Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion First Day TED talk

DS10 watched this today in fifth grade. Interesting pick for beginning of school year:

https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms/discussion

I wonder what you do with that information in the fifth grade?

Original full lecture: https://www.thersa.org/discover/videos/event-videos/2008/06/changing-paradigms

I think it's a mistake to tell children in school that schools are totally messed up. They have no power to make things better, and they are required by law to be there. The one saving grace is that most of them don't realize that there is another way.

DS10’s take away was that it was probably a bad idea to show it because kids could see the criticisms of school as justification for not taking it seriously.

He did say the discussion was more around how being “smart” or “capable” and doing well in school are not always the same. It is a top 3% gifted class with several 2e students. He said his teacher seemed to just want them to know that he understood the “system” isn’t perfect for everyone but that it was the system they were all in so he’d try to make the best of it.

This is interesting because somehow my fourth grade son saw this too. I guess it was trending for the elementary school set. Luckily he thinks his small private school is much better than what was described in the talk.