Camila Barrera

Writing and Rhetoric

Rhetorical Analysis
“Do Schools Kill Creativity?”

“If you’re not ready to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original”
(Robinson, 2006). As kids we show ourselves with no filters, letting our creativity flourish
leading to amazing things, original ones. But as we grow older, we become aware of the type of
society that surrounds us and the parameters of what is right and what is wrong. In 2006, Sir
Ken Robinson delighted us with a wonderful presentation in Ted Talk named “Do schools kill
creativity?” Throughout his talk he persuades his audience to put attention on a topic that has
not been yet talked about seriously. He wants to highlight the fact that schools are making kids
grow out of their creativity because of the different parameters that they set. Through the use
of pathos and ethos, Sir Ken Robinson makes his audience aware of this situation and he
proposes a new education system in which kids can explore their creativity.
Sir Ken Robinson uses pathos as his main tool to persuade the audience to believe that
what he is saying about schools killing creativity is true. Throughout the entire Ted Talk he uses
the combination of humor and pathos so that the audience in a certain way feels pity or relates
to the true-life stories he is telling to support his argument. One of the many stories he tells in
his talk is about a women named Gillian Lynne. When she was in school, she had a hard time
concentrating, Gillian’s teachers talked to her parents and recommended for them to take
Gillian to a specialist. When seeing the specialist, the specialist observed Gillian’s behavior and
he said, “Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn’t sick; she’s a dancer. Take her to a dance school” (Robinson,
2006). Sir Ken continues to talk about how successful Gillian was in the dancing industry and
how Gillian’s story was a clear example of what the education system does with the students’
creativity. By telling this story Sir Ken appeals to the audiences’ emotion as they realize how
“ignorant” schools could be of a students’ talents, so “ignorant” that they sent her to check a
specialist. Nowadays, for not being able to concentrate in a classroom they will probably tell
you that it might be ADHD and that you need to take medication. As Gillian’s case there are
millions of stories where medication is not the solution. It is just a thing of letting the kids
explore their creative side and letting them flourish on that, without neglecting their talents.
Telling personal stories is another way Sir Ken Robinson appeals to the audiences’
emotions. Robinson gives another example of how schools kill the students’ creativity, and this
is something that many can relate to. Many times, certain teachers ask for an exercise to be
done and you must do it the way the teacher teaches it to you or otherwise it is not valid. Why?
Why are professors limiting the way a student can learn by forcing them to use a specific
technique? Why, if there are so many ways of getting to the same result? Sir Ken Robinson talks
about his experience as a professor in university. He says that “there’s something curious about
them [professors], not all of them but typically, they live in their heads, they live up there, and
slightly to one side” (2006). To break down this quote, when saying that “they live in their
head”, he refers to how he used to see professors being afraid to do something different to
what is said in the curriculum. The fear of going out of the parameters of a curriculum forced
professors to limit the student’s creative side. So, when doing things differently, teachers
instead of incentivizing their students for being original, they punished them for not doing it the
way the system asks them to. Robinson in his talk, mentions how nowadays we live in a world
were having a university degree is not sufficient for a having a job. The industry is constantly
changing and the education system that there is in schools is something that worked many
years ago, but things are different now. Being able to enforce our creative side is something
that will make everyone be original and successful in their futures, mainly because everyone
will be happy with what they are doing.
Throughout the speech of Sir Ken Robinson, every member of the audience is laughing
and carefully listening to what he is saying, but not only because of how he appeals to their
emotions, but also because he uses ethos to show credibility on what he is saying. It is easy to
know when someone does not know much about the subjects there speaking about and so you
stop listening. But, during Robinson’s speech the engagement of the audience was always
noticeable, and this is because they knew that Sir Ken Robinson did know what he was talking
about. Ethos is all about persuading the audience to think that what is being said by the author
or speaker is true. During his talk, he mentions certain things that are basic topics that everyone
knows about, and this helps him be credible to the audience. For example, he speaks about
how the education system needs to change the hierarchy that there is on the courses. Sir Ken
Robinson talks about this hierarchy and states how it is usually Math and Literature at the peak
of the hierarchy, meaning that those are the most important subjects. On the other hand, it is
arts that is always on the bottom of that hierarchy. This is obviously true, most of the people
could agree to the fact that the arts department was the least important one. Robinson
proposes a change in this type of education systems he says that “Creativity now is as
important in education as literacy” (Robinson, 2006). Another topic he talks about which is
something that most of us could relate to and therefore agree and believe what he is saying is
how certain courses are less important because they will not lead to a bright future. Schools put
certain subjects like music, dance, theatre, etc., as less important because it is typical to think
that those subjects will not serve for realistic careers. Nowadays it is less common, but there
are still cases where, for example, someone wants to be a photographer and people
surrounding us, society in general, leads us to believe that it is a job that will not bring “food to
the table.” It is simple topics like these ones that Robinson touches in his speech, which is
something that makes him credible to the audience because he gives real life examples that
many of us could have lived in a point of our lives.
 So, “Do schools kill creativity?” according to what has been said by Sir Ken Robinson,
yes, they do. The argument of Robinson is totally valid and supported by the different real-life
stories that he has told throughout his speech. Using pathos and ethos, he makes an excellent
job of persuading his audience that this topic is important, and that action should be taken. He
approached his audience by entertaining them, making them laugh, making them relate to
certain stories, and at the same time making them listen to a serious topic. He achieves his goal
of making the audience aware that creativity is key to the future and success of the next
generations.

References

Robinson, K. (2006, June 27). Do schools kill creativity? [Video]. TED Talks.
https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity/transcript?
language=en