to a dance teacher?

Robinson also says:

 "our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability". Yet there are so many highly successful individuals who are not academically capable. Or maybe they are, yet they do not consider academic areas to be of interest to them and have chosen a creative path.

I shall be using some of the quotes from Robinson's talk when carrying out questions to my interviewees and look forward to hearing their thoughts in return.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree with Robinson that creative subjects should have as much timetable space as academic subjects?