Spinetto 1 Joseph Spinetto Professor Megan Keaton English 1103 24 February 2013 Exploratory Essay Ever since the

birth of this wonderful nation, a presiding issue has been education. Education is one of the most important aspects of our thriving society, but the system needs to be updated and refined. How can we maximize results and prepare our future generation for the larger world they are entering? With globalization and faster transportation, people from all over the world are interacting more with each other then ever before. We as a nation are behind in our educational values from many other nations and we need to catch up. Some professionals and organizations have already started thinking about and analyzing this issue. I found a common theme used by these individuals that consisted of creativity and problem solving as the solution. A global conference called TED is held at various locations around the world. TED is a nonprofit devoted to ideas worth spreading. It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three words: Technology, Entertainment and Design. The speakers at these conferences are experts in their fields and bring excellent ideas to the table. One man at the 2006 Monterey, California convention has been studying educational practices almost all his life. Sir Ken Robinson makes his case focusing on the arts. In his talk, he explains that not every student learns the same or enjoys the same subjects. He speaks mainly of the arts and how children need them in addition to the core subjects to

Spinetto 2 develop the mind. Creativity today is just as important as literacy (Sir Ken Robinson). Creativity is a necessity to child development. It is better to come up with something rather then nothing at all (Sir Ken Robinson). If children dont know the answer to something they will still have a go at it and will probably come up with something original even if they are wrong. He claims to rethink intelligence and the current fundamental principles on which we are educating our children by adding more emphasis in the arts for an uncertain future. The educational system America has now was created to meet the needs of industrialism, which was 100 years ago (Sir Ken Robinson). The world has changed now and people who couldnt be artists or musicians in the industrial era have more opportunity for that type of career today. With more funding and more teachers, we can make the hopes and dreams of these aspiring children a reality. Whats missing in Sir Robinsons talk is a feasible solution. He never gives an actual solution except for the fact that we need more education in the arts. Where would the schools get the funding? Where would you find the teachers to teach these subjects? Answers to these types of questions are needed to be able to actually do something that could benefit the schools. Another change in society Sir Robinson mentions is the issue of academic inflation. Jobs that used to require a BA now require an MA or PHD. Too many kids these days are going home after getting a degree to carry on playing video games, because they cant get a job (Sir Ken Robinson). He talks of how the minds of children today are strip-mined for a certain commodity rather then searching for other resources the particular childs mind

Spinetto 3 might have (Sir Ken Robinson). Starting with kindergarten, the system prepares and aims children for university acceptance. Knowing this, the question should every child go to a university? pops up. A study conducted by Earl Shorris suggests that every person has the ability to go to college. His study in On the uses of a Liberal Education, consisted of teaching the humanities to hand picked extremely poor individuals in the Bronx. He states, The humanities are a foundation for getting along in the world, for thinking, and for learning to reflect on the world instead of just reacting to whatever force is turned against you (Shorris, Earl). He paid for everything including subway and food fare as long as they came to class and worked harder then they ever have before. All of the teachers were accomplished in their fields of philosophy, poetry, art history, logic, rhetoric, and American history. I think Sir Ken Robinson would agree some of these subjects are important to education as a whole and to the development of the mind. He would agree because the subjects such as poetry and art induce creativity. When kids dont receive these humanities as children, they have a lot of catching up to do when they get to be adults. He finished the course with tremendous results. A year after graduation ten of the first sixteen were attending 4 year colleges or nursing school; four of them had received full scholarships to Bards College. One of the students was fired from her job for trying to start a union (Shorris, Earl). Earl Shorris proved his idea of the humanities and would like to implement them on a larger scale once he receives the funding. A question that comes up is, are there enough people motivated enough to do what Earl Shorris has done? Another woman did the same type of study, but with students that are already in

Spinetto 4 school. Jean Anyon author of Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work selected schools in areas with distinct demographics in the economy levels of the families. She separated the schools into 4 classes: working class, middle-class, affluent professional, and executive elite. She found major differences in the styles between teaching depending on demographic. The school that had the most common traits of Sir Ken Robinson and Earl Shorriss ideal school system would be the executive elite schools. In their system they focus on Shorriss humanities and leadership. The students basically have free reign over the classroom and the teacher is there to keep order. The students are pushed to answer questions on their own through reasoning and creativity. The lower working class schools are very different. The working class schools focus more on the ability of the student to follow steps and directions. It is repeat, start over, and then repeat again when it comes to math, history, english, pretty much every subject. Jean Anyon found it shocking how different the schools educational systems were not so much in resources as in teaching methods and philosophies of education (Anyon, Jean). Looking at these teaching styles in creativity and reasoning, there is definitely a correlation to which type of jobs the students go into and the success that goes along with it. Test scores averages were higher in the elite schools and drop out rate was dramatically different then the lower schools. Should it be this way, or should everyone get the high education the elites do? Sir Ken Robinson says we should focus on creativity and the arts. Earl Shorris says we should focus on the humanities. Jean Anyon researches the actual act of education in the schools on children and how the educational system works. Sir Ken Robinson, Earl Shorris and Jean Anyon have the same ideas of education but came to their conclusions in different

Spinetto 5 ways. Their focus is on problem solving and creativity for the future generation. They believe people in todays world have to be adaptive to the rapidly changing world. Globalization is changing the way we think and the way we have to learn. How can we incorporate all of these ideas into a solution to boost America back up to the top? This question will be in the air until somebody takes a course of action.

Work Cited Anyon, Jean. "Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work." Journal of Education 162.1 (1980): Print.

Shorris, Earl. On the Uses of A Liberal Education: II. As a Weapon in the Hands of the Poor. Considering Literacy: Reading and Writing The Educational Experience. Ed. Linda Adler-Kasser. New York: Pearson Longman, 2006. 187-200. Print.

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? . Dir. Ted Talks. 2006. youtube.com. Web. 24 Feb. 2013.