“We’re Anesthetizing Our Children”
Friday, November 19, 2010 at 09:21AM
Figaro

Here’s a brilliant lecture, brilliantly animated, on “divergent thinking.” Sir Ken Robinson speaks directly to Figaro’s current dilemma. He (that is, Jay) is writing a book on using figures to make your words memorable. The dilemma: do we open readers up to the richness of possibility—the idea that any one sentence can be written a thousand equally valid ways—or we set hard and fast rules?

On one side, we have the great enlightenment philosopher Desiderius Erasmus. He argued for copia, a celebration of God’s riches through our language. Shakespeare copiously followed this generous philosophy. On the opposite side, we have Strunk & White and education systems.  (In his lecture, Sir Ken Robinson even manages to link the ADHD “epidemic” to standardized testing!)

Watch the video, then please advise in the comments.

 

Article originally appeared on Figures of Speech (http://inpraiseofargument.com/).
See website for complete article licensing information.