I have just discovered that Sir Ken Robinson died on Aug. 21. What an amazing man, passionate about education and change. A wonderful story teller, speaker, and advocate for children and young people in schools.
So I thought I'd put a reminder here for us to contemplate his message in this time of incredible disruption and change. Apparently his 2006 TED Talk is the most viewed TED Talk of all time and has been downloaded 67 million times. Not surprising..its wonderful. Its clever, funny, relatable, inspiring and his message is critical. Sir Ken says "..children have extraordinary capacities. ..Capacities for innovation." He reminds us that ..."creativity is just as important as literacy and should be treated with the same status." "Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects...at the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities and at the bottom are the arts." "Maths is very important but so is Dance He says, "If you're not prepared to be wrong you'll never come up with something original." "We are educating people out of their creative capacities." "Our education system was predicated on academic ability, and theres a reason. The whole system was invented..to meet the needs of industrialism." This talk is more pertinent now than ever. It is now 16 years old and still so many parts of our education system are outdated, irrelevant, content heavy and not suited to the needs of our children and young people in the modern day. (Arguably even more so.) I must add that I am referring to the system itself and not to the incredible teachers who dedicate their lives to trying to work within this ancient, broken system. For so many of them the stresses come from systematic problems and the meaningless demands on them. So if you've never listened/watched this famous talk I highly recommend you do so. And if, like me, you haven't heard it for awhile I'd recommend you listen again. And if you are not particularly interested in his message I'd still say watch/listen ....because it's HILARIOUS. As parents, teachers, therapists, employers, grandparents...we must continue the work of Sir Ken Robinson. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/world/europe/ken-robinson-who-preached-creativity-in-teaching-dies-at-70.html?fbclid=IwAR2aIADcqvfz92fZI_iZi79Q7FMUIYFC172Id1rdtexuJvJ9TGQGSsWizow https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity?language=en&fbclid=IwAR37_CfbdJfSny4lrpvpTh-3o6FIpQVW5QDraTksPNinWFgrx_PhEDJvrwg
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