Creatively Killing Creativity

For this blog post we were asked to discuss a ted talk we were interested in. I typed in “popular ted talk’s” and I found “Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?” to have the most views and decided it must be important.
Take a look and see how interesting it really is…

In this video he passionately talks about how the public education system does not value creativity as it does other subjects such as language and math. In his speech he goes on to discuss how we are born with creativity but as we mature we “grow out of it.”
Robinson defines creativity as ideas with value and importance. He says the body has been completely disregarded and the education system now only focuses on one region of our brains. I found it interesting when he said that creativity is now just as important as literacy. While I do think creativity is important, I cannot bring myself to agree with him. I feel that today’s standards require much more of a person that it did just a few years ago, from getting into a decent collage to getting a job, everything is changing. He even says how we students are told not to think about becoming an artist or musician because “there is no job in that” and there really are not many.  Because of this fact I find that the stress on subjects such as mathematics and English to be necessary.
I do think that arts such as dance and theater are important and if someone is truly passionate about it, I believe they should go after their dream, but I, personally am not interested in such arts. My high school does a great job of providing me with the opportunity to find my passion and actually embrace creativity. My school has certainly not killed my creativity but rather, inspired me to be more creative. Therefore, while Robison did bring up some fascinating facts and thoughts I must disagree with him when it comes to schools destroying our creativity.
While looking around I found this portion of a ted talk and I thought it was really interesting. It is about a way to communicate to all audiences all across the world. Check it out it.

To be the best soliloquy or not to be

For this post I had to find two videos showing different portrayals of Hamlet in his famous “To be or not to be…” (3.1.64-99) speech.
The first video I chose was...

And the second was….

Please watch them both. They are really interesting.

One similarity I noticed was that in both of these videos the actors speak in a soft quite voice making for a scary and eerie scene. I thought both actors did a great job showing Hamlet as a man lost and confused, struggling with the decision to commit suicide or not. I also found that both actors made it seem as if Hamlet was just thinking out loud rather than talking to himself. Both actors did a great job portraying Hamlet as the confused man he is.
While in both of the clips Hamlet seems disheveled, I felt that in the first video Hamlet was shown more accurately with his scruffy beard and ragged dark clothing. I felt that in the second video Hamlet seemed to poised to be having suicidal thoughts. I also thought that in the clip featuring Mel Gibson the setting was quite different. Although Hamlet is supposed to coincidentally run into Ophelia moments later, I think that Hamlet would not speak of such controversial things in public where other like Claudius and Polonius can watch and hear him, making the first clip better.
Although I feel the first video was set in a better place, I thought that the use of props such as the dagger made the scene much more dramatic in the second clip. I also felt that by using the mirror it made the scene much more personal, almost as if Hamlet is judging himself and taking a closer look on his life and what he has to live for in the mirror. I really enjoyed how different and unique this scene was from all the others.
Overall, I think that the best clip would be the first clip with Mel Gibson. While the second clip had a unique and different approach to the scene, by using the mirror and other props, I still feel that the first clip portrayed Hamlet more accurately. The first clip is more of what I envisioned this scene to be, Hamlet alone, thinking amongst the dead. I think that this scene with Mel Gibson is more of an accurate and true to how Hamlet is portrayed in the book.