Record columnist
“My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.” — Sir Ken Robinson
I love that quote, but watch your step. These waters are deeper than they appear. His point is that “we are educating people out of their creativity.” It’s not my absolute favorite quote from Sir Ken but, in that it deals with his central message in such an effortlessly haiku fashion, in this space it deserves a seat at the head of the table.
As with many others in the community, I first became aware of Ken Robinson through Teri Orr following her return from a TED conference several years back. She informed us that we “needed” to familiarize ourselves with the wide-angle aspect of TED’s work and the videos on the TED.com website.
Sir Ken Robinson’s video immediately turned my crank and had me nodding and roaring right out of the chute. Insight rich is what it was. Epiphanies arrived, often accompanied by only an extremely well-chosen word or two as escort. It became immediately obvious that wisdom was in the house.
And it should be noted, to those among us who still keep room within their right and left brains for wanton erudition and profound horse sense, that this upcoming Saturday night, January 15, Sir Ken and his quite impressive shtick will be onstage at the Eccles Center.
In these TED-Talk videos, some of the planet’s most original thinkers and doers accept the challenge to lay it all out in 18-minute timelines and do they ever wax philosophic. These are many of the top-shelf activists of our time and the manner in which they riff on concepts and processes is quite illuminating, indeed.
Just a small sample of those on the TED Talks roster reads like a cultural “who’s who” of our time with such über techies, entertainers, and designers as architect Frank Gehry, Whole Earth Catalog meister Stewart Brand, Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google, Bono, illustrator Milton Glaser, Herbie Hancock, Oliver Sachs, Isabel Allende, Eve Ensler, James Watson of DNA three-dimensional-structure fame, Amy Tan, Dave Eggers, and among hundreds of others, the subject of this epistle, Sir Ken Robinson.
Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 for his “outstanding achievements as a writer, speaker and leader in creativity, the arts and education,” Robinson and his wide-ranging and visionary innovations in both business and education are called upon mostly these days by governments, major corporations and cultural organizations around the globe.
Sir Ken is of the opinion that we don’t get more out of people because we educate them to become good workers rather than creative thinkers. There are many among us who, as students, flaunted restless minds and bodies more than keeping our mind’s eye on the ball our educators were attempting to bunt down the third-base line. We know who we are.
Robinson reasons that if our classroom mentors had cultivated that excess energy and curiosity focused more often than not out the window than on the blackboard rather than ignoring and, in many cases, stigmatizing such behavior, that our world today would be a much more efficient and pleasing living environment.
And not unlike with Stephen Hawking and the Dalai Lama, there is a standup comedian coyly inhabiting corner space in Ken Robinson’s brilliant mind who doesn’t have any problem pulling back the curtain every so often to wink at the audience. Which brings us, somewhat out of context, to my favorite Ken Robinson quote:
“If my wife is cooking a meal at home, which is not often, thankfully, but you know, she’s doing (oh, she’s good at some things) but if she’s cooking, you know, she’s dealing with people on the phone, she’s talking to the kids, she’s painting the ceiling, she’s doing open-heart surgery over here; if I’m cooking, the door is shut, the kids are out, the phone’s on the hook, if she comes in I get annoyed, I say ‘Terry, please, I’m trying to fry an egg in here, give me a break.'”
This highly creative cat knows how to communicate. His timing is impeccable and his message is pure! And what a phenomenal poster child he is for the entire TED concept: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Myself, I’m putting on my thinking cap and smiley face and heading on down to the Eccles Center Saturday night.
Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and a free-lance writer with a background in commercial and community radio, among other pursuits. He has been a columnist and feature writer for various Park City publications going back to 1973.