More from Sir Ken Robinson on Schools and Creativity
If you enjoyed the video in the last article, here's more from Sir Ken Robinson on his outlook on what is wrong with the system in general and how it is not serving our children, our economies and our futures.
Particularly informative is a two part interview done with ABC in Australia in the links below where Sir Ken talks about, and gives concrete examples of how motivated administrators and teachers here in the U.S. and around the world that are finding ways to push the envelope within the structure and confines of our schools as they are today. Here's an excerpt from part two of this interview:
KEN ROBINSON: What great teachers know, what great parents know, what great head teachers know is that every school is different and every class is different. You have to create conditions where people give of their best. So I find great schools everywhere. There are some wonderful schools. There's a great school in Los Angeles, a brilliant teacher who's a theatre teacher, a drama teacher who's been there for over 25 years teaching a majority of kids who don't speak English as a first language. The vast majority of them now go on to college. And he teaches them by putting on Shakespeare productions.
What I find is that head teachers are critical in schools, like college presidents are essential in universities and in political systems. Leadership is really important from every point of view. I mean, look what's happening in America at the moment: that shift from the last presidency to the current one. There's been a total change of mood because people take their cue from the tone of the leadership. And it's true in every system I know. If you find a school where a head teacher gets it, anything is possible, and I mean that literally. A lot of schools do things they don't have to do because they believe they're required to do them, and they don't. I mean, I don't think - I can't speak in detail of all the legislation in Australia, obviously not, but I doubt that there's anywhere in the legislation for education in Australia that tells high schools they have to have 40 minute periods, you know, six a day, you know, over five days.
INTERVIEWER: There's probably a bureaucracy above them that tells them that.
KEN ROBINSON: There's probably an assumption it has to be that way. Or that science teachers can't work with music teachers, you know. Or that all these things have to happen every day. All the schools I know that are achieving a lot are prepared to question the routines they've taken for granted for years and try something else. There's a great school I know in - actually in the UK, a primary school, where the head teacher abandons the curriculum every Friday and they run a small internal university. So they have 30 or 40 classes available which any kid can go to, provided they go for an eight week series. But some of these classes are taught by the kids and the teachers go to them, because the kids often know more than the teachers do about some certain - some aspects of the new technologies, especially just now. So it's about finding freedom within the system as well as changing the system in the long term.
Another on his philosophy and findings...
What I find is that head teachers are critical in schools, like college presidents are essential in universities and in political systems. Leadership is really important from every point of view. I mean, look what's happening in America at the moment: that shift from the last presidency to the current one. There's been a total change of mood because people take their cue from the tone of the leadership. And it's true in every system I know. If you find a school where a head teacher gets it, anything is possible, and I mean that literally. A lot of schools do things they don't have to do because they believe they're required to do them, and they don't. I mean, I don't think - I can't speak in detail of all the legislation in Australia, obviously not, but I doubt that there's anywhere in the legislation for education in Australia that tells high schools they have to have 40 minute periods, you know, six a day, you know, over five days.
INTERVIEWER: There's probably a bureaucracy above them that tells them that.
KEN ROBINSON: There's probably an assumption it has to be that way. Or that science teachers can't work with music teachers, you know. Or that all these things have to happen every day. All the schools I know that are achieving a lot are prepared to question the routines they've taken for granted for years and try something else. There's a great school I know in - actually in the UK, a primary school, where the head teacher abandons the curriculum every Friday and they run a small internal university. So they have 30 or 40 classes available which any kid can go to, provided they go for an eight week series. But some of these classes are taught by the kids and the teachers go to them, because the kids often know more than the teachers do about some certain - some aspects of the new technologies, especially just now. So it's about finding freedom within the system as well as changing the system in the long term.
Discussions worth listening to...
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