This is me

Sir Ken Robinson delivers a thought provoking and powerful follow up to his first TED talk (which still remains the most widely viewed of all talks on the site) with his urbane and self deprecatory wit and charm.

Too many people spend too much of their lives simply enduring their daily lives waiting for the weekend. nbsp; And then there are those who love what they do and couldn’t imagine doing anything else.  It isn’t so much what they do but what they are – ‘this is me.’ Sadly, this is true of a minority of people.

Sir Ken argues that one of the reasons for this is education and that we need not so much “evolution in education but a revolution in education” in that the system needs to be transformed into something else completely.  The current structure in many cases dislocates people from their natural talents with an obsessive eye on results, reports and league tables.

Not everybody needs to get to college or university.  Going onto higher education is wonderful for many but “human communities depend upon a diversity of talent not a singular conception of ability.”  He states that we have built our education system based on conformity – everything is standardised and compares it with his perennial eloquence and passion to the fast-food model.  Passion and what excites our spirit and energy is what makes time take on a different course.  If you are doing something you are passionate about, an hour can seem like five minutes and vice versa.  Education in all its forms must allow people to develop their own passions and solutions under conditions in which those talents can flourish with external support.

If Sir Ken Robinson were in charge of education the future would be very exciting.