Tuesday's TED Talk: Schools Kill Creativity

If you're at all familiar with TED Talks, you've probably already seen this one. Sorry. But I think you should watch it again. It's been viewed nearly 13 million times, and I'm personally responsible for at least six of those views. (You're welcome, Ken. :)

Sir Ken Robinson speaks simply and directly. No visual aids, charts, graphs, bells, or whistles. Just a man on stage, sharing his ideas and insights.

My Takeaways

• At the current rate of change and innovation, we have absolutely no idea what the world will look like 10 years from now, let alone 60. And we're meant to be educating and preparing our children for that world.

• "All kids have tremendous talents. And we squander them, pretty ruthlessly."

• Every child is born an artist. The point is to remain an artist as you grow up.

• We run an education system and our corporations such that the worst thing you can do is make a mistake.

• Creativity means being willing to make mistakes. If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. (!!!)

• In our future world, creativity will be as important as literacy.

• If you look at who really succeeds in public education, you'd have to conclude that its purpose is to produce university professors. And university professors are just another form of life.

• A quote that makes me giggle every time I think about it, "Terry, please. I'm trying to fry an egg in here!"

I loved the story of Gillian Lynne, the choreographer of Cats and Phantom of the Opera, who was suspected of having a learning disability because she couldn't sit still and listen in class. Her mother took her to a specialist who wisely concluded, "Gillian isn't sick. She's a dancer; take her to dance school." And that one declaration opened up a new future for a little girl who "has to move in order to think."

I'll close with this quote:
"[We must start] seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are and our children for the hope they are."