Tag Archives: Sir Ken Robinson

Discussion, Life, Reading, Thinking, Video

We Are The People We’ve Been Waiting For

Thanks to an episode of pinball reading (and its offshoots) which I can now barely recall, I received a free DVD of David Putnam‘s*  film, We Are The People We’ve Been Waiting For.

Narrated by John Hannah, it explores the huge problems which today’s young people will inherit and investigates how well or poorly current educational practices across the world prepare them for this future.

The conversations and cast (Sir Ken Robinson, Dr. Cream Wright, Dr. Sandra Leaton Gray, Dame Ruth Silver, Zoë Redhead of Summerhill School, Henry Winkler amongst many others) will be familiar to many but I found it instructive to see an extended piece on this topic with input from many countries: UK; USA; Sweden, South Africa, Netherlands.

If anyone in my weekly orbit would like to borrow this DVD, just give me a shout.

*On the sleeve of the DVD the film is described as having been inspired and guided by David Putnam. The directors are Daryl Goodrich and Caroline Rowland.

p.s. re the title – never end a sentence a preposition with 🙂

Expression, Life, Listening, Thinking, Video

The Element

Thanks to Ewan for flagging this up – Sir Ken Robinson talking at the RSA on his new book The Element. Amongst other things he distinguishes between being good at something and loving it. Ken Robinson’s talks (renowned TED Talk here) illustrate a resonant and paradoxical point made by another of my heroes, Clive James – that the only time it’s worth being funny is when discussing something serious.

Ewan writes eloquently and engages in comment about the ideas expressed in The Element here.

 

Blogging, Life, Listening, New Ideas, Thinking, Video

Bring on the dance champions

Thanks to Ewan for flagging up this inspirational talk on education and change by Sir Ken Robinson. It coincided with his being presented with the Benjamin Franklin Medal on Monday. Sponsored by Edge (not that one, the other one), the talk, given at the RSA is available in mp3 format for the moment, with a video to follow here soon. Although slides are referred to in the talk, you can get by without visuals – with the possible exception of the moment where Earth is compared to other stars & planets.

If you haven’t already seen it, I can’t recommend highly enough Ken Robinson’s TED talk. His book Out Of Our Minds: Learning To Be Creative, is on my reading list.