Talk

How the education system is crushing creativity: Michael Rosen

Festival of Ideas

Sunday 5 May 2019 12.30 - 1.30pm

The Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts

£15, £9

Booking for Friends of the RA opens at 10am on Tuesday 26 February 2019. Booking opens to the public at 10am on Friday 1 March 2019.

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Author, poet and broadcaster Michael Rosen examines how the education system is strangling the arts.

In this provocative lecture, best-selling author and broadcaster, Michael Rosen, argues that the school curriculum has become obsessed with results, data collection and league tables. Literature, which was once a pathway to empathy, interpretation and wisdom, has to now conform to a restrictive ‘tick box’ examination process. Rosen looks at the dangers of stifling creativity in children and the ways we can overcome this.

Michael Rosen is one of Britain’s best loved children’s authors. He was the children’s laureate from 2007 – 2009 and is best known for We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. A poet and the author of 200 books, he has recently published his memoir So They Call You Pisher!.

He is currently Professor of Children’s Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London where he co-devised and teaches an MA in Children’s Literature. Michael is also a popular broadcaster and has presented BBC Radio 4’s acclaimed programme about language, Word of Mouth. Michael’s YouTube channel – Kids’ Poems and Stories with Michael Rosen – has been viewed over 54 million times around the world.

The lecture will be followed by an interview with writer and broadcaster Sarah Crompton and an audience Q&A.

Michael Rosen will be signing books in the Burlington Gardens entrance hall, outside Pace Gallery, after the event.

This event will be accompanied by British Sign Language and Stagetext interpretation.

£15, £9

Booking for Friends of the RA opens at 10am on Tuesday 26 February 2019. Booking opens to the public at 10am on Friday 1 March 2019.

Media Partner