Our school recently hosted a TEDx event (an independently organised event in the TED format).  It was fairly successful.  For me the two aspects of it that made it successful (apart from the very good food) was the showing of a Sir Ken Robinson TED talk and the fact that two of our senior students took the stage and gave their own talks.

For those of you who don’t know TED is an organisation that was started in 1984 dedicated to “Ideas Worth Spreading”. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, though today the speakers and organisation includes many more disciplines and interests.  You can read more about TED at www.ted.com

Sir Ken Robinson has given a few talks at TED concerning education.  Not only is he a very engaging and witty speaker, his message is one of great importance and is absolutely spot on with some of the problems that mire our current education system.

The talk that opened our school’s TEDx talk is this one:  “Bring on the learning revolution!”  When he talks about 3 year olds sitting in panel interviews with portfolios for Kindergarten spots he is not joking!  That is common practice here in Hong Kong and other countries.  I fully support his idea that not everyone needs to go to college if they don’t want to or at least they don’t need to go ‘now’.  I believe that pushing people into college when they are not interested or ready is setting them up for failure.  Personalising education and helping young people find their talent and their passion will result in much fewer ‘drop-outs’.

Another favourite talk is “How to escape education’s Death Valley”

In this Sir Ken discusses the need for a broad curriculum and the problems of standardized testing that is ‘the dominant’ culture in many eduction systems.  He explains what he believes are the reasons for Finland’s successful education system where there are no ‘drop-out’ students.  That is all students finish school. He also reminds us near the beginning that many children are not suffering from ADD (Attention Defisite Disorder) but rather they are suffering from ‘Childhood’. Something I think many adults (myself included) often forget.

The first Sir Ken Robinson talk I ever watched is also my favourite.  “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”

An extremely funny talk, he proposes that we are educated out of our inherent creativity that is so obvious in young children.

Nearly everyone has had some contact with education at some point in their lives either as children themselves, as educators or parents of students. Have a look and I hope you find these as inspirational as I do.

These talks have not impacted what I do in the classroom, but also my views on life and how I view others. I feel we should embrace our differences, diversity and creativity. Everyone is creative! Find what it is you love and do it!
I am fortunate that what I love I get to do for a job, unfortunately not everyone does, and it would be wonderful if it could change!  I have decided to really try to promote and encourage creativity in my classroom next year (more so than I already to as the art teacher).  I’m going to do this by encouraging my students to celebrate their differences  and uniqueness.  Let’s see how it works out.

Know of any other inspiring people or talks? Please share them!