Week #6

This week, we learned about being creative and why it is important.

In this week's TED video, Sir Ken Robinson discussed the importance of being creative and how our educational system is failing us by not encouraging creativity.  I thought everything that he had to say was very important and that he was actually very funny while saying it.  Our future and our education are two things that go hand in hand, Sir Ken really shed some light on that idea.  His idea that the education system needs to be reformed so that creativity is encouraged instead teaching every student to be exactly the same is a discussion that more people should be talking about.

One of the things that really caught my attention when he was speaking was the idea that with so many people getting college degrees today, it is dropping the value of having a college degree when you are trying to be competitive when getting a job.  What I find troubling about that, is while our college degrees are becoming less valuable to us, the cost of going to college has risen dramatically over the years.  I see a big problem there.

Another thing that caught my attention was when he was speaking about "the dancer" and how just because she was not doing well in the "traditional" subjects, didn't mean she wasn't great in something else... which in fact, came to be dancing, where she excelled and had a very successful career. Sir Ken said, "If she was confronted with her problem learning "traditional" subjects today, they would have said she had ADHD and told her to quit acting out..." This type of conformist way of education lacks creativity and it is bad for our future.

 Everyone has there own way of learning and a talent that separates them from the rest.  Our education system needs to utilize those talents and gifts instead of rewarding curriculums that make everyone the same.

This week we also learned about how photographs can be used to tell a story.  Photographs are an effective and creative way to tell a story, because when it is done right, the story comes to life without having to read any words.  The Big Picture website was a great example of how photographs can be used to tell a story about a subject.  In the Harvest 2013 photo story, I thought it was cool how they showed pictures from all over the world doing the same thing... Harvesting their crops and showing what they do in the process.  It is something that every place in the world has in common and it was neat to see in pictures.

The Photo Slideshow Story that I put together was one of a family dinner that I had with my girlfriend's family in Quebec.  It starts with the dinner being made and it ends with the popular Canadian pastime, a hockey game. It is posted in a separate blog post.