TED Talks Education
Sir Ken Robinson: How to escape education's death valley
Filmed:
Readability: 3.7
9,881,283 views
Sir Ken Robinson outlines 3 principles crucial for the human mind to flourish -- and how current education culture works against them. In a funny, stirring talk he tells us how to get out of the educational "death valley" we now face, and how to nurture our youngest generations with a climate of possibility.
Ken Robinson - Author/educator
Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we're educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence. Full bio
Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we're educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:13
Thank you very much.
0
1942
3163
00:17
I moved to America 12 years ago
1
5105
2221
00:19
with my wife Terry and our two kids.
2
7326
2026
00:21
Actually, truthfully, we moved to Los Angeles -- (Laughter) --
3
9352
6436
00:27
thinking we were moving to America,
4
15788
1757
00:29
but anyway, it's a short plane ride from Los Angeles
5
17545
6420
00:35
to America.
6
23965
2881
00:38
I got here 12 years ago,
7
26846
2213
00:41
and when I got here, I was told various things,
8
29059
3810
00:44
like, "Americans don't get irony."
9
32869
5450
00:50
Have you come across this idea?
10
38319
2820
00:53
It's not true. I've traveled the whole length and breadth of this country.
11
41139
3081
00:56
I have found no evidence that Americans don't get irony.
12
44220
3259
00:59
It's one of those cultural myths,
13
47479
2595
01:02
like, "The British are reserved."
14
50074
4044
01:06
I don't know why people think this.
15
54118
2337
01:08
We've invaded every country we've encountered.
16
56455
2511
01:10
(Laughter)
17
58966
3636
01:14
But it's not true Americans don't get irony,
18
62602
2524
01:17
but I just want you to know that that's what people
19
65126
2496
01:19
are saying about you behind your back.
20
67622
1475
01:21
You know, so when you leave living rooms in Europe,
21
69097
3319
01:24
people say, thankfully, nobody was ironic in your presence.
22
72416
4473
01:28
But I knew that Americans get irony
23
76889
2730
01:31
when I came across that legislation No Child Left Behind.
24
79619
5555
01:37
Because whoever thought of that title gets irony,
25
85174
5017
01:42
don't they, because --
26
90191
1852
01:44
(Laughter) (Applause) —
27
92043
5823
01:49
because it's leaving millions of children behind.
28
97866
3547
01:53
Now I can see that's not a very attractive name for legislation:
29
101413
3171
01:56
Millions of Children Left Behind. I can see that.
30
104584
3624
02:00
What's the plan? Well, we propose
31
108208
1205
02:01
to leave millions of children behind,
32
109413
1597
02:03
and here's how it's going to work.
33
111010
2479
02:05
And it's working beautifully.
34
113489
2987
02:08
In some parts of the country,
35
116476
1194
02:09
60 percent of kids drop out of high school.
36
117670
4007
02:13
In the Native American communities,
37
121677
1498
02:15
it's 80 percent of kids.
38
123175
2228
02:17
If we halved that number, one estimate is
39
125403
4213
02:21
it would create a net gain to the U.S. economy
40
129616
4434
02:26
over 10 years of nearly a trillion dollars.
41
134050
4852
02:30
From an economic point of view,
42
138902
1646
02:32
this is good math, isn't it, that we should do this?
43
140548
3241
02:35
It actually costs an enormous amount
44
143789
2349
02:38
to mop up the damage from the dropout crisis.
45
146138
4162
02:42
But the dropout crisis is just the tip of an iceberg.
46
150300
3729
02:46
What it doesn't count are all the kids who are in school
47
154029
2250
02:48
but being disengaged from it, who don't enjoy it,
48
156279
4067
02:52
who don't get any real benefit from it.
49
160346
3090
02:55
And the reason is
50
163436
1539
02:56
not that we're not spending enough money.
51
164975
1639
02:58
America spends more money on education
52
166614
1917
03:00
than most other countries.
53
168531
1572
03:02
Class sizes are smaller than in many countries.
54
170103
3426
03:05
And there are hundreds of initiatives every year
55
173529
2438
03:07
to try and improve education.
56
175967
2277
03:10
The trouble is, it's all going in the wrong direction.
57
178244
4521
03:14
There are three principles
58
182765
1169
03:15
on which human life flourishes,
59
183934
3430
03:19
and they are contradicted by the culture of education
60
187364
4011
03:23
under which most teachers have to labor
61
191375
2277
03:25
and most students have to endure.
62
193652
3324
03:28
The first is this, that human beings
63
196976
2564
03:31
are naturally different and diverse.
64
199540
4688
03:36
Can I ask you, how many of you
65
204228
1301
03:37
have got children of your own?
66
205529
3225
03:40
Okay. Or grandchildren.
67
208754
3151
03:43
How about two children or more? Right.
68
211905
3740
03:47
And the rest of you have seen such children.
69
215645
2007
03:49
(Laughter)
70
217652
2873
03:52
Small people wandering about.
71
220525
3017
03:55
I will make you a bet,
72
223542
2094
03:57
and I am confident that I will win the bet.
73
225636
1430
03:59
If you've got two children or more,
74
227066
2485
04:01
I bet you they are completely different from each other.
75
229551
3829
04:05
Aren't they? Aren't they? (Applause)
76
233380
4371
04:09
You would never confuse them, would you?
77
237751
2603
04:12
Like, "Which one are you? Remind me.
78
240354
4577
04:16
Your mother and I are going to introduce
79
244931
1332
04:18
some color-coding system, so we don't get confused."
80
246263
3259
04:21
Education under No Child Left Behind
81
249522
3252
04:24
is based on not diversity but conformity.
82
252774
5044
04:29
What schools are encouraged to do is to find out
83
257818
2558
04:32
what kids can do across a very narrow spectrum of achievement.
84
260376
4360
04:36
One of the effects of No Child Left Behind
85
264736
2394
04:39
has been to narrow the focus
86
267130
1956
04:41
onto the so-called STEM disciplines. They're very important.
87
269086
3749
04:44
I'm not here to argue against science and math.
88
272835
2119
04:46
On the contrary, they're necessary but they're not sufficient.
89
274954
4224
04:51
A real education has to give equal weight
90
279178
2199
04:53
to the arts, the humanities, to physical education.
91
281377
3737
04:57
An awful lot of kids, sorry, thank you — (Applause) —
92
285114
7184
05:04
One estimate in America currently is that
93
292298
2912
05:07
something like 10 percent of kids, getting on that way,
94
295210
2656
05:09
are being diagnosed with various conditions
95
297866
4314
05:14
under the broad title of attention deficit disorder.
96
302180
4322
05:18
ADHD. I'm not saying there's no such thing.
97
306502
3677
05:22
I just don't believe it's an epidemic like this.
98
310179
2975
05:25
If you sit kids down, hour after hour,
99
313154
2816
05:27
doing low-grade clerical work,
100
315970
3176
05:31
don't be surprised if they start to fidget, you know?
101
319146
3289
05:34
(Laughter) (Applause)
102
322435
7478
05:41
Children are not, for the most part,
103
329913
2409
05:44
suffering from a psychological condition.
104
332322
1868
05:46
They're suffering from childhood. (Laughter)
105
334190
6189
05:52
And I know this because I spent my early life
106
340379
2073
05:54
as a child. I went through the whole thing.
107
342452
3854
05:58
Kids prosper best with a broad curriculum
108
346306
3009
06:01
that celebrates their various talents,
109
349315
2408
06:03
not just a small range of them.
110
351723
1637
06:05
And by the way, the arts aren't just important
111
353360
2150
06:07
because they improve math scores.
112
355510
1274
06:08
They're important because they speak to parts
113
356784
1851
06:10
of children's being which are otherwise untouched.
114
358635
3515
06:14
The second, thank you — (Applause)
115
362150
6412
06:20
The second principle that drives human life flourishing
116
368562
4163
06:24
is curiosity.
117
372725
1630
06:26
If you can light the spark of curiosity in a child,
118
374355
3375
06:29
they will learn without any further assistance, very often.
119
377730
3613
06:33
Children are natural learners.
120
381343
2205
06:35
It's a real achievement to put that particular ability out,
121
383548
4316
06:39
or to stifle it.
122
387864
2146
06:42
Curiosity is the engine of achievement.
123
390010
4225
06:46
Now the reason I say this is because
124
394235
2252
06:48
one of the effects of the current culture here, if I can say so,
125
396487
4392
06:52
has been to de-professionalize teachers.
126
400879
3819
06:56
There is no system in the world
127
404698
2352
06:59
or any school in the country
128
407050
2880
07:01
that is better than its teachers.
129
409930
3098
07:05
Teachers are the lifeblood of the success of schools.
130
413028
4608
07:09
But teaching is a creative profession.
131
417636
2979
07:12
Teaching, properly conceived, is not a delivery system.
132
420615
3433
07:16
You know, you're not there just to pass on received information.
133
424048
2893
07:18
Great teachers do that,
134
426941
2557
07:21
but what great teachers also do is mentor,
135
429498
2863
07:24
stimulate, provoke, engage.
136
432361
3508
07:27
You see, in the end, education is about learning.
137
435869
2813
07:30
If there's no learning going on,
138
438682
1720
07:32
there's no education going on.
139
440402
1637
07:34
And people can spend an awful lot of time
140
442039
1842
07:35
discussing education without ever discussing learning.
141
443881
2416
07:38
The whole point of education is to get people to learn.
142
446297
2889
07:41
A friend of mine, an old friend -- actually very old,
143
449186
2689
07:43
he's dead. (Laughter)
144
451875
3797
07:47
That's as old as it gets, I'm afraid.
145
455672
5729
07:53
But a wonderful guy he was, wonderful philosopher.
146
461401
5336
07:58
He used to talk about the difference between the task
147
466737
3012
08:01
and achievement senses of verbs.
148
469749
4069
08:05
You know, you can be engaged in the activity of something,
149
473818
1804
08:07
but not really be achieving it,
150
475622
1591
08:09
like dieting. It's a very good example, you know.
151
477213
4652
08:13
There he is. He's dieting. Is he losing any weight? Not really.
152
481865
4666
08:18
Teaching is a word like that.
153
486531
1313
08:19
You can say, "There's Deborah, she's in room 34, she's teaching."
154
487844
3972
08:23
But if nobody's learning anything,
155
491816
1735
08:25
she may be engaged in the task of teaching
156
493551
1799
08:27
but not actually fulfilling it.
157
495350
3069
08:30
The role of a teacher is to facilitate learning. That's it.
158
498419
3847
08:34
And part of the problem is, I think,
159
502266
2313
08:36
that the dominant culture of education has come to focus
160
504579
3456
08:40
on not teaching and learning, but testing.
161
508035
3668
08:43
Now, testing is important. Standardized tests have a place.
162
511703
3698
08:47
But they should not be the dominant culture of education.
163
515401
3314
08:50
They should be diagnostic. They should help.
164
518715
1858
08:52
(Applause)
165
520573
7566
09:00
If I go for a medical examination,
166
528139
2464
09:02
I want some standardized tests. I do.
167
530603
3584
09:06
You know, I want to know what my cholesterol level is
168
534187
1671
09:07
compared to everybody else's on a standard scale.
169
535858
2688
09:10
I don't want to be told on some scale
170
538546
1438
09:11
my doctor invented in the car.
171
539984
3571
09:15
"Your cholesterol is what I call Level Orange."
172
543555
3054
09:18
"Really? Is that good?""We don't know."
173
546609
5688
09:24
But all that should support learning. It shouldn't obstruct it,
174
552297
5067
09:29
which of course it often does.
175
557364
1911
09:31
So in place of curiosity, what we have
176
559275
2166
09:33
is a culture of compliance.
177
561441
2534
09:35
Our children and teachers are encouraged
178
563975
2925
09:38
to follow routine algorithms
179
566900
2599
09:41
rather than to excite that power of imagination and curiosity.
180
569499
4338
09:45
And the third principle is this:
181
573837
1068
09:46
that human life is inherently creative.
182
574905
2995
09:49
It's why we all have different résumés.
183
577900
2408
09:52
We create our lives,
184
580308
1786
09:54
and we can recreate them as we go through them.
185
582094
2338
09:56
It's the common currency of being a human being.
186
584432
3014
09:59
It's why human culture is so interesting and diverse
187
587446
2533
10:01
and dynamic.
188
589979
1346
10:03
I mean, other animals may well have imaginations
189
591325
3009
10:06
and creativity, but it's not so much in evidence,
190
594334
2280
10:08
is it, as ours?
191
596614
1448
10:10
I mean, you may have a dog.
192
598062
2576
10:12
And your dog may get depressed.
193
600638
3006
10:15
You know, but it doesn't listen to Radiohead, does it?
194
603644
2455
10:18
(Laughter)
195
606099
3920
10:22
And sit staring out the window with a bottle of Jack Daniels.
196
610019
2512
10:24
(Laughter)
197
612531
4424
10:28
And you say, "Would you like to come for a walk?"
198
616955
1661
10:30
He says, "No, I'm fine.
199
618616
3131
10:33
You go. I'll wait. But take pictures."
200
621747
5772
10:39
We all create our own lives through this restless process
201
627519
2914
10:42
of imagining alternatives and possibilities,
202
630433
2009
10:44
and what one of the roles of education
203
632442
2239
10:46
is to awaken and develop these powers of creativity.
204
634681
4036
10:50
Instead, what we have is a culture of standardization.
205
638717
3560
10:54
Now, it doesn't have to be that way. It really doesn't.
206
642277
4107
10:58
Finland regularly comes out on top
207
646384
3552
11:01
in math, science and reading.
208
649936
1375
11:03
Now, we only know that's what they do well at
209
651311
2616
11:05
because that's all that's being tested currently.
210
653927
1864
11:07
That's one of the problems of the test.
211
655791
1641
11:09
They don't look for other things that matter just as much.
212
657432
3159
11:12
The thing about work in Finland is this:
213
660591
2504
11:15
they don't obsess about those disciplines.
214
663095
3379
11:18
They have a very broad approach to education
215
666474
1763
11:20
which includes humanities, physical education, the arts.
216
668237
4538
11:24
Second, there is no standardized testing in Finland.
217
672775
5736
11:30
I mean, there's a bit,
218
678511
1760
11:32
but it's not what gets people up in the morning.
219
680271
1551
11:33
It's not what keeps them at their desks.
220
681822
2205
11:36
And the third thing, and I was at a meeting recently
221
684027
1833
11:37
with some people from Finland, actual Finnish people,
222
685860
3427
11:41
and somebody from the American system
223
689287
2803
11:44
was saying to the people in Finland,
224
692090
1773
11:45
"What do you do about the dropout rate in Finland?"
225
693863
3919
11:49
And they all looked a bit bemused, and said,
226
697782
1621
11:51
"Well, we don't have one.
227
699403
2849
11:54
Why would you drop out?
228
702252
2339
11:56
If people are in trouble, we get to them quite quickly
229
704591
2265
11:58
and help them and we support them."
230
706856
1585
12:00
Now people always say, "Well, you know,
231
708441
1894
12:02
you can't compare Finland to America."
232
710335
3128
12:05
No. I think there's a population
233
713463
1395
12:06
of around five million in Finland.
234
714858
2128
12:08
But you can compare it to a state in America.
235
716986
3829
12:12
Many states in America have fewer people in them than that.
236
720815
3904
12:16
I mean, I've been to some states in America
237
724719
1667
12:18
and I was the only person there. (Laughter)
238
726386
3813
12:22
Really. Really. I was asked to lock up when I left.
239
730199
4373
12:26
(Laughter)
240
734572
4031
12:30
But what all the high-performing systems in the world do
241
738603
3933
12:34
is currently what is not evident, sadly,
242
742536
4182
12:38
across the systems in America -- I mean, as a whole.
243
746718
3985
12:42
One is this: They individualize teaching and learning.
244
750703
4934
12:47
They recognize that it's students who are learning
245
755637
3466
12:51
and the system has to engage them, their curiosity,
246
759103
3658
12:54
their individuality, and their creativity.
247
762761
2577
12:57
That's how you get them to learn.
248
765338
2359
12:59
The second is that they attribute a very high status
249
767697
4087
13:03
to the teaching profession.
250
771784
2281
13:06
They recognize that you can't improve education
251
774065
2944
13:09
if you don't pick great people to teach
252
777009
1649
13:10
and if you don't keep giving them constant support
253
778658
1859
13:12
and professional development.
254
780517
1765
13:14
Investing in professional development is not a cost.
255
782282
2937
13:17
It's an investment,
256
785219
1406
13:18
and every other country that's succeeding well knows that,
257
786625
2931
13:21
whether it's Australia, Canada, South Korea, Singapore,
258
789556
4959
13:26
Hong Kong or Shanghai. They know that to be the case.
259
794515
3446
13:29
And the third is, they devolve responsibility
260
797961
3543
13:33
to the school level for getting the job done.
261
801504
3739
13:37
You see, there's a big difference here between
262
805243
2378
13:39
going into a mode of command and control in education --
263
807621
3764
13:43
That's what happens in some systems.
264
811385
1600
13:44
You know, central governments decide
265
812985
1321
13:46
or state governments decide
266
814306
1290
13:47
they know best and they're going to tell you what to do.
267
815596
2995
13:50
The trouble is that education doesn't go on
268
818591
3727
13:54
in the committee rooms of our legislative buildings.
269
822318
2878
13:57
It happens in classrooms and schools,
270
825196
3088
14:00
and the people who do it are the teachers and the students,
271
828284
3073
14:03
and if you remove their discretion, it stops working.
272
831357
3408
14:06
You have to put it back to the people.
273
834765
3050
14:09
(Applause)
274
837815
4829
14:14
There is wonderful work happening in this country.
275
842644
2712
14:17
But I have to say it's happening
276
845356
2143
14:19
in spite of the dominant culture of education,
277
847499
2566
14:22
not because of it.
278
850065
1401
14:23
It's like people are sailing into a headwind all the time.
279
851466
3604
14:27
And the reason I think is this:
280
855070
2461
14:29
that many of the current policies are based on
281
857531
3337
14:32
mechanistic conceptions of education.
282
860868
3041
14:35
It's like education is an industrial process
283
863909
3768
14:39
that can be improved just by having better data,
284
867677
3007
14:42
and somewhere in, I think, the back of the mind
285
870684
1667
14:44
of some policy makers is this idea that
286
872351
2136
14:46
if we fine-tune it well enough, if we just get it right,
287
874487
3318
14:49
it will all hum along perfectly into the future.
288
877805
2631
14:52
It won't, and it never did.
289
880436
3221
14:55
The point is that education is not a mechanical system.
290
883657
4099
14:59
It's a human system. It's about people,
291
887756
3897
15:03
people who either do want to learn or don't want to learn.
292
891653
3055
15:06
Every student who drops out of school has a reason for it
293
894708
4815
15:11
which is rooted in their own biography.
294
899523
2321
15:13
They may find it boring. They may find it irrelevant.
295
901844
3023
15:16
They may find that it's at odds
296
904867
2514
15:19
with the life they're living outside of school.
297
907381
2544
15:21
There are trends, but the stories are always unique.
298
909925
3839
15:25
I was at a meeting recently in Los Angeles of --
299
913764
3001
15:28
they're called alternative education programs.
300
916765
2245
15:31
These are programs designed to get kids back into education.
301
919010
3403
15:34
They have certain common features.
302
922413
1944
15:36
They're very personalized.
303
924357
2032
15:38
They have strong support for the teachers,
304
926389
3210
15:41
close links with the community
305
929599
2261
15:43
and a broad and diverse curriculum,
306
931860
1626
15:45
and often programs which involve students
307
933486
2631
15:48
outside school as well as inside school.
308
936117
2673
15:50
And they work.
309
938790
1710
15:52
What's interesting to me is,
310
940500
1402
15:53
these are called "alternative education."
311
941902
3186
15:57
You know?
312
945088
2182
15:59
And all the evidence from around the world is,
313
947270
1776
16:01
if we all did that, there'd be no need for the alternative.
314
949046
4226
16:05
(Applause)
315
953272
8420
16:13
So I think we have to embrace a different metaphor.
316
961692
2848
16:16
We have to recognize that it's a human system,
317
964540
2657
16:19
and there are conditions under which people thrive,
318
967197
3596
16:22
and conditions under which they don't.
319
970793
2905
16:25
We are after all organic creatures,
320
973698
2925
16:28
and the culture of the school is absolutely essential.
321
976623
4646
16:33
Culture is an organic term, isn't it?
322
981269
2428
16:35
Not far from where I live is a place called Death Valley.
323
983697
3729
16:39
Death Valley is the hottest, driest place in America,
324
987426
5672
16:45
and nothing grows there.
325
993098
2802
16:47
Nothing grows there because it doesn't rain.
326
995900
2624
16:50
Hence, Death Valley.
327
998524
2393
16:52
In the winter of 2004, it rained in Death Valley.
328
1000917
7147
17:00
Seven inches of rain fell over a very short period.
329
1008064
3772
17:03
And in the spring of 2005, there was a phenomenon.
330
1011836
5202
17:09
The whole floor of Death Valley was carpeted in flowers
331
1017038
4634
17:13
for a while.
332
1021672
1756
17:15
What it proved is this: that Death Valley isn't dead.
333
1023428
5294
17:20
It's dormant.
334
1028722
2871
17:23
Right beneath the surface are these seeds of possibility
335
1031593
3245
17:26
waiting for the right conditions to come about,
336
1034838
3775
17:30
and with organic systems, if the conditions are right,
337
1038613
3343
17:33
life is inevitable. It happens all the time.
338
1041956
3729
17:37
You take an area, a school, a district,
339
1045685
2600
17:40
you change the conditions, give people a different sense of possibility,
340
1048285
3040
17:43
a different set of expectations,
341
1051325
1662
17:44
a broader range of opportunities,
342
1052987
1756
17:46
you cherish and value the relationships between teachers and learners,
343
1054743
3251
17:49
you offer people the discretion to be creative
344
1057994
2310
17:52
and to innovate in what they do,
345
1060304
1754
17:54
and schools that were once bereft spring to life.
346
1062058
3611
17:57
Great leaders know that.
347
1065669
1662
17:59
The real role of leadership in education --
348
1067331
2456
18:01
and I think it's true at the national level, the state level,
349
1069787
2557
18:04
at the school level --
350
1072344
1558
18:05
is not and should not be command and control.
351
1073902
4400
18:10
The real role of leadership is climate control,
352
1078302
4005
18:14
creating a climate of possibility.
353
1082307
2602
18:16
And if you do that, people will rise to it
354
1084909
2397
18:19
and achieve things that you
completely did not anticipate
completely did not anticipate
355
1087306
3019
18:22
and couldn't have expected.
356
1090325
1800
18:24
There's a wonderful quote from Benjamin Franklin.
357
1092125
2367
18:26
"There are three sorts of people in the world:
358
1094492
2863
18:29
Those who are immovable,
359
1097355
2378
18:31
people who don't get it, they don't want to get it,
360
1099733
1871
18:33
they're not going to do anything about it;
361
1101604
1397
18:35
there are people who are movable,
362
1103001
1903
18:36
people who see the need for change
363
1104904
1322
18:38
and are prepared to listen to it;
364
1106226
2646
18:40
and there are people who move,
365
1108872
1851
18:42
people who make things happen."
366
1110723
1780
18:44
And if we can encourage more people,
367
1112503
2170
18:46
that will be a movement.
368
1114673
2666
18:49
And if the movement is strong enough,
369
1117339
2187
18:51
that's, in the best sense of the word, a revolution.
370
1119526
3142
18:54
And that's what we need.
371
1122668
1779
18:56
Thank you very much.
372
1124447
1233
18:57
(Applause)
373
1125680
3183
19:00
Thank you very much. (Applause)
374
1128863
5031
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Ken Robinson - Author/educatorCreativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we're educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.
Why you should listen
Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. It's a message with deep resonance. Robinson's TED Talk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? "Everyone should watch this."
A visionary cultural leader, Sir Ken led the British government's 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements. His 2009 book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, is a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into 21 languages. A 10th anniversary edition of his classic work on creativity and innovation, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, was published in 2011. His 2013 book, Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life, is a practical guide that answers questions about finding your personal Element. In his latest book, Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education, he argues for an end to our outmoded industrial educational system and proposes a highly personalized, organic approach that draws on today’s unprecedented technological and professional resources to engage all students.
Ken Robinson | Speaker | TED.com