Changing Education Paradigms

The RSA posted a clever animation on YouTube adapted from a lecture with Sir Ken Robinson on the current education system, he talks about the arts and how they address the idea of aesthetic experiences whereby the senses are operating at their height. According to Robinson, “The education system has become obsessed with particular forms of academic ability…many people leave education never realizing their intellectual capacities”.

It could be argued that a focus on ‘the mind’ alone marginalizes many pupils and ignores vital senses and aspects of the physical body, which I believe are also essential to learning. Government strategies, such as All Our Futures, Building Schools for the Future and The Children’s Plan, highlight the on-going debate around the relationship between physical knowledge, environment and learning.

Do we place too much value on the mind?