One of the most popular talks delivered by Ken Robinson was entitled “How schools kill creativity” . The speaker was deemed to be effective in asserting that education should focus on developing both, cognitive or intellectual skills as well as creative skills. Robinson used rhetorical elements that persuaded the audience in seeing the veracity of his contentions. The speaker used emotional, logical, and ethical appeal to convince the audience that contemporary educational system kills creativity through focusing only on developing academic abilities.
Robinson used emotional appeal through narrating humorous stories that enticed laughter and applause. In the almost 20 minutes of talk, the speaker was able to inject humor and enabled eliciting laughter from the audience for 20 times. He made sure that the narrative experiences were clearly understood through using personal experiences through telling stories of his son, wife, and himself as an educator. In addition, he told stories about children, which have always been effective in eliciting affirmation and positive response. The story about women being multi-taskers was told from his personal experience and observation of his wife was so funny since everybody could relate to the scenario.
In addition, Robinson also used logical appeal through appropriate reasoning supported by facts. He mentioned the assertion from UNESCO that “in the next 30 years more people worldwide will be graduating through education than since the beginning of history” . Since UNESCO is known as an authorized international organization on education, the audience is convinced that the facts are valid. Likewise, Robinson also reasoned that contemporary schools kill creativity due to the fact that the educational system focus on developing academic abilities through focusing on subjects such as mathematics, languages, and humanities, in hierarchical order. Arts were apparently relegated at the bottom. As such, the use of this type of reasoning in validating his arguments was easy to understand as one could attest confirmation and connection to his assertions.
Finally, Robinson’s ethical appeal was confirmed through the character and credibility exuded from his expertise on the subject. As an educator, the audience was provided with the appropriate background to be persuaded to Robinson’s expertise on the subject matter being discussed. Although the speech was delivered without any assistance from visual aids, the ability of Robinson to provide interesting and humorous stories captured the audiences’ interests and focus on the points of contention. He was observed at the beginning that he had polio which restricted his movement on stage. Despite the disability, Robinson exuded confidence and genuine enthusiasm, as well as expertise, on the topic of his discourse.
Overall, the speech was illuminating and enlightening as the message relayed to the audience was utterly convincing. Through the use of rhetorical elements, Robinson persuaded the audience that there is a need to transform the current educational system globally. As affirmed, there is an urgent need to focus on developing creative skills within equal footing with the development of academic abilities. The use of humor and interesting personal stories where the audience could related and connect to, Robinson inspired a confirming desire that it is high time to stop killing creativity. Only by doing so would people be able to create a brighter future for our children.
Work Cited
"Ken Robinson: How schools kill creativity." February 2006. TED Talks. 5 October 2014 <http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity>.
