I found this clip really interesting and really made me think about education in today’s society.

Sir Ken Robinson spoke about how our education system is still working the way it did in the past. It was designed for a different age and was conceived in the industrial revolution. He spoke about how there has always been the idea that there are academic and non academic people/ smart and non smart people, and that people who are non academic do not have the same self confidence to achieve. I agree with this as there are many people who have excellent skills in sport or the arts who can achieve so much with the skills they have, but may not receive the same encouragement from staff in school.

Robinson then goes on to speak about the rise of ADHD amongst children. Children are being given powerful drugs to keep them from being distracted.

“Getting children through education by anaesthetising them”

We live in a society where technology is all around us, and constantly holds our attention, yet children are getting told off for getting distracted from school work, which some may not be interested in. Robinson says that the rise in standardised testing has also seen the rise in ADHD.

Another point I found interesting was that schools are organised in the same way as factories. There are seperate facilities for boys and girls, a bell rings to signify different times and the children are put through school in “batches”. Children go through school based on their age group and not by academic ability. Why do we do this if some children are more academically gifted than others?