Ted Talks Education

Sir Ken Robinson – Bring on the Learning Revolution!

Today, I watched this amazing Ted Talk from Sir Ken Robinson, delivered in 2010.  In it, Robinson speaks brilliantly and passionately about our education system, asserting that “education, in a way, dislocates […] people from their natural talents”.  And I couldn’t agree with him more.  

Of course, people are inclined to believe any story or idea that is presented to them so convincingly, and I am no different.  In his speech, Robinson is selling me an idea, and very well too.  However, I found in his argument many thoughts I shared but had not put such eloquent words to.

When I was 18, my sixth form college put me forward as an ‘Oxbridge candidate’.  Naturally, this was flattering, and my family were thrilled when I was invited to interview for a place to read English Literature at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford.  I was flattered, too.  I had visited the city and knew it was beautiful.  I had seen students leaving their examinations in their gowns; white, pink or red carnations pinned to their chests.  It was all very romantic, especially as the city’s Christmas decorations were already up when I attended my interview.

Following the few days I spent there, however, I was sure I didn’t want to attend.  Yes, I was interviewed in grand rooms with open fires and wingback armchairs and books shelved all the way to the ceiling.  I really was!  But I didn’t feel my personality fitted – at all.  I didn’t think I would be happy there.  I had been pushed along this route by the education system I was part of, and if I was accepted, there was no way I could turn down Oxford. 

I received my rejection letter, as I had been told would happen, two days before Christmas. (Incidentally, here’s an interesting Guardian article on the subject of Oxbridge rejection)  It’s fair to say I was not disappointed.  In fact, I turned down offers from various excellent universities that year, including Cardiff, Bristol and Exeter.  I finally enrolled at my local university three or four years later.  And I am still expected to defend that decision surprisingly often.  But why?

In his speech, Robinson references an Abraham Lincoln message to Congress of 1862.  The extract he highlights reads:

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.  The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion.  As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.  We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”

We are, Robinson argues, enthral to certain educational ideas.  He identifies linearity and conformity as two such ideas.  At 18, I too was expected to conform, to move along a linear narrative without questioning why I was moving in that particular direction.  Now, at 28 and still working in a low paid job, I continue to believe in my decision.  When I did embark on my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, I studied the subject I loved with more commitment, more passion than I would have done at 18.  Furthermore, I now had the confidence, in my early twenties, to really pursue creative writing – that unrealistic ambition!

Alluding to a poem by W B Yeats, Robinson concludes his speech thus: “And every day, everywhere, our children spread their dreams beneath our feet.  And we should tread softly.”  

The way to do this, he suggests, is by moving away from an “industrial model” of education and towards an “agricultural” one, thereby allowing it to become an “organic” process, “customised” to the individual.  Educators, he says, should think themselves like farmers – their role is to provide the correct environment to allow the individual to flourish.  Whether that individual is a child or an adult does not influence the argument, as far as I can see.

“Human communities depend upon a diversity of talent,” Robinson claims, “not a singular conception of ability.”  And so should our education system, if we are all to find better ways to use our talents.