Essential TED Talks – Sir Ken Robinson – Do schools kill creativity?

As I explained in my “setting the scene” post, this is the very first TED Talk that I saw back in November 2006 (although it was filmed in February 2006).  Titled “Do schools kill creativity?”, it has become the most most viewed TED Talk of all time – 35 million views and counting!  Sir Ken Robinson has been an advisor to the UK government on educational matters, and is a thought leader on creativity and innovation in both education and business. This talk covers ground that you will find in his book Out Of Our Minds, and I would also recommend his more recent book The Element which presents the case for finding what you really enjoy doing, and then turning that activity in to your job. This talk, delivered without PowerPoint slides, visual aids or props, demonstrates what a great speaker and story teller Ken is, as well as showing he has the timing of a stand-up comedian.

Ken talks about our education system and the future.  Nobody can predict what is going to happen in 5 years, yet we need to be educating our children for way beyond that horizon.  All kids start with tremendous talent and we squander it.  In our schools creativity should be as important as literacy – it should be treated with the same status, but today it isn’t.  Through as series of great personal stories and anecdotes Ken highlights how children will take a chance because they’re not frightened of being wrong – if you aren’t prepared to be wrong how can you come up with something original?  But actually in our schools, and then in the companies that we go on to work at, we have systems and processes in place that stigmatise mistakes.  He goes on to explain how the education system in the UK and most other countries around the world were designed in the 19th century for an industrial age with a specific set of priorities, a hierarchy that put mathematics and languages at the top, then the humanities, with the arts at the bottom.  Even within the arts music has higher status than dance.  Maths is important, but so is dance.  He asks what is education for, and worries that the whole set up is designed to produce university professors – is that right?

One of the best stories explains how Gillian Lynne, at school in the 1930s, was believed to have a learning disorder because she couldn’t concentrate and was always fidgeting.  Her mother took her to a specialist who recognised immediately what she was, and sent her in a completely different direction.  Watch the talk and you’ll find that you know of her work.

Ken’s talk is a plea to change the way we educate our children in the 21st century and reprioritise our thinking so that ideas, innovation and creativity are brought to the fore.  I’ll use Ken’s own words of conclusion:

“What TED celebrates is the gift of human imagination. We have to be careful now that we use this gift wisely and that we alert some of the scenarios that we’ve talked about. And the only way we’ll do it is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are and seeing our children for the hope that they are. And our task is to educate their whole being, so they can face the future.”

If you want to understand more of our Agile Elpehant thinking, check the rest of our blog material and take a look at the Enterprise Digital Summit London in October. We’d love to hear your comments or suggestions or to see you in London next month.