12 September 2011
Dear Canterbury Community:
Over the last few years, the Canterbury staff has spent a great deal of energy talking and writing about the interesting changes taking place in education. As you might expect, these changes are driven by technological expansion, globalization, and the evolution of skills expected of 21st century professionals. The result is that the educational model in which most of us were educated is no longer an efficient vehicle for educating our students for the modern world. Schools must adapt in order to prepare their students.
In this same vein, I happened upon a TED address given by Ken Robinson back in 2006 that speaks to this issue, and specifically, the need for schools to cultivate creativity in order for students to be successful in the future. You may know that TED, which stands for “Technology, Entertainment, Design,” is a non-profit that was established to share the thoughts and feelings of the world’s foremost thinkers and doers. TED invites these speakers to conferences held throughout the year and asks them to share their most creative ideas in eighteen minutes or less. These talks are collected on their website (www.ted.com).
Ken Robinson is an author, speaker, and advisor on educational issues, and I believe he presents some of the more provocative views on the current state of education. The links to two of his presentations are attached below. Both are short, and I hope you will take a few minutes to review them. I look forward to hearing your responses.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html
Sincerely,
Burns Jones Head of School
Thanks for posting these videos. Sir Ken does, as you say, present a provocative view of education; although I remember sitting in elementary education classes in 1990 and hearing an indictment of the “factory model” of education. I wonder how it is that our brains are not naturally inclined toward this model, but we are all slow to change from it? It may be that the changes in our media–ipads, etc.–will force us out of this paradigm, or at least reevaluate it with more sincerity. I am glad that Canterbury, rather than reducing arts offerings in recent years, has added more.