More from Ken Robinson

In my ESPED 5100 class on Thursday night, we watched part of a Ted Talk featuring Ken Robinson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY.

I really enjoyed the video we watched in this class, and I had to go home and watch it in it's entirety. His thesis, that our formalized, industrialized schooling kills creativity is compelling, and makes me questions how I can operate within my school structure and endeavor to nurture and foster creativity within my students. It's remarkable how many students on my caseload, who are on special education, are exceptionally creative and gifted children, and I am wondering how I can do a better job supporting their creativity and skills. Independently, during our weekly group lunch, a group of my students have developed their own comic book, that they collaboratively write and illustrated, and one student has imagined his own "Middle Earth", a fantasy land that he's populated with magical creatures and societies, and aspires to design a video game of. How do I support them more, and create an environment where this is valued as much as traditional academic learning?

This also makes me think about Gardner's theory of multiple intelligence  why is it that our educational system values a certain kind of intelligence and dis-values others? If we all possess all seven intelligences  and have varying abilities, why isn't musical/artistic intelligence valued as highly as logical intelligence? How do I change that