Sir Ken Robinson, that is. The Obi-Wan of education reform.
He was funny, insightful, and on-point. A few quick take-aways:
Imagination: Bringing to mind things that can’t be perceived by the senses.
Creativity: A process, not an event; the process of having original ideas that have value.
Innovation: Putting these creative ideas into practice
Sir Ken believes we are undergoing a significant revolution, noting that the worlds population is exploding in the developing world—we expect to add another billion homo sapiens by century’s end—but this isn’t true in North America and Europe where populations are relatively stagnant.
Apparently, women must average 2 offspring each just to maintain population levels. Sir Ken quipped that “in fifty years, we might well run out of French people.”
And the bad news? Studies show the Earth can only support about 1.4 billion people if everyone consumed at North American levels. We can stretch it up to 15 billion if everyone consumes at Rwandan levels. All this started in the last 300 years because of technology.
The point, said he: the projections he mentioned assume that we continue with our same modes and means of production. The revolution enabled by educational technology is just getting warmed up as the world starts to massively change.
And I think it’s urgent – Ken Robinson
If you haven’t seen Sir Ken’s famous 2006 Ted Talk–give it a watch: