How to escape education's death valley | Sir Ken Robinson - Free Educational videos for Students in K-12

How to escape education's death valley | Sir Ken Robinson - By Lumos Learning

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00:10	Yeah , thank you very much . I moved to
00:17	America 12 years ago with my wife , Terry ,
00:20	and our two kids . Actually , Truthfully , we
00:22	moved to Los Angeles . Yeah , thinking we're moving
00:28	to America . But it's it's a short plane ride
00:33	from Los Angeles to America . Um , I got
00:39	here 12 years ago , and when I got here
00:42	, I was told various things like , Americans don't
00:46	get irony . Have you come across this idea ?
00:52	It's not true . I've traveled a whole length and
00:54	breadth of this country . I have found no evidence
00:56	that Americans don't get irony . It's one of those
00:59	cultural myths like the British are reserved . Yeah .
01:05	I don't know why people think this . We've invaded
01:08	every country we've encountered . Mhm , Mhm . But
01:15	it's not , too . Americans don't get irony ,
01:16	but I just want you to know that that's what
01:19	people are saying about you behind your back . You
01:20	know , as you when you leave living rooms in
01:23	Europe , you will say , thankfully , nobody was
01:26	ironic in your presence . But I knew that Americans
01:30	get irony when I came across that legislation . No
01:33	child left behind because you ever thought of that title
01:39	? Get irony . I don't know because because it's
01:50	leaving millions of Children behind . Now I can see
01:53	that's not a very attractive name for legislation millions of
01:56	Children left behind . I can see that . But
01:59	what's the plan while we propose to leave millions of
02:01	Children behind and and here's how it's gonna work and
02:05	it's working beautifully . In some parts , the country's
02:09	60% of kids drop out of high school in the
02:13	Native American community is it's 80% of kids . If
02:17	we have that number , one estimate is , it
02:21	would create a net gain to the U . S
02:24	economy over 10 years of nearly a trillion dollars .
02:30	From an economic point of view , this is good
02:32	math , isn't it , that we should do this
02:35	? It actually costs an enormous amount to mop up
02:38	the damage from the dropout crisis . But the dropout
02:42	crisis is just the tip of an iceberg . What
02:45	it doesn't count or all the kids are in school
02:48	but being disengaged from it , who don't enjoy it
02:51	, who don't get any real benefit from it .
02:55	And the reason is not that we're not spending enough
02:57	money . America spends more money on education than most
03:00	other countries . Class sizes are smaller than in many
03:04	countries , and there are hundreds of initiatives every year
03:07	to try and improve education . The trouble is ,
03:11	it's all going in the wrong direction . There are
03:14	three principles on which human life flourishes , and they
03:19	are contradicted by the culture of education under which most
03:23	teachers have to labor and most students have to endure
03:28	. The first is this that human beings are naturally
03:33	different and diverse . Can I ask you how many
03:36	of you have got Children of your own ? Okay
03:41	? Or grandchildren ? How about two Children or more
03:45	? Right . And the rest of you have seen
03:48	such Children small people wondering about . Okay , I
03:55	will make you a bet . And I'm confident I
03:58	will win the bet . If you've got two Children
04:00	or more . I bet you they are completely different
04:04	from each other , aren't they ? Count they you
04:09	would never confuse them . Would you like which one
04:12	of you remind me of my mind ? Your mother
04:17	and I are gonna introduce some color coding system so
04:19	we don't get thinkings . Education under no Child left
04:23	behind is based on not diversity , but conformity .
04:29	What schools are encouraged to is to find out what
04:32	kids can do across a very narrow spectrum of achievement
04:36	. One of the effects of No Child Left Behind
04:39	has been to narrow the focus onto the so called
04:41	stem disciplines . They're very important . I'm not here
04:44	to argue in science and math . On the contrary
04:48	, they're necessary , but they're not sufficient . A
04:50	real education has to give equal weight to the art
04:53	, the humanities , to physical education . An awful
04:57	lot of kids , thank you . One estimate in
05:05	America currently is that something like 10% of kids getting
05:08	on that way , um , are being diagnosed with
05:12	various conditions under the broad title of attention deficit disorder
05:18	. A D h d . I'm not saying there's
05:20	no such thing . I just don't believe it's an
05:23	epidemic like this . If you sit kids down hour
05:26	after hour doing low grade clerical work , don't be
05:31	surprised if they start to fidget . You know ,
05:38	Children are not , for the most part , suffering
05:44	from psychological condition . They're suffering from childhood , you
05:48	know , and trust me , and I know this
05:52	because I spent my early life as a child .
05:54	I went through the whole thing . Mhm kids prosper
05:59	best with a broad curriculum that celebrates their various talents
06:03	, not just a small range of them . And
06:05	by the way , the arts aren't just important because
06:07	they improved math scores . They're important because they speak
06:09	to parts of Children's being which are otherwise untouched .
06:13	The second , thank you . The second principle that
06:22	drives human life and flourishing is curiosity . If you
06:26	can light the spark of curiosity in a child ,
06:29	they will learn without any further assistance . Very often
06:33	, Children are natural learners . It's a real achievement
06:36	to put that particular ability out or to stifle it
06:41	. Curiosity is the kind of engine of achievement now
06:46	. The reason I say this is because one of
06:49	the effects of the current culture here , if I
06:51	can say so , has been to de professionalize teachers
06:56	. There is no system in the world or any
07:00	school in the country that's better than its teachers .
07:04	Teachers are the lifeblood of the success of schools ,
07:09	but teaching is a creative professional . Teaching , properly
07:13	conceived is not a delivery system . You know you're
07:16	not there just to pass on received information . Great
07:18	teachers do that . But what great teachers also do
07:22	is mentor , stimulate , provoke , engage . You
07:27	see , In the end , education is about learning
07:30	. If there's no learning going on , there's no
07:32	education going on , and people can spend an awful
07:34	lot of time discussing education without ever discussing learning .
07:38	The whole point of education is to get people to
07:40	learn a friend of mine . Old friend , actually
07:43	, very old is dead . That's a that's as
07:48	old as he gets . I'm afraid so . Mhm
07:53	but a wonderful guy . He was a wonderful philosopher
07:58	. He used to talk about the difference between the
08:00	task and achievement senses of verbs . You know you
08:05	can be engaged in the activity of something , but
08:07	not really be achieving it like dieting . It's a
08:11	very good example , you know , There he is
08:13	. He's dieting . Is he losing anyway ? Not
08:15	ready . Mhm . Teaching is a word like that
08:19	. You can say there's Deborah . She's in Room
08:21	34 . She's teaching . But if nobody's learning anything
08:25	, she may be engaged in the task of teaching
08:27	but not actually fulfilling it . The role of a
08:30	teacher is to facilitate learning . That's it . And
08:34	part of the problem is , I think that the
08:36	culture of the dominant culture of education has come to
08:39	focus on not teaching and learning , but testing now
08:43	testing is important . Standardized tests have a place ,
08:47	but they should not be the dominant culture of education
08:50	. They should be diagnostic . They should help .
08:56	You know , I if I go for a medical
09:00	examination , I want some standardized tests . I do
09:05	. You know , I want to know what my
09:06	cholesterol level is compared to everybody else's on a standard
09:09	scale . I don't to be told on some scale
09:11	my doctor invented in the car . You know ,
09:15	your cholesterol is what I call level orange . Really
09:20	mhm . Is that good ? We don't know .
09:24	But all that should support learning . It shouldn't obstruct
09:28	it . Which , of course , it often does
09:30	. So in place of curiosity , what we have
09:32	is a culture of compliance . Our Children and teachers
09:37	are encouraged to follow kind of routine algorithms rather than
09:41	to excite that power of imagination and curiosity . And
09:45	the third principle says that human life is inherently creative
09:49	. It's why we all have different resumes . We
09:52	create our lives and we can recreate them as we
09:55	go through them . It's the common currency of being
09:57	a human being . That's why human culture is so
10:00	interesting and diverse and dynamic . I mean , other
10:04	animals may well have imaginations and creativity , but it's
10:07	not so much in evidence , is it ? As
10:09	ours , You may have a dog , you know
10:12	, and your dog may get depressed , you know
10:15	. But it doesn't listen to Radiohead . It's famous
10:21	. Sit staring out the window with a bottle of
10:23	Jack Daniels . Yeah , okay . And you say
10:29	, Would you like to come for a walk ?
10:30	He said , No , I'm fine . You go
10:34	, I'll wait . I'll go . But take pictures
10:39	. We all create our own lives through this restless
10:41	process of imagining alternative possibilities and what one of the
10:45	roles of education is to awaken and develop these powers
10:49	of creativity instead , what we have as a culture
10:52	of standardization . Now it doesn't have to be that
10:55	way . It really doesn't . Finland , um ,
10:59	regularly comes out top in math , science and reading
11:02	. Now we only know that's what they do well
11:05	at , because that's all it's been tested currently .
11:07	That's one of the problems of the tests . They
11:09	don't look for other things that matter just as much
11:12	. The thing about work in Finland is this .
11:15	They don't obsess about those disciplines . They have a
11:18	very broad approach to education , which includes humanity's physical
11:21	education . The arts Second , um , there is
11:27	no standardized testing in Finland . I mean , there's
11:30	a bit , but it's not what gets people up
11:32	in the morning . It's not what keeps them at
11:34	their desks . And the third thing that I was
11:36	at a meeting recently with some people from Finland ,
11:38	actual finished people , and , uh and somebody from
11:43	the American system is saying to the people in Finland
11:45	, What do you do about the dropout rate in
11:47	Finland ? And they all look a bit bemused and
11:50	said , Well , we don't have one . Why
11:54	would you drop out ? If people are in trouble
11:57	, we get some quite quickly and help them ,
11:58	and we support them . Now People always say ,
12:01	Well , you can't compare Finland to America . No
12:05	, I think there's a population of around five million
12:07	in Finland , but you can compare it to a
12:09	state in America . Many states in America have fewer
12:14	people in them than that . I mean , I've
12:16	been to some states in America . I was the
12:18	only person there . Really , Yeah , really .
12:23	I was asked to lock up when I left ,
12:30	but what all the high performing systems in the world
12:33	do is currently , what is not evident sadly across
12:38	the systems in America I mean as a whole one
12:42	is this . They individualize teaching and learning . They
12:47	recognize that it's students who were learning , and the
12:51	system has to engage them . Their curiosity , their
12:54	individuality and their creativity . That's how you get them
12:57	to learn . The second is that they attribute a
13:02	very high status to the teaching profession . They recognize
13:07	that you can't improve education if you don't pick great
13:09	people to teach . And if you don't keep giving
13:11	them constant support and professional development , investing in professional
13:15	development is not a cost . It's an investment .
13:18	And every other country that's succeeding well knows that whether
13:21	it's Australia , Canada , South Korea , Singapore ,
13:26	Hong Kong or Shanghai , they know that to be
13:28	the case . And the third is they devolve responsibility
13:33	to the school level for getting the job done .
13:36	You see , there's a big difference here between going
13:39	into a mode of command and control in education .
13:43	That's what happens in some systems . Central governments decide
13:45	or state governments decide they know best , and they're
13:48	going to tell you what to do . The trouble
13:50	is that education doesn't go on in the committee rooms
13:55	of our legislative buildings . It happens in classrooms and
13:59	schools , and the people who do it are the
14:01	teachers and the students . And if you remove their
14:03	discretion , it stops working . You have to put
14:07	it back to the people . There is wonderful work
14:15	happening in this country . But I have to say
14:18	it's happening in spite of the dominant culture of education
14:21	, not because of it . It's like people are
14:24	sailing into a headwind all the time . And the
14:27	reason , I think , is this that many of
14:30	the current policies are based on mechanistic conceptions of education
14:35	. It's like education is an industrial process that can
14:39	be improved just by having better data . And somewhere
14:43	, I think the back of the mind of some
14:44	policymakers is this idea that if we fine tune it
14:47	well enough , if we just get it right ,
14:49	it'll all hum along perfectly into the future . It
14:52	won't and it never did . The point is that
14:56	education is not a mechanical system , it's a human
15:00	system . It's about people , people who either do
15:04	want to learn or don't want to learn . Every
15:07	student who drops out of school has a reason for
15:10	it , which is rooted in their own biography .
15:13	They may find it boring . They may find it
15:15	irrelevant . Uh , they may find that it's at
15:18	odds with the life they're living outside of school .
15:21	There are trends , but the stories are always unique
15:25	. I was at a meeting recently in Los Angeles
15:27	of they're called alternative education programs . These are programs
15:31	designed to get kids back into education . They have
15:34	certain common features . They're very personalized . They have
15:38	strong support for the teachers , close links with the
15:42	community and a broad and diverse curriculum and often programs
15:46	which involve students outside school as well as inside school
15:50	. And they work . What's interesting to me is
15:53	these are called alternative education , you know , and
15:59	all the evidence from around the world is if we
16:01	if we all did that , there'd be no need
16:03	for the alternative . I think we have to embrace
16:14	a different metaphor . We have to recognize that it's
16:18	a human system , and there are conditions under which
16:20	people thrive and conditions under which they don't . We
16:25	are , after all , organic creatures , and the
16:29	culture of the school is absolutely essential . Culture is
16:33	an organic term , isn't it ? Not far from
16:36	where I live , there's a place called Death Valley
16:39	. Death Valley is the hottest , driest place in
16:44	America , and nothing grows there . Nothing grows there
16:48	because it doesn't rain . Hence Death Valley . In
16:52	the winter of 2000 and four , it rained .
16:58	In Death Valley . Seven inches of rain fell over
17:01	a very short period , and in the spring of
17:05	2000 and five , there was a phenomenon . The
17:08	whole floor of Death Valley was carpeted in flowers for
17:13	a while . What it proves is this that Death
17:17	Valley isn't dead . It's dormant right beneath the surface
17:24	. Are these seeds of possibility waiting for the right
17:27	conditions to come about and with organic systems . If
17:32	the conditions are right , life is inevitable . It
17:36	happens all the time . You take an area ,
17:38	a school district , you change the conditions , give
17:41	people a different sense of possibility , a different set
17:43	of expectations , a broader range of opportunities you cherish
17:47	and value the relationships between teachers and learners . You
17:50	offer people discretion to be creative and innovating what they
17:53	do , and schools that were once bereft spring to
17:56	life . Great leaders know that the real role of
18:00	leadership in education and I think it's the national level
18:03	. The state level at the school level is not
18:06	and should not be command and control . The real
18:10	role of leadership is climate control , creating a climate
18:15	of possibility . And if you do that , people
18:17	will rise to it and achieve things that you completely
18:20	did not anticipate and couldn't have expected . There's a
18:24	wonderful quote from Benjamin Franklin . There are three sorts
18:27	of people in the world , those who are immovable
18:31	, people who don't get it , they don't want
18:32	to get it . They don't know anything about it
18:34	. There are people who are movable people who see
18:37	the need for change and a prepared to listen to
18:39	it . And there are people who move people who
18:42	make things happen . And if we can encourage more
18:45	people , that will be a movement . And if
18:49	the movement is strong enough , that's in the best
18:52	sense of the word A revolution and that's what we
18:55	need . Thank you very much .

Summarizer

DESCRIPTION:

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

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