For The Sake Of Beauty [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on October 1, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

“It is quite probable that the most original problem solving activity students engage in school is related to the invention of systems for beating the system.”~ Neil Postman, Teaching as a Subversive Activity

This just crossed my screen: rebellion is when you turn off the television and start thinking for yourself.

I was on a text thread with two friends, both life-long educators in the public schools. Both are brilliant teachers. One is retired. The other is nearing retirement and currently teaching math at an elementary school. He is struggling because, after a lifetime in the classroom, he’s not allowed to teach. His classroom “coach” demands that he be more concise, more regimented, that he transition on time…

It’s possible to turn off the television and not be allowed to think for yourself.

When I was a consultant my number one hidden agenda was to surface hidden agendas. How’s that for confessing hypocrisy! My favorite hidden-agenda-to-surface was a teacher’s: in contemporary education, control is much higher in import than learning. Don’t get me wrong, the teachers were always shocked-into-silence when their agenda was surfaced. They didn’t know. Their rebellion began the day they realized that they’d been duped into believing education was akin to force-feeding, that their job was to stuff context-free-answers into young minds according to a rigid schedule. To control. Note: the living, breathing, curious being, sometimes known as “the student” is nowhere in the equation. The living, breathing, caring, curious being, sometimes known as “the teacher” is also nowhere in the equation.

It’s possible to turn off the television and be afraid to think for yourself. In our current paradigm students and teachers face the same obstacle.

This brilliant Canna Lily brings David Hockney to mind. It’s a color found in many of his paintings. He was not afraid of color. He was a brilliant artist, an explorer. He once said, “The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you’re an artist.”

I believe that all kids are artists until the day that they are strapped into a desk and made to learn that control is more important that questioning and exploring and experiencing and expressing. The lucky ones keep the pilot light burning through the force-feeding until one day, they create beauty and it feels like cheating. And they know they will do it again and again and again. It’s a moment of rebellion, the moment when they unstrap themselves from the desk and the answers, turn off the television, and question…and wonder…and listen…and reach…and challenge…and discard…and willingly step into unknown territory. They begin learning.

“There is no learning if thought originates from conclusions.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

“One way of looking at the history of the human group is that it has been a continuing struggle against the veneration of “crap.” ~ Neil Postman, Teaching as a Subversive Activity