This TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson was entertaining whilst being informative — the best recipe for a great “talk”. However seemingly prudent the speaker might appear to be, I think the contents of his talk don’t reflect his perceived image. As every student necessitates unique learning tools and environment; every country warrants a novel approach to their problems (including education). Denigrating a country’s educational system on the premise of a different country’s educational system, without any regard for the differences, is facetious at best. There are sundry reasons why students drop out of high school, including personal and institutional. Shifting the entire burden of drop out rate on institutional flaws isn’t reasonable. Personalizing school for every individual will set expectations with these students that everything will be “fun”, “interesting”, and individualized for them throughout their life — a pernicious and spurious expectation which in reality is only setting up these individuals for failure either in their job or in college. Jobs aren’t always “personalized” to your interests, they are personalized to the company’s interest. A typical job has different facets to it — interesting, and mundane. Students, from an early age, need to be taught how the real world works in order to prepare them for it. I would even argue that creating superficial environments antithetical to the real world will lead to a different institutional failure down the road, which will have more significant repercussions.
vibhavnanda 
Hi Vibhav,
I see your point and I agree that there are certain (harsher) aspects of life that all people learn as they age and gain experience; but I would argue that the point of an education is to help an individual reach their potential, and a positively proven method for this to happen is for students to be engaged on an individual basis where they have room to exercise both creativity and empathy with others.
You’re right, jobs are not typically personalized for an individual (sometimes they are)–but I think real point Sir Ken and the message we were trying to send home by sharing his talk is that when we are learning in our formative years this is time where students should be dreaming big, fearless to explore, discover and learn what it means to find joy in their life, in their chosen discipline, in their work and in their lives outside of work.
I strongly believe that there is plenty of room to let learners be so that we all can benefit from the new ideas and innovation wrought by a fresh set of eyes and a heart full of aspirations (because I’ve witnessed it). Life has its way of driving home the more serious points of your argument, does that mean that school has to be as sobering as “real life” instead of a reprieve from it and an opportunity to dream? I hope you would consider the thought that there is space in the equation for new approaches in education and seeing students in an individual way.
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Hi Sara,
Your response was definitely an eye-opener. It has motivated me to contemplate anent innocence, respite from “real life”, and scope for imagination. I will get back to you once I gain some clarity and come up with a refined stance on individualization.
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Your post is very pragmatic, which is sometimes lost in this particular discussion. If we look at the issue as a spectrum I think 99% of people would agree the answer is somewhere in the middle, but what is the right balance of compliance and creativity (I hope it’s okay if I distill these ideas down to those words)? I think right now the scale is tipped too far to the side of compliance, which is why there is so much push towards creativity. If we were to go too far to that side we’d have an issue of too few people with the skills needed for industry to function (which is something we are actually already seeing in the STEM field). There again we get into this issue of industry need against individual wants. I suppose the answer is…there is no easy answer.
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Gary, I totally agree with you. Additionally, I think that the answer should be fluid in nature — changing with time and “future” industry demands.
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You make some very good points I hadn’t thought of after watching the TED talk. Thanks for your thought provoking perspective!
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Hi Vibhav,
Thanks for the blog. I found your argument interesting related to how personalized learning might raise the expectation of students to think everything would fund and customized to their interest while in real life and work environment it is usually the opposite we are pushed to adapt with preexisting requirements. I think good personalized learning should encourage the students to adapt to a new environment and learn how to acquire new skills not just prepare them on one personalized syle
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Agreed. But I am still thinking about what Sara said — I might have to agree with her to an extent.
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I agree that comparing the two different educational systems among the two very different countries might not be realistic. However, at some point, the lecturer brings this point up and argues what if we compare Finland and just one state in the US? In this case, at least the populations and land areas would be on the same footing.
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That is also not plausible since each state is affected by the federal system. Additionally, any state, with similar population homogeneity as Finland, wouldn’t have nearly as much resources as Finland does.
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What Sara said! Also, I for one will never see education and job training as synonyms. For one thing, most of the “jobs” people graduating today will spend significant time in haven’t even been invented yet. But more importantly, I think we give up too much in terms of what makes us human and why life is meaningful when we reduce learning about the human experience — how we make our way in the world and construct meaning from it, how we’re going to fix it — to supply side job preparation.
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Hello Dr. Nelson,
Thank you for your comment.
I am still ruminating about what Sara said, but I am inclining towards agreeing with her (to some extent).
My responses, to the various facets of your comment, are as follows:
1. I don’t see education and job training as synonyms either. For me, education is the process of gaining “minimum” skill sets required to be qualified for “any” job in the industry. Job training is acquiring skill sets geared towards the specific job that an employee is either currently in or is going to start shortly.
2. All jobs have been invented and a colossal amount of these jobs are going unfilled (https://www.wsj.com/articles/jobs-go-unfilled-as-the-economy-expands-1533677955). The big reason they are unfilled is because there aren’t sufficient number of qualified workers. I am not cognizant of a job, students might be currently studying for, that hasn’t been invented yet. (There might be some, I am saying I don’t know any)
3. I am not certain I construe the last part of your comment — I will discuss more about it with you after/before class.
Additionally, the meaning, of “learning”, “teaching”, and “education”, depends on individual field of study — an aspect that hasn’t been given much prominence in all of the discussions.
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