A PRODUCTION LINE MENTALITY

The main idea of the video is to inform viewers and listeners about how the current education system is stuck in the past. When the idea of public education was first strongly pushed it was during the Enlightenment period, and only implemented strongly due to the interests of the Industrial Revolution. It was a time when labor and workers were needed. Sir Ken Robinson creates a great example of this still seen today when he explains the structure of the school; things separated by subjects and facilities, bells that ring like a factory, and students grouped by age, or date of manufactory. This sort of structure put students to sleep, they don’t buy the old way of learning. It isn’t a time when hard work and a college education guarantee you a job. It is a time when a college education gets you by, if that.

What stood out to me those most was the statistic that as ADHD cases raise so does standardized testing. There has never been as much stimulation in the lives of children until now and we expect them to not get distracted. Then, in order to keep kids form being distracted we decide to medicate them, make them numb. How do we expect students to learn and function like this?

I agree with Robinson’s statements. The education system is so backwards and greatly diverges from what students need in today’s society. There are many problems that need to be fixed, but due to the amount of debt it is hard to bring in new minds and thoughts when struggling to keep the current education system afloat. What also stands out to me is how we test and analyze students. We go about retrieving their knowledge in all the wrong ways. When Robinson states, “…many brilliant people think they are not because they have been judged against this particular view of the mind”. The particular view is that of deductive reasoning, or academia.

The video gets my very excited about the implementation of Common Core. It is an exciting time in education. Teachers will now have more room to decide what ways they will assess their students’ knowledge. It will no longer be the “deductive reasoning view of intelligence or alienating students. I’m reminded that students are not all the same. Therefore, the way they demonstrate their knowledge will be different. It pumps me up and makes me want to get involved in the change, even if I play small role.