TSPC a_ted_talk

Top a_ted_talk_11

title	Subtitle data from Ken Robinson at TED2006: Do schools kill creativity?
date	2006/02
source	TED talk subtitles
link	Available from https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.
terms of use	Creative Commons Share-Alike Attribution Non-Commercial License.

1	Good_morning .
2	How are you ?
3	It 's been great , has n't it ?
4	I 've been blown away by the whole thing .
5	In_fact , I 'm leaving .
6	There have been three themes running through the conference which are relevant to what I want to talk about .
7	One is the extraordinary evidence of human creativity in all of the presentations that we 've had and in all of the people here . Just the variety of it and the range of it . The second is that it 's put us in a place where we have no idea what 's going to happen , in_terms_of the future . No idea how this may play out .
8	I have an interest in education .
9	Actually , what I find is everybody has an interest in education .
10	Do n't you ?
11	I find this very interesting .
12	If you 're at a dinner party , and you say you work in education --
13	Actually , you 're not often at dinner parties , frankly .
14	If you work in education , you 're not asked .
15	And you 're never asked back , curiously .
16	That 's strange to me .
17	But if you are , and you say to somebody , you_know , they say , “ What do you do ? ” and you say you work in education , you can see the blood run from their face . They 're like , Oh_my_God , ” you_know , “ Why me ? ” “ My one night out all week . ” But if you ask about their education , they pin you to the wall . Because it 's one of those things that goes deep with people , am I right ?
18	Like religion , and money and other things .
19	So I have a big interest in education , and I think we all do . We have a huge vested interest in it , partly because it 's education that 's meant to take us into this future that we ca n't grasp .
20	If you think of it , children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065 .
21	Nobody has a clue , despite all the expertise that 's been on parade for the past four days , what the world will look like in five years ' time .
22	And yet we 're meant to be educating them for it .
23	So the unpredictability , I think , is extraordinary .
24	And the third part of this is that we 've all agreed , nonetheless , on the really extraordinary capacities that children have -- their capacities for innovation .
25	I_mean , Sirena last night was a marvel , was n't she ? Just seeing what she could do . And she 's exceptional , but I think she 's not , so to speak , exceptional in the whole of childhood .
26	What you have there is a person of extraordinary dedication who found a talent .
27	And my contention is , all kids have tremendous talents . And we squander them , pretty ruthlessly .
28	So I want to talk about education and I want to talk about creativity .
29	My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy , and we should treat it with the same status .
30	Thank_you .
31	That was it , by_the_way .
32	Thank_you very much .
33	So , 15 minutes left .
34	Well , I was born ... no .
35	I heard a great story recently -- I love telling it -- of a little girl who was in a drawing lesson . She was six , and she was at the back , drawing , and the teacher said this girl hardly ever paid attention , and in this drawing lesson , she did .
36	The teacher was fascinated . She went over_to her , and she said , “ What are you drawing ? ” And the girl said , “ I 'm drawing a picture of God . ” And the teacher said , “ But nobody knows what God looks like . ” And the girl said , “ They will , in a minute . ”
37	When my son was four in England -- Actually , he was four everywhere , to be honest . If we 're being strict about it , wherever he went , he was four that year . He was in the Nativity play .
38	Do you remember the story ? No , it was big , it was a big story .
39	Mel Gibson did the sequel , you may have seen it . “ Nativity II . ”
40	But James got the part of Joseph , which we were thrilled about . We considered this to be one of the lead parts .
41	We had the place crammed full of agents in T_-_shirts :
42	“ James Robinson IS Joseph ! ” He did n't have to speak , but you know the bit where the three kings come in ? They come in bearing gifts , gold , frankincense and myrrh .
43	This really happened .
44	We were sitting there and I think they just went out_of sequence , because we talked to the little boy afterward and we said , “ You OK with that ? ” And he said , “ Yeah , why ? Was that wrong ? ”
45	They just switched .
46	The three boys came in , four_-_year_-_olds with tea towels on their heads , and they put these boxes down , and the first boy said , “ I bring you gold . ” And the second boy said , “ I bring you myrrh . ”
47	And the third boy said , “ Frank sent this . ”
48	What these things have in_common is that kids will take a chance . If they do n't know , they 'll have a go .
49	Am I right ?
50	They 're not frightened of being wrong .
51	I do n't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative .
52	What we do know is , if you 're not prepared to be wrong , you 'll never come up with anything original -- if you 're not prepared to be wrong .
53	And by the time they get to be adults , most kids have lost that capacity . They have become frightened of being wrong .
54	And we run our companies like this .
55	We stigmatize mistakes .
56	And we 're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make .
57	And the result is that we are educating people out_of their creative capacities .
58	Picasso once said this , he said that all children are born artists .
59	The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up .
60	I believe this passionately , that we do n't grow into creativity , we grow out_of it .
61	Or rather , we get educated out_of it .
62	So why is this ?
63	I lived in Stratford_-_on_-_Avon until about five years ago .
64	In_fact , we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles . So you can imagine what a seamless transition that was .
65	Actually , we lived in a place called Snitterfield , just outside Stratford , which is where Shakespeare 's father was born .
66	Are you struck by a new thought ?
67	I was .
68	You do n't think of Shakespeare having a father , do you ?
69	Do you ?
70	Because you do n't think of Shakespeare being a child , do you ?
71	Shakespeare being seven ?
72	I never thought of it .
73	I mean , he was seven at some point .
74	He was in somebody 's English class , was n't he ?
75	How annoying would that be ?
76	“ Must try harder . ”
77	Being sent to bed by his dad , you_know , to Shakespeare , “ Go to bed , now !
78	And put the pencil down . ”
79	“ And stop speaking like that . ” “ It 's confusing everybody . ”
80	Anyway , we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles , and I just want to say a word about the transition .
81	My son did n't want to come . I 've got two kids ; he 's 21 now , my daughter 's 16 . He did n't want to come to Los Angeles . He loved it , but he had a girlfriend in England . This was the love of his life , Sarah . He 'd known her for a month .
82	Mind_you , they 'd had their fourth anniversary , because it 's a long time when you 're 16 .
83	He was really upset on the plane , he said , “ I 'll never find another girl like Sarah . ” And we were rather pleased about that , frankly -- Because she was the main reason we were leaving the country .
84	But something strikes you when you move to America and travel around the world :
85	Every education system on Earth has the same hierarchy of subjects .
86	Every one .
87	Does n't matter where you go .
88	You 'd think it would be otherwise , but it is n't .
89	At the top are mathematics and languages , then the humanities , and at the bottom are the arts .
90	Everywhere on Earth .
91	And in pretty much every system too , there 's a hierarchy within the arts .
92	Art and music are normally given a higher status in schools than drama and dance .
93	There is n't an education system on the planet that teaches dance every day to children the way we teach them mathematics .
94	Why ?
95	Why not ?
96	I think this is rather important .
97	I think math is very important , but so is dance .
98	Children dance all the time if they 're allowed to , we all do .
99	We all have bodies , do n't we ?
100	Did I miss a meeting ?
101	Truthfully , what happens is , as children grow up , we start to educate them progressively from the waist up .
102	And then we focus on their heads .
103	And slightly to one side .
104	If you were to visit education , as an alien , and say “ What 's it for , public education ? ”
105	I think you 'd have to conclude , if you look at the output , who really succeeds by this , who does everything that they should , who gets all the brownie points , who are the winners --
106	I think you 'd have to conclude the whole purpose of public education throughout the world is to produce university professors .
107	Is n't it ?
108	They 're the people who come out the top .
109	And I used to be one , so_there .
110	And I like university professors , but you_know , we should n't hold them up as the high_-_water mark of all human achievement . They 're just a form of life , another form of life . But they 're rather curious , and I say this out_of affection for them . There 's something curious about professors in my experience -- not all of them , but typically , they live in their heads . They live up there , and slightly to one side . They 're disembodied , you_know , in a kind of literal way . They look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads . Do n't they ? It 's a way of getting their head to meetings .
111	If you want real evidence of out_-_of_-_body experiences , get yourself along_to a residential conference of senior academics , and pop into the discotheque on the final night .
112	And there , you will see it .
113	Grown men and women writhing uncontrollably , off the beat .
114	Waiting until it ends so they can go home and write a paper about it .
115	Our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability .
116	And there 's a reason .
117	Around the world , there were no public systems of education , really , before the 19th century .
118	They all came into being to meet the needs of industrialism .
119	So the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas .
120	Number one , that the most useful subjects for work are at the top .
121	So you were probably steered benignly away_from things at school when you were a kid , things you liked , on the grounds that you would never get a job doing that .
122	Is that right ?
123	Do n't do music , you 're not going to be a musician ; do n't do art , you wo n't be an artist .
124	Benign advice -- now , profoundly mistaken .
125	The whole world is engulfed in a revolution .
126	And the second is academic ability , which has really come to dominate our view of intelligence , because the universities designed the system in their image .
127	If you think of it , the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance .
128	And the consequence is that many highly - talented , brilliant , creative people think they 're not , because the thing they were good at at school was n't valued , or was actually stigmatized .
129	And I think we ca n't afford to go on that way .
130	In the next 30 years , according_to UNESCO , more people worldwide will be graduating through education than_since the beginning of history .
131	More people , and it 's the combination of all the things we 've talked about -- technology and its transformation effect on work , and demography and the huge explosion in population .
132	Suddenly , degrees are n't worth anything .
133	Is n't that true ?
134	When I was a student , if you had a degree , you had a job .
135	If you did n't have a job , it 's because you did n't want one .
136	And I did n't want one , frankly .
137	But now kids with degrees are often heading home to carry on playing video games , because you need an MA where the previous job required a BA , and now you need a PhD for the other .
138	It 's a process of academic inflation .
139	And it indicates the whole structure of education is shifting beneath our feet .
140	We need to radically rethink our view of intelligence .
141	We know three things about intelligence .
142	One , it 's diverse .
143	We think about the world in all the ways that we experience it .
144	We think visually , we think in sound , we think kinesthetically .
145	We think in abstract terms , we think in movement .
146	Secondly , intelligence is dynamic .
147	If you look at the interactions of a human brain , as we heard yesterday from a number of presentations , intelligence is wonderfully interactive .
148	The brain is n't divided into compartments .
149	In_fact , creativity -- which I define as the process of having original ideas that have value -- more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things .
150	By_the_way , there 's a shaft of nerves that joins the two halves of the brain called the corpus callosum .
151	It 's thicker in women .
152	Following off from Helen yesterday , this is probably why women are better at multi_-_tasking .
153	Because you are , are n't you ?
154	There 's a raft of research , but I know it from my personal life .
155	If my wife is cooking a meal at home -- which is not often , thankfully .
156	No , she 's good at some things , but if she 's cooking , she 's dealing with people on the phone , she 's talking to the kids , she 's painting the ceiling , she 's doing open_-_heart surgery over_here .
157	If I 'm cooking , the door is shut , the kids are out , the phone 's on the hook , if she comes in I get annoyed . I say , “ Terry , please , I 'm trying to fry an egg in here . ”
158	“ Give me a break . ”
159	Actually , do you know that old philosophical thing , if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it , did it happen ?
160	Remember that old chestnut ?
161	I saw a great t_-_shirt recently , which said , “ If a man speaks his mind in a forest , and no woman hears him , is he still wrong ? ”
162	And the third thing about intelligence is , it 's distinct .
163	I 'm doing a new book at the moment called “ Epiphany , ” which is based on a series of interviews with people about how they discovered their talent . I 'm fascinated by how people got to be there . It 's really prompted by a conversation I had with a wonderful woman who maybe most people have never heard of , Gillian Lynne . Have you heard of her ?
164	Some have .
165	She 's a choreographer , and everybody knows her work . She did “ Cats ” and “ Phantom of the Opera . ” She 's wonderful .
166	I used to be on the board of The Royal Ballet , as you can see .
167	Anyway , Gillian and I had lunch one day and I said , “ How did you get to be a dancer ? ”
168	It was interesting .
169	When she was at school , she was really hopeless . And the school , in the '30s , wrote to her parents and said , “ We think Gillian has a learning disorder . ” She could n't concentrate ; she was fidgeting . I think now they 'd say she had ADHD .
170	Would n't you ?
171	But this was the 1930s , and ADHD had n't been invented at this point . It was n't an available condition . People were n't aware they could have that .
172	Anyway , she went to see this specialist . So , this oak_-_paneled room , and she was there with her mother , and she was led and sat on this chair at the end , and she sat on her hands for 20 minutes while this man talked to her mother about the problems Gillian was having at school . Because she was disturbing people ; her homework was always late ; and so_on , little kid of eight . In the end , the doctor went and sat next_to Gillian , and said , “ I 've listened to all these things your mother 's told me , I need to speak to her privately . Wait here . We 'll be back ; we wo n't be very long , ” and they went and left her . But as they went out_of the room , he turned on the radio that was sitting on his desk . And when they got out , he said to her mother , “ Just stand and watch her . ” And the minute they left the room , she was on her feet , moving to the music . And they watched for a_few minutes and he turned to her mother and said , “ Mrs. Lynne , Gillian is n't sick ; she 's a dancer . Take her to a dance school . ”
173	I said , “ What happened ? ”
174	She said , “ She did . I ca n't tell you how wonderful it was . We walked in this room and it was full of people like me .
175	People who could n't sit still .
176	People who had to move to think . ”
177	Who had to move to think .
178	They did ballet , they did tap , jazz ; they did modern ; they did contemporary .
179	She was eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet School ; she became a soloist ; she had a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet . She eventually graduated from the Royal Ballet School , founded the Gillian Lynne Dance Company , met Andrew Lloyd Webber . She 's been responsible for some of the most successful musical theater productions in history , she 's given pleasure to millions , and she 's a multi_-_millionaire . Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down .
180	What I think it comes to is this :
181	Al Gore spoke the other night about ecology and the revolution that was triggered by Rachel Carson .
182	I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology , one in which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity .
183	Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip_-_mine the earth : for a particular commodity .
184	And for the future , it wo n't serve us .
185	We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we 're educating our children .
186	There was a wonderful quote by Jonas Salk , who said , “ If all the insects were to disappear from the Earth , within 50 years all life on Earth would end . If all human beings disappeared from the Earth , within 50 years all forms of life would flourish . ” And he 's right .
187	What TED celebrates is the gift of the human imagination .
188	We have to be careful now that we use this gift wisely and that we avert 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 this future . By_the_way -- we may not see this future , but they will . And our job is to help them make something of it .
189	Thank_you very much .