Ken Robinson – Keynote at PETE&C

(these are stream-of-consciousness notes … what doesn’t come across is how charming and engaging he is)

everything we attribute to human culture, human nature … capacity to step outside oneself and use imagination – visit a range of possible futures

power of imagination will take us into the future … but:
a) we take it for granted
b) we suppress it – especially in our children, especially through education

most adults have no sense of their capabilities, what their talents are … don’t enjoy what they do

people whose lives are fulfilled, love what they do – they are in their element; they are relaxed and being themselves

most school systems divert people from their natural interests & abilities … and related to that – we have a real crisis of human resources; people are dislocated from their sense of purpose

example: US average of 30% drop-out rate from high school

the system is out of alignment with how kids work, think

the system isn’t all bad, but it could be 1000x better … and it wouldn’t take much to change it

narrowing of curriculum & use of high-stakes testing … driven by a need to support the economy; however, business will tell you that students don’t arrive in the work world knowing what they need to know = great disconnect

if you work with kids, you know what makes them energized

they system of education has become overworked with other people’s agendas

Peter Brook, The Empty Space
-a lot of theater isn’t worth watching … but it’s one of the most powerful forms of human communication
-if you’re interested in making theater as powerful as it can be, must be clear on what you want it to be
-in a typical performance, what can you subtract and still have “it” … ? curtains, lighting, costumes, script, director, stage, building … the essential thing is the actor in a space and somebody watching – relationship between actor and audience
-we should work to improve that relationship and not let anything get in the way

analogy … education has become encrusted with every kind of distraction: politics, building codes, union bargaining, publishing industry, testing industry …

in the middle are the kids – if you threw it all away … the one thing remaining: kids trying to learn and teachers trying to help them – and we shouldn’t put anything in that distracts

kids are actually forgotten in the middle – forgotten by the system

most attempts to reform confuse human beings with manufacturing products

the educational system was designed in the 19th century to meet the needs of a manufacturing economy … if we designed a system to meet needs today, we wouldn’t create what we have

so what’s this other place we could start from?

to reform, it’s difficult because we have to question the things we find obvious …

we assume there are things we can’t change – but we live in a time where change is happening constantly … a time of revolution

human life has never been simply and straightforward – all times of tumult

to meet challenges – we have to think differently about ourselves, we have to think differently about talent – and we have to think differently about education … we have to change our minds

Abraham Lincoln – 2nd annual address to congress – “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise high with the occasion. As our case is new, we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and we will save our country.”

We have to disenthrall ourselves, but it’s easier said than done – it’s hard to realize what we take for granted (example: people over 25 wear watches, those under 25 tend not to … for them, the time is everywhere)

digital natives … digital immigrants

… mimeograph machines …

the transformation since then is hard to convey … kids just take it for granted

“technology is not technology if it happened before you were born”

soon computers will be able to learn, i.e. able to rewrite their own operating programs … by 2020, you’ll be able to have a computer with the processing power of an adult, for $1000; this combined with population growth (from 1970 to 2000, world population doubled) …

strain on earth’s natural resources is completely unprecedented … therefore we cannot predict what the world will be like:
-new economies emerging
-US place in world being challenged

stakes couldn’t be higher … and the generation coming up in school is disingaged

HUMAN ABILITY

example: photograph of tiger in jungle
-western cultures say, “it’s a tiger”
-eastern cultures say, “it’s a tiger in a jungle”
western cultures are focused on individuals; eastern cultures are focused on the group

these habits of mind pre-date consciousness … what we take for granted gets right in our brain and we don’t know it’s there

policy makers take for granted: going to school is all about going to college; if you don’t go to college, your life is over – we need to stop this notion: those that want to go to college should go, but those who would like to do something different, should not feel pressure to get there

we need a diverse perception of college and the routes available

too many students go to college unprepared, or graduate from college not knowing what they want to do

our community depends upon a diversity of interests and talents – but we have developed a system of education where we are preoccupied by a certain career route

as part of education reform, we need to celebrate diversity

college doesn’t “begin in kindergarten” … kindergarten begins in kindergarten

a 3-year old is not half a 6-year old … a 6-year old are not half a 12-year old – they are who they are; children are being interviewed at the age of 3 for entry into kindergarten

the system is increasingly about standardizing … that is being confused with “raising standards”

education is being standardized:
-by assessment industry
-by textbook industry
-by political efforts
etc.

contrast with raising standards for food industry (like michelin guide) … high level criteria that can be met in any way they like (unlike “fast food” which is standardized by being the same) – result is high quality and diversity of restaurants

education is following fast food model, but needs to follow the michelin model

kids are different … the reason so many drop out is because they’re all being treated the same

we can’t improve education without improving the experience of every child in the system; it must be personalized

THE ELEMENT

if you’re in the element
1) you’re doing something for which you have a natural capacity
2) you have to love it (people are good at things that they don’t necessarily like)

kids in schools “get” all sorts of things that they’re not allowed to engage with in school … and being good at something isn’t a reason to do it

the element is about finding your own criteria for what makes life worth living … don’t be dazzled by other people’s criteria for success

human talent is not always obvious – it might be buried and you have to go looking for it

education’s job: create the conditions for growth – and to do this, we have to change our minds about how to do it

we cannot make a plant grow – they grow themselves … but gardeners create the right conditions for plants to grow

education is more like agriculture than industry … a healthy organism is healthy everywhere and it also nourishes the environment it depends on

we must customize schools to local circumstances by …
1) reinstate and reinvigorate a broader curriculum (don’t cut the arts)
2) assessment is important BUT standardized tests must have a role, not be the foundation of the culture (tests are helpful diagnostically, they are not helpful when they become the focus of the exercise)
3) at the heart is teaching – there is not school that is better than its teachers; professional development of teachers must empower them to be creative about themselves and their students

life is not linear … it’s organic – what we become depends on how we invest in our own talent; great parents, great teachers look into a child’s eyes and agree to invest in their talent, even though they don’t know where it’s going to take them

we don’t know the journey we’ll be on – we can only set our compass to true north and be on our way

video about The Blue School in NY: http://www.theblueschool.org/

winter of 2004 – it rained in Death Valley and the whole floor was carpeted with flowers; therefore it shows that Death Valley isn’t dead, it’s dormant; below the surface are seeds of possibility – just waiting for the conditions to be right

we can’t improve the system by pushing harder at the manufacturing model – we need to shift the metaphor

Anais Nin: “There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

For education, the time has come to blossom …

Recently found … 02/22/2010

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.