Education’s ‘Death Valley’ from Sir Ken Robinson

From the first TED Talks Edu programme Sir Ken Robinson outlines his view on what is needed to progress from the imminent ‘Death Valley’ direction to a flourishing, nurturing environment where children grow with and in their learning:

“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.”

Sir Ken Robinson: How to escape education’s death valley

Some choice words from Sir Ken on education:

“There are three principles on which human life flourishes,and they are contradicted by the culture of education under which most teachers have to labor and most students have to endure.”

“If you sit kids down, hour after hour, doing low-grade clerical work, don’t be surprised if they start to fidget, you know?  Children are not, for the most part, suffering from a psychological condition. They’re suffering from childhood. Kids prosper best with a broad curriculum that celebrates their various talents, not just a small range of them.”

“If you can light the spark of curiosity in a child, they will learn without any further assistance, very often. Children are natural learners. It’s a real achievement to put that particular ability out, or to stifle it. Curiosity is the engine of achievement.”

“There is no system in the world or any school in the country that is better than its teachers.Teachers are the lifeblood of the success of schools. But teaching is a creative profession. Teaching, properly conceived, is not a delivery system. You know, you’re not there just to pass on received information. Great teachers do that, but what great teachers also do is mentor, stimulate, provoke, engage. You see, in the end, education is about learning. If there’s no learning going on, there’s no education going on.”

Thanks to Pat Parslow for copying the embed code and sending it via Twitter, Safari wouldn’t let me do it on the iPad is afternoon!