At Risk: Stories of Hope

I saw Sir Ken Robinson’s video on how American education kills creativity, and I happen to agree even though it hurts to think we use education to produce worker bees rather than creative thinkers which evolve into engineers, designers, and inventors.

Michigan is a perfect state to view when we look for a symbol of American creative thinking.  I lived a few blocks away from Bagley St.  58 Bagley St. is where Henry Ford built his first car.  He must have gotten tired of riding in a horse and buggy, so his creative imagination led him to see a new America. The late great Henry Ford thought creatively.  He envisioned affordable vehicles that the average person could afford, so he invented the auto assembly line.  They moved the house to Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village where the world can see the actual house.  Another creative thinker visited his friend, Henry, and went on to make an entire magical world after his visit.  Maybe you have been to Disneyland or Disneyworld.  Who in the world doesn’t know that artist’s creation, Mickey Mouse?

We created generations of worker bees, but the Japanese learned our culture and studied some fine art along the way because even we bought a Honda.  They capitalized on aesthetic styling and craftsmanship to topple the big three in Detroit.  Many of my friends and relatives no longer are employed by the auto industry.

There will always be some humans that diminish the importance of the arts.  I am reading Irving Stone’s, The Agony and the Ecstasy, a novel about a great Renaissance artist.   Just think how world history and culture would have taken a turn if Michelangelo’s father had been the secretary of education in Italy.  His own father didn’t want Michelangelo to pursue a career as a stone sculptor since they were a family of bankers.  No David, no Sistine Chapel, no Pieta.

Let’s take Sir Ken’s advice and pump creative blood into the American educational system, as it needs a serious transfusion.  Let us envision a nation that thinks more creatively so that we can develop new ideas about what education can be that will manifest a new generation of Henry Fords and Walt Disneys.