Ken Robinson: Changing Education Paradigms with RSA Animate

I've been a Fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) for nearly three years now, and have spent 2010 on the advisory board for its Opening Minds Curriculum, which relaunches this year and next with added support for those seeking new models for the new education paradigm.

It is therefore timely, with a first relaunch event this Tuesday in Birmingham of the Opening Minds Curriculum, that Sir Ken Robinson's seminal (but probably not viewed enough in education circles) RSA Vision Talk has been transformed into a shorter RSA Animate sketch.

He delves into the myth of ADHD, the importance of the aesthetic senses, waking up learners to find what they have within themselves, and how we collaborate. Go on. Watch it.

 

Related articles

• Discover first-hand and shape the RSA Opening Minds Curriculum (edu.blogs.com)
• RSA Animate - 21st century enlightenment (boingboing.net)
• The RSA Institute - Sir Ken Robinson - The Element (sokanu.com)

Comments

[Kevin Brookhouser]

Love Ken Robinson ... Love the RSA Animate videos. I hadn't seen this one yet. Thanks for sharing, Ewan. I'm not sure that I agree that ADHD drugs anesthetize kids or hinder their creativity. They definitely do not turn them into zombies. I'm not saying that they're the greatest things in the world, I just think he overstates that element.

[Ira Socol]

Wish I had added this to my "Designed to Fail" series: http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2010/09/designed-to-fail-education-in-america.html

The system is the problem, not the kids, not the teachers. The system was quite literally designed to fail 75% of its students. It is failing just 65% now, so this model is beyond maximization.

[ben wells]

Hello,
My name is Ben Wells, I'm surrently working on a project involving ways of further immersing students in their work. Business Sims have come up frequently, and I was wondering if you know of any that were particularily realistic of effective at teachnig or enhancing business skills.
Ben Wells

[Jason the Gadget Guy]

As we get older we get less creative because we learn limits.

[Mr R]

I am a Student Primary School Teacher and after watching your video I can say that yes...this was how schools educated before however if you look at new curriculum developments now - for example in Scotland where I am - you will see that education is at a time of change and is no longer based on the ideas you brought up in the video. The Curriculum For Excellence (which is not the best curriculum, it does have flaws) puts emphasis on collaborative learning and giving children the capacity to learn in an active environment. From Early level right through to S2 of high school children will now work in a way which promoted group work, networking, collaborating of ideas with the teacher taking on a more facilitators roll. A lot of the issues you have raised are already being tackled through these new curricular developments.

[Ewan McIntosh]

You're right that changes are afoot in Scotland, but it's telling that you get as far as S2 in feeling that change is occurring - what happens thereafter? Curriculum for Excellence is a 3-18 curriculum, yet we only get as far as 14 years old before things start to revert to a 19th Century way of doing things, "because of the exams". I'd also argue that most secondary schools are struggling to offer as collaborative and student-led an experience in S1 and S2 as students are getting throughout primary school.

There's a long way to go, and the attitudes that Ken refers to, rather the curriculum itself, are the things that need changed. Changing curriculum doesn't change teaching. Teachers change teaching, and their attitudes are the all important (and I'd argue ignored) element of real, revolutionary change. And revolutionary change is what we require.