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?

Campus session 2, Module 3

Here is a summary of yesterday's campus session held by Paula and Adesola.

To start of the session, Paula briefly spoke about the literature that we are in the process of collecting. She encouraged us all to create a 'digital file' in which we keep all our sources of literature under. An obvious suggestion, though all of us admitted to having not done this! She also explained that literature can be used from previous references we have come accross during the course ie. Schon. 

Things to do

• For week 7-It is not long until we need to send your advisor a 1 page description of our artefact. This can be blogged but also send directly to your advisor.  
• On week 9, send your advisor your Critical Review draft for feedback. 
• Continue to blog about conversations you  are having about your inquiry at work.
• Watch Peter Thomas' 'writing' youtube clip from libguides
• Say what your action plan is. This will help to remind you what you have left to do and what stage you are up to.

Today we spoke about the Critical Review and then the Professional Artefact.

Critical Review: 
Paula explained to us some of the contents the Critical Review should contain.
In order to show what you have shared with SIGS, you can report any  actual conversations via your blog and/or journal (aswell as any on LinkedIn, Facebook etc).

Explain if/how your writing skills have been improved from doing this course.

Be sure to explain how you interpret certain words. Others may understand a word in a different way. For example, what does the word success mean to you? Financial stability? Fame? Respect? Full time work?

The Critical Review is a piece of writing which explian the journey you have encountered during this course.

This is also true of the Professional Artefact.

Professional Artefact:
Adesola explained to us what the intention of the Professional Artefact is. Just like the Critical Review, the Artefact is there to demonstrate your journey throughout this course. Academics like to see a 'report' in written form, however, as we all come from an artistic background, a written report may not be suitable in your line of work. Your artefact should be formed as a suitable 'language'  that your industry will understand. For example, if you work as a dancer, your artefact might be a dance. Both the Critical Review and the Artefact must show the journey, not the the outcome.

        Critical Review       +        Professional Artefact

 (written form)                     (non written form)

=Two form of explaining 

My lightbulb moment!!

During the session, Paula went round each of us, asking us to explain to the group one of our findings. This exercise was very beneficial to me because I realised that I have been trying to 'prove' that my way of thinking is right rather than acutally carrying out an inquiry. I actually feel that a lightbulb has been switched on in my brain! Up until now, I have been steering the outcome of my inquiry in the way I want it to. Adesola actually said to me ' but that's not an inquiry'. I now realise that it is impossible to know the outcome of an inquiry before you have finished it. Maybe my inquiry will show that dance and drama is not important in mainstream education. Just because I think it is, my finding may show otherwise. I feel very enlightened by this simple realisation. I felt quite embarrassed that I had been so slow to pick up on this, but also reassured when it turned out that other members of the group have been doing the same thing. I will be making sure that my literature resources are not one sided and there is a possibility that my sources of data/interviewees may also have to be reassessed. This is something that I can then reflect upon and talk about in my Critical Review. Adesola also warned us not to try to get your findings/data from your own experiences. You will endoubtedly be biassed!

Feedback Review

Today I have re-read my feedback from module WBS 3630 in order to clarify in my mind where I am and which areas need to be focussed on.
The working title of my inquiry is 'An exploration into the importance of Dance and Drama within education'. The overall intention of my inquiry was to evaluate whether subjects such as Dance and Drama have a place in today's educational system. I initially had grand ideas of putting my arguement across to the Principal of the secondary school I work in as a Teaching Assistant, and somehow re-molding the curriculum to incorporate more time to the creative subjects. Although I whole heartedly believe that this would be a massive leap in the right direction for the British education system, Paula's feedback made me realise that with the time frame I have and to be quite honest, the lack of authority I pocess, it would be too difficult to 'prove' that a creative curriculum should be adopted in my school. This could be regarded with a certain dispondency, but what Paula also highlighted to me was that although I can not necessarily change the teaching methods that the government have set in place, I can certainly use the valuable, creative teaching methods I have explored to improve my own teaching performance.
The literature I had read during Module WBS 3630 was appropriate to my inquiry and so the next step for me will be to find further resources which may also include educational policies and curriculum information.
Having realised that the initial question to my inquiry is too wide a topic area, I may benefit by concentrating on the sub-questions I had proposed in my Inquiry Plan. 1. Are creative subjects considered as important as academic subjects and why? 2. Should Dance and Drama be taught independently of governmnent run schools? Choosing just one of these avenues will allow my inquiry to be more specific and ultimately executed with more precision.
My feedback also encouraged me to take on some voluntary activities that could aid my inquiry. I recently directed the Shakespeare's school festival production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', which has enabled me to witness first hand, the growth in terms of confidence and ability, pupils' learn when taking part in creative projects. This has been as invaluable addition to my inquiry.

Time management....Failed?

At last it is half term and I have dedicated this week to uni work. At the beginning of every module, I try to stick to the weekly guides given to us in the handbook so as to stay on track but due to the fact that I work full time and have a second job, it is virtually impossible. This has upset me in the past but due to the nature of the course (work based), I have realised that although it is not ideal, it is possible for me to work in heavy doses when time allows rather than evenly spread out, as I would prefer. As the course is specifically created to teach us how to cope in a professional world, I have also realised that in Education, this is how the profession exists - during term time, there is virtually no room for extracurricular activities. The job is far too demanding. Anything 'extra' can really only be done during school holidays, which can often take away any connotations of 'holiday' ie. fun, lie-ins, lazy days!
A week of unpaid work that I sincerely hope will one day 'pay off', here I come!

Shakespeare schools festival

Well the performance went really well! I'm astonished because I was pulling my hair out just the day before the show. I'm so proud of the pupils. The time and effort they put in was amazing.
I found directing to be a very strange experience. I've only ever been on stage myself before which obviously involves being involved right up until the appaulse at the end. It was odd having to hand that over to other people and not being able to participate in the very final moments. All I could do was watch and hope things went smoothly. We had a few 'moments'  - lines being forgotten, one pupil vomiting backstage and one of the teacher's sons having to go on instead and me having to whisk my top off to provide a 'shawl' as a prop that went walkies!
The experience has defintiely left me wanting more in terms of producing and directing and it has also made me realise how much I miss being on stage myself.

My first professional directorial role!

Tomorrow will be my first ever performance that I have directed and been paid for! A cast of 20 secondary school pupils will be at the Greenwich theatre, London in the Shakespeare school festival, performing 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. It has been a very difficult experience, mostly due to such a lack of support from the school, but here we are...on with the show! I will blog my experiences in due course!

As usual, no support when it comes to Drama lessons

Today I experienced a classic example of how unimportant drama is considered in my place of work (secondary school). On Thursday this week, my pupils will be performing 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at the Greenwich Shakespeare school's festival. We were having a rehearsal in an allocated room when a pupil who is not involved with the performance came in to the room. I explained that there was a rehearsal taking place, to which she informed me that she was feeling ill and had been told by one of the senior staff to leave her lesson and sit in the drama room. I can only imagine how a teacher would complain if I had sent one of my pupils, feeling ill, to sit in on one of their lessons! Obviously this member of staff, and unfortunately many like her, don't see that a rehearsal taking place two days before the performance, does not welcome random 'ill' people to sit in on! This is something I experience on a daily basis. Earlier this morning I had the father of one cast member call me to say that his daughter would be dropping out...with two days notice. He said that we would have to find someone else. Easy as that. Unbelievable.