Ken Robinson: “Dancing in the school is as important as learning math”

Considered one of the greatest experts in education in the world, flees from the obsession of some countries with the results of the PISA report, and warns that a focus curricularmente in a few disciplines, “it is not a good idea”

“The training will be shorter, for the night, and from home – ”

Wayne Gretzky, the Leo Messi of ice hockey, he was the leading scorer of the NHL in 1982. His secret, as he acknowledged himself, not due to ability, but to anticipation: while other players ran towards the place where he was the disc, Gretzky skating towards the place where he was going to be.

SirKen Robinson endorses the simile in Schools creative (Ed. Grijalbo), purpose of the culture of standardization in schools and the obsession of some countries appear as high as possible in the PISA report (Program for International Student Assessment, for its acronym in English). “Compare their respective positions in the table as if they were bodybuilders taking biceps,” he jokes in his book of 2015 that will most likely be the greatest expert in the world in education.

Robinson (Liverpool, 1950) passed directly from teacher to guru in 2006, when he delivered his famous talk on how schools destroy creativity? (posted more than 53 million views and is the most view of the history of TED). In it he argued that we are all born with great natural talents and the school to guillotine those capabilities, because there are not valued or even stigmatized. A former advisor to several governments and authoritative voice in all matters relating to creativity and innovation within the classroom, just to visit Madrid. What has made invited by EnlightED, an international meeting promoted by the Telefónica Foundation, IE University, and the South Summit, which analyzed the transformation of the education system and the challenges posed by the digital world.

With the exquisite ways that presuppose someone with a title awarded by the Queen of England, the phlegm of a british expat in Los Angeles, and the agenda of any rock star, Robinson attended THE WORLD after his intervention, in which he confessed that the first time you came to our country (1969) agreed in San Sebastian… with Franco.

Spain has obtained practically the same results in PISA for a decade and a half. In the last report (with data from 2015), improved slightly in reading and stagnated in math and science. Should we stop paying so much attention to it or, on the contrary, mobilize the resources needed to achieve a real improvement?The aim of PISA is to provide data useful to the national education systems to adopt policies that are more solid. It is a good approach. If I submit to a medical check-up, I would like to get reliable information about my physical condition. The problem is not the data, but what we do with them. And, unfortunately, what is happening since the publication of the first PISA report is that many countries are concerned by the position in the ranking that evaluates these disciplines and neglecting many other areas. I think that is completely wrong. I can’t be against helping the children become more competent in math or language, because that is a very important part of education, but not all education. What you do propose? Focus on a few disciplines is not a good idea. I have recently been in London to insist that dance in school is as important as learning math. I am convinced that is so because in all cultures have a fundamental role in the growth and human development. We speak of joy, of social relations, of cultural assimilation… it Is proven that if you have a curriculum broad, the performance in mathematics tends to increase. Why? Because children are more likely to be interested in these other disciplines, is not the only thing you have to do. I think that the problems facing the Spanish education system, as well as others, not only to do with how well kids do in math. It has to do with how it motivates them in school, or how it prepares them for a changing job market. Those things are not resolved by going up two positions in the ranking of mathematics. Politicians have to understand the place that corresponds to them in the field of education.

Robinson acknowledges that I tend to make always the same questions: what happens to the educational system and why? How would the education if I could change it? Are there schools? What would have to attend all children? Starting at what age? Would there be exams? “The fundamental question is: what is education?”, summarized in the above-mentioned Schools creative. “The greater part of the developed countries lacked systems of public education for the majority of the population to the mid-NINETEENTH century. These were developed in large part in order to meet the demand for work that brought the Industrial Revolution and were organized according to the principles of serial production […] The problem lies in the fact that, by their nature, these educational systems no longer serve the needs completely different in the TWENTY-first century”.

The youth unemployment rate of Spain (36.3 per cent) is the highest in the EU, after Greece (43.7 per cent). Isn’t it reason enough to rethink what is failed in the education system?Absolutely. In any case, it is an equation complicated. Some social problems are manifested in the school, but do not begin there. We talk about the consumption of drugs -even among very young children – or the harassment through the internet. And then there are other external factors, which have to do with the pattern of the economy and the change in the industrial platforms of production. That said, schools can become part of the problem. Not so much the school understood individually, but the entire educational system. In the wrong way, we have put a great emphasis on access to the university at the expense of other channels. We have wrongly assumed that if the children follow the current pathways of the high school, will be able to find work. The reality is that often they do not succeed, either because they lack training or character that allows them to be more enterprising. That’s why I say that we need different educational approaches. My son is two years old. The one who comes will go to school. What do you advise me? Early education is very, very important. At this age, children need lots of time to play, be physically active and connect with other children. So what is desirable is a school that values this type of things, that structure the game time and give them the opportunity to work with objects, with other children, listening to stories, sing and dance together. Also to start to look at picture books, and things of that sort. At that age you don’t want to seat the children and make them work hard or way too organized. I say this because there is a trend very unfortunate to sit in the three-year-olds to study or learn languages. I think that all of that is very premature.