Sir Ken started by saying we are living in extraordinary times, an education revolution he gave an example of a project called Moonx with 25 year olds who have no degrees but have learnt skills from gaming attempting to send objects to the moon.
Sir Ken began to speak about the Education revolution.
I was fortunate enough to speak at the TEDxLondon Event organised in association with Ken in September 2011 titled ‘The Education Revolution’ See an earlier blog post: http://www.danjjroberts.co.uk/2011/08/16/tedxlondonthe-education-revolution/
He discussed that the key challenges facing education here is the same globally and not just within education. The revolution is regarding the governments current plans, the unrest of the recent strikes etc.
There are two key drivers of change:
1) TECHNOLOGY
Technology has advanced at a phenomenal rate, 10 years ago Google was a novelty, there was no Facebook or Twitter and nobody really knows where they are heading and we can’t predict how it will impact on the innovation.
As a school we have experienced this first hand.
Our school features in a great case study video with Sir Ken Robinson produced in the last year called ‘We are the future’ you can see the video here:
2) POPULATION
When Sir Ken was born it was 2 billion recently it has passed 7 billion, populations have grown exponentially for the last 250 years. An interesting quote that human population has become bacterial not as primates.
The issue is that not every human being consumes at the same rate, there are differences depending where we live. The more connected the world becomes these differences will have to even out. So how does this effect education?
What is the role of education in this?
Governments can often be schizophrenic about education – they take their own education experiences and say this is how it should be… mmmm.
Most governments appear to look backwards not forwards – the current education system was designed in the 19th century not now! Hence we need to revolutionize education.
When the government talk about ‘back to basics’ they talk about subjects not disciplines it shouldn’t be about a subject (content) but in its concept or the way it works.
The message from some senior people in governments is if you are not good in science and maths then you can sit this one out kids, the future can only be sorted by maths and scientists!
It isn’t actually like this in reality we need to rely on every individuals talent, we need that diversity. This links back to the conference theme of ‘every child has a talent’
I have written this blog post live to try to capture what has been said, apologies for the way it may read. Comments as always would be appreciated.
The basics for education that Sir Ken suggests are:
1. Economic
2. Cultural
3. Personal
Don’t forget you can follow Sir Ken Robinson on twitter @SirKenRobinson
Interesting blog and video. I am currently researching dynamic cultures and how that may impact on shifting perspectives, and I wonder how, and if, practitioners consider this in their reflective engagement? Also, how much digital technology impacts on cultural development, any comments…?