The Creative Entrepreneur - Sir Ken Robinson - August 2024

The Creative Entrepreneur - Sir Ken Robinson - August 2024

Aug, 1 2024


If you’ve ever felt frustrated with the education system or you’ve always been a creative person but felt stifled by school then this month’s creative entrepreneur is just for you.

Known for his engaging, light hearted and powerful TED Talks, Sir Ken Robinson was a British author, speaker and international advisor on education in the arts to government, non-profits, education and arts bodies.

Please watch this 20 minute TED Talk, as Ken speaks on the subject, ‘Do schools kill creativity?’

Ken’s insight into education was accurate. Despite having a disability as a child, being highly educated, achieving degrees and becoming a professor, this didn’t deter him in changing the perception people have about education and it’s damaging effects on a creative person.

In fact in 1998, Ken led a UK commission on creativity, education and the economy and his report- ‘All Our Futures – Creativity, Culture and Education’ – was influential.  The Times said of it: "This report raises some of the most important issues facing business in the 21st century. It should have every CEO and human resources director thumping the table and demanding action".

Robinson gave three TED talks on the importance of creativity in education, which together have been viewed over 98 million times (2023) on the TED website.

In April 2013, he gave a talk titled "How to escape education's death valley", in which he outlines three principles crucial for the human mind to flourish – and how current American education culture works against them.

At the time of his death in August 2020, his "Do schools kill creativity?" presentation was the most watched TED talk of all time, with 66.3 million views on the TED channel and millions more on YouTube. It has been translated into 62 languages.

 In 2010, the Royal Society of Arts animated one of Robinson's speeches about changing education paradigms, which has been viewed more than 17 million times on YouTube as of August 2023.

Robinson suggested that to engage and succeed, education has to develop on three fronts:-

  • 1. It should foster diversity by offering a broad curriculum and encourage individualisation of the learning process.
  • 2. It should promote curiosity through creative teaching, which depends on high quality teacher training and development.
  • 3. It should focus on awakening creativity through alternative didactic processes that put less emphasis on standardised testing, thereby giving the responsibility for defining the course of education to individual schools and teachers.

Ken was convinced that the American format of learning depended on conformity, compliance and standardisation rather than creative approaches to learning. Robinson emphasised that we can only succeed if we recognise that education is an organic system, not a mechanical one: successful school administration is a matter of engendering a helpful climate rather than "command and control".

Clearly Ken was for the arts and recognised that the education system can often prevent an artistic person from becoming the person they always wanted to be. Ken was motivated for change, change now for the future of creative people.

^Alex Ashworth CCG UK Blogger