The Aesthetic vs Anesthetic Experience

[Buddy]

Actually, the name of the presentation is:

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

It's only about 11 minutes and 40 seconds long, but I found it very interesting. I hope you do too. :)

Description:

In this talk from RSA Animate, Sir Ken Robinson lays out the link between 3 troubling trends: rising drop-out rates, schools' dwindling stake in the arts, and ADHD. An important, timely talk for parents and teachers.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

Some highlights from the first few minutes:

At the moment, every country on earth is reforming public education. 2 reasons: Economic and cultural.

The Public Education model rests on two pillars: Economic and Intellectual. The current system was designed and conceived and structured for a different age. Conceived in the intellectual culture of The Enlightenment; and the economic circumstances of the Industrial Revolution. It was driven by an economic imperative at the time and running right through it was an intellectual model of the mind. People were separated into two groups: academic and non-academic, smart people and non-smart people. The consequences of that is that many brilliant people think they are not, because they've been judged against this particular view of the mind.

The existence of ADHD is still a matter of debate, however there is one fact: it's not an epidemic. These kids are being medicated as routinely as we used to have our tonsils taken out; and on the same whimsical basis and for the same reason: medical fashion.

Our children are living in the most intensely stimulating period in the history of the Earth. They are being besieged with information and calls for their attention from every platform: computers, iphones, advertising hoardings, 100's of television channels, etc. And we're penalizing them now for getting distracted. Distracted from what? Boring stuff at school, for the most part.

Aesthetic: The Arts address the idea of the Aesthetic experience. Meaning your senses are operating at their peak; you're present in the current moment; you're resonating with the excitement of this 'thing' you're experiencing when you're fully alive.

Anesthetic is when you shut your senses off and deaden yourself to what's happening. A lot of these drugs that are being given to ADHD children are just that.

We're getting our children through education by anesthetizing them. And I think we should be doing the exact opposite. Instead of putting them to sleep, we should be waking them up to what they have inside of themselves.

_http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html

 

[Torstone]

Hi,

very interesting indeed!
The way of drawing the lecture like they do it, makes it easier to understand and to engage in what the person is saying, in my eyes.

The current system was designed and conceived for a different age

Funny how we thrive on progress in most areas of our world, when the school system is so allegedly outdated.

A good point I think he makes is that people are different, but how you go to school and learn is still the same for everybody.

Thanks for sharing :)

 

[monksgirl]

As for ADHD and our dated ways of educating, in a monograph on education during the Colonial era, I read that children were taken outside for recess for 10 minutes every hour, and urged to run and play hard so they could settle down for the lessons for the next 50 minutes. How sensible is that?