Creativity and Education
Posted on September 13, 2008, by Conor O'Neill, under Family.
What started off as a throwaway comment on Twitter today led me to one of the most inspirational talks I have seen since Hans Rosling at Le Web.
Sir Ken Robinson talks at TED about how the current education system kills creativity and continues to take the 19th Century approach of generating people trained for industry.
It’s 20 minutes long and I encourage you to watch every minute. It isn’t just thought provoking, it is also hilarious.
Thanks to Des Traynor for making my week.
6 Replies to "Creativity and Education"
Conor O'Neill on September 14, 2008
I think TED is about getting ideas out there and seeing what takes hold. But I agree that some concrete suggestions would have been good.
I realised whilst watching it that the local Naíonra in Bandon does a brilliant job of educating the whole person in what is supposed to be “only” a playschool. All credit to Máirín for that. I wonder how many primary schools do Yoga!
Frank on September 23, 2008
I saw him give this talk in the UK that year. One of the best speakers I’ve ever seen. He has written a book “Out of Our Minds” if you’re after more information.
It links in with a lot of positive psycology thinking around focusing on your strengths not your weaknesses. Education (and many company performance management systems) encourage you to try to do better in areas that you are weak. You will achieve far more by working on areas where you are already strong.
Conor O'Neill on September 23, 2008
Ye lucky sod to see him live. Really interesting approach about working on areas where you are strong.
In my case that would involve talking cobblers 24×7 
Gonna try and find more vids of him now on YouTube.
JD on September 24, 2008
Was at a breakfast meeting of the Irish Sales Institute (plug!) in Cork city yesterday morning to hear a speaker from an online marketing company (part of the Publicis company). Usually I turn up at these things as a matter of courtesy and get very little from them but I have to say yesterday’s speaker was fantastic. Straight to the point on most items discussed (and he was preaching to mostly non-techies). He was a breath of fresh air when explaining the basis and need of and for websites and he didn’t drone on. His style was like that of Ken Robinson’s . . .inclusive lecture and not patronising.
What can I say. I am a sales technique-geek
Conor O'Neill on September 25, 2008
Unfortunately the whole area of online marketing is full of chancers and cowboys who have no idea what they are talking about. It’s great to hear about pros who actually know their stuff.
Brendan Lawlor on September 14, 2008
Somebody was having a very good day. What would you give to have insights like those, and the confidence to deliver it with such humour?
I know it was just 20 minutes, but it would have been nice to hear his opinions on the first steps required to reshape 2 centuries worth of educational practise.
I think we s/w folks tend to live mostly in our heads too. Programming teaches you to model reality with abstraction. Fix the problem in your head and you’ve fixed it in reality. But have you?