Peters video

I just watched a video entitled "Educating for Creativity"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_w4AfflmeM, which is simply a recording of Tom Peters ranting about the failing education system. While he makes some excellent points and his philosophical outlook is well thought - out, his obnoxious nature makes his message difficult to digest.

He describes our collective history in four tidy stages: the age of agriculture, the age of industrialization, the age of information intensification (present), and, finally, the age of creation intensification. His rant against the machine is buttressed by such evidence as "I want a 2.0, because you are either lazy or stupid or both" when referring to why he doesn't recommend hiring those with a GPA of 4.0. Profound.

I understand what he is trying to say, I just think he needs to work on his skills as a presenter, and perhaps reinvent his personality. Our education system does insist on conformity and resists, at all turns, student attempts at creativity. This is partially because of teachers' collective need to control, and partially because of the mandated curricula teachers are made to teach. In many courses, there is not sufficient time for investigation and what Peters might term 'creativity'.