Lately, I've been watching a lot of the 'TED talks' presentations instead of watching TV (sharp intake of breath). There is some excellent stuff on http://www.ted.com/ and I've only touched the surface.
There was nothing on after Coronation Street last night so I read an article in the Guardian Weekly about Malcolm Gladwell. He's the author of one of my favourite books "The Tipping Point'. I was interested to learn that he's a hit on the speaking circuit in the UK. His presentation on spaghetti sauce was mentioned in the article, so I googled that and low and behold it was on TED. At its conclusion a list of other talks came up and my attention was drawn to Sir Ken Robinson's presentation on how education destroys creativity. It was brilliant! And got me thinking, again, about the world's wholly inappropriate industrialised style of education.
I mentioned the talk to my English class and they debated this idea for a bit. Actually they didn't debate it at all, because they were unanimous in their belief that their creativity was not acknowledged and as students they were being processed through the school system in an inappropriate way (not exactly their words, but certainly their feeling). They asked to see the talk and loved it when I showed it to them.
I think we're long overdue a change of delivery. I can sense some subtle shifts with the expanding employment of technology but we need something revolutionary. Sadly, I don't see it on the horizon.
2 comments:
Yes this is a great TED talk from Sir Ken & one that has stirred lots of debate amongst educational circles. I most definitely agree with his humorous observations :-) As far as seeing change on the horizon - it's never going to come to us unless we go out & grab it ourselves. That's what we do as educational leaders - be an 'agent of change'!
I'm talking about a revolutionary change though and that by it's definition has to happen outside the existing status quo of school structures. The NZ government as with other governments around the western world will resist this revolution. As educational leaders we work within this system. This is what I don't see happening any time soon. But as Sir Ken says - 'we are caught up in a new economic revolution. And it has hardly begun'. So I do have some hope.
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