[Script Info]
Title: 
[Events]
Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: 0,0:00:01.00,0:00:13.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(Vision - Tomorrow's ideas, Today)
Dialogue: 0,0:00:13.48,0:00:19.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(Sir Ken Robinson "Changing Paradigms" - recipient of the 2008 RSA Benjamin Franklin Medal)
Dialogue: 0,0:00:19.64,0:00:24.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Ken Robinson: Thank you very much. Were you surprised when it was actually me who got the medal?
Dialogue: 0,0:00:24.45,0:00:29.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Were you? You could feel the tension building, couldn't you? "Who will it be?"
Dialogue: 0,0:00:31.81,0:00:35.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Thank you. I am genuinely humbled to have this award.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:36.04,0:00:39.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I was thinking earlier that being humbled isn't a normal feeling, is it?
Dialogue: 0,0:00:40.73,0:00:45.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I don't often feel humbled - disparaged, humiliated, you know, put down
Dialogue: 0,0:00:47.01,0:00:50.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But humbled is a rather old feeling, isn't it? It's not a modern emotion.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:51.58,0:00:54.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But I do feel it, and particularly to have this award in the name of Benjamin Franklin
Dialogue: 0,0:00:57.05,0:01:04.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,who was a most remarkable man. He lived nearby, in Craven street. The house is a few minutes away
Dialogue: 0,0:01:04.93,0:01:09.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and I really recommend you go and take a look at it. It has just been renovated.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:09.69,0:01:12.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's a very powerful evocation of the life of this extraordinary figure,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:13.38,0:01:16.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a man who was deeply involved in the growth of industrialism,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:16.79,0:01:20.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a part of the Enlightenment, at the heart of the creation of the New World,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:21.61,0:01:23.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and with a passion for education.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:24.26,0:01:31.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,A man who was also deeply invested in science, in the arts, in the humanities and in politics.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:31.24,0:01:35.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,A polymath, I think, a Renaissance figure in the heart of the Enlightenment -
Dialogue: 0,0:01:35.82,0:01:38.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and one of the first significant members of the Royal Society of Arts.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:39.00,0:01:43.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,If you don't know this institution, I really encourage you to find more about it.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:43.12,0:01:48.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It was founded, I think I'm correct in saying, in 1753, by William Shipley,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:48.50,0:01:54.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and its full name is the Royal Society of Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:55.05,0:02:06.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And it's had a long history in the promotion and advocacy of appropriate forms of public education.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:06.63,0:02:12.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I have had a long association myself with the RSA. I gave a lecture here
Dialogue: 0,0:02:13.83,0:02:20.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,- even Matthew may not know this - in July of 1990, in this very room.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:21.67,0:02:28.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I propose to repeat it word for word, if that's alright? (audience laughs)
Dialogue: 0,0:02:28.22,0:02:30.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Don't you I should waste time thinking anything fresh for you, frankly?
Dialogue: 0,0:02:30.32,0:02:39.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,No, in 1990, I had been running a national Arts in Schools project
Dialogue: 0,0:02:39.30,0:02:41.100,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and I had published a book on the arts in schools.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:42.06,0:02:46.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I have a great passion for the arts, and we were meeting here,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:46.72,0:02:52.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,shortly after the introduction of the national curriculum in England,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:52.38,0:02:57.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which profoundly misunderstood the place of the arts in education.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:57.69,0:03:01.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So I was talking about how the arts could be made part of the main stream of education.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:02.08,0:03:09.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And here we are, 17 years later - well it's all so different, I feel.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:10.87,0:03:14.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So I want to say a few words about that, and I want to show you a couple of short movie clips,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:15.22,0:03:16.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and then to have a conversation with you.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:18.91,0:03:22.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,One of the things that have happened to me since 1990 is that I have moved to live in America
Dialogue: 0,0:03:22.16,0:03:28.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and I moved there 7 years ago, at the invitation of the Getty Center.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:29.99,0:03:34.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I didn't flee Great Britain, but put yourself in my place:
Dialogue: 0,0:03:34.59,0:03:41.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I had a phone call on the 3rd of January 1990, when I was living near Coventry.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:44.57,0:03:52.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And this guy said: "Would you like to come and live in California?" (audience laughs)
Dialogue: 0,0:03:52.76,0:03:58.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We left immediately. (audience laughs) I didn't ask what the job was, we just went.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:58.64,0:04:02.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And - the phone is still swinging on the hook, actually, in the house,
Dialogue: 0,0:04:02.78,0:04:06.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and we hope some day the children will track us down, but we don't care.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:08.14,0:04:15.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But I now live in America, and I love it. Who has been to Los Angeles? Here, anyone?
Dialogue: 0,0:04:15.92,0:04:17.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's an extraordinary place.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:18.60,0:04:22.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We were in Las Vegas recently, my wife and I. We've been together for 30 years
Dialogue: 0,0:04:23.49,0:04:26.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and we decided last year to get married again.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:27.82,0:04:35.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So we went to the Elvis Chapel (audience laughs). Now, I recommend it. You should do it.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:36.44,0:04:45.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We had the Blue Hawaii package, but there are others. The Blue Hawaii package, you get the
Dialogue: 0,0:04:46.05,0:04:54.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Elvis impersonator, 4 songs, the chapel, of course, a puff of smoke as you go in -
Dialogue: 0,0:04:56.34,0:05:04.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you have to request that - and a hula girl, that was optional, but I opted for it,
Dialogue: 0,0:05:04.73,0:05:07.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for reasons I was rather pleased about, frankly.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:08.87,0:05:14.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,For another 100 dollars, we could have had a pink Cadillac, but we thought that was a bit tacky.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:17.88,0:05:20.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We thought that was lowering the tone of the whole occasion, frankly
Dialogue: 0,0:05:20.45,0:05:27.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but I mention it, because Las Vegas is an iconic example of the things I would like us to talk about.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:27.88,0:05:32.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Not Las Vegas in itself, but the idea that gave rise to it.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:33.28,0:05:36.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,If you think of it, every other city on earth has a reason to be where it is.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:38.35,0:05:44.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Like London, you know, it's in a natural basin, so it's good for trade, or it's in a harbour,
Dialogue: 0,0:05:44.14,0:05:50.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or it's in a valley, so it's good for agriculture, you know, or it's on a hillside, so it's good for defence.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:52.06,0:05:57.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But none of this is true of Las Vegas. There is no physical reason for it to be there.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:58.12,0:06:02.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The only reason it's there is the thing that gave rise to this organization,
Dialogue: 0,0:06:03.06,0:06:07.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that affects every aspect of your life, which makes humanity what it is.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:08.18,0:06:12.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The only thing, in my opinion, which is the extraordinary power,
Dialogue: 0,0:06:12.38,0:06:17.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which is bestowed on human beings, that no other species has, so far as we can judge.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:17.99,0:06:23.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I mean the power of imagination. We take it totally for granted.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:24.33,0:06:26.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This capacity to bring into mind the things that aren't present,
Dialogue: 0,0:06:27.45,0:06:31.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and on that base to hypothesize about things that have never been, but could be.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:32.24,0:06:38.100,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Every feature of human culture, in my view, is the consequence of this unique capacity.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:38.100,0:06:42.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, other creatures may have something like it, other creatures sing,
Dialogue: 0,0:06:43.10,0:06:49.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but they don't write operas. Other creatures are agile, but they don't form Olympic Committees.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:50.40,0:06:53.09,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,They communicate, but they don't have festivals of theatre.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:53.41,0:06:58.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,They have structures, but they don't build buildings and furnish them.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:59.22,0:07:03.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We are unique in this capacity, a capacity that has produced the most extraordinary diversity
Dialogue: 0,0:07:03.29,0:07:08.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of human culture, of enterprise, of innovation, 6000 languages currently spoken on earth.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:08.67,0:07:13.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And the great adventure which produced, among other things, the Royal Society of Arts
Dialogue: 0,0:07:13.96,0:07:15.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and all of its works.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:16.55,0:07:25.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But I believe that we systematically destroy this capacity in our children and in ourselves.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:26.29,0:07:30.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, I pick my words carefully. I don't say "deliberately".
Dialogue: 0,0:07:31.33,0:07:35.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I don't think it's deliberate, but it happens to be systematic.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:35.95,0:07:40.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We do it routinely, unthinkingly, and that's the worst of it.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:40.98,0:07:46.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Because we take for granted certain ideas about education, about children,
Dialogue: 0,0:07:46.33,0:07:52.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,about what it is to be educated, about social need and social utility, about economic purpose.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:52.94,0:07:57.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We take these ideas for granted, and they turn out not to be true.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:57.77,0:08:03.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Many ideas that seem obvious turn out not to be true. That was really the great adventure of the Enlightenment:
Dialogue: 0,0:08:04.02,0:08:06.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,ideas that seemed obvious that turned out not to be true.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:07.01,0:08:12.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Ironically though, I believe, the legacy of the Enlightenment is now hampering
Dialogue: 0,0:08:12.44,0:08:14.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the reforms that are needed in education.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:15.36,0:08:20.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We have grown up in a system of public education which is dominated by two ideas.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:21.00,0:08:28.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,One of them is a conception of economic utility. And you can illustrate that directly.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:29.26,0:08:35.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's implicit in the structure of the school curriculum. It's simply present.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:36.31,0:08:41.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,There is in every school system on earth a hierarchy of subjects. You know it: you went through it.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:41.59,0:08:46.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,If you're in education, you have probably subscribed to it, or you have contributed to it, somehow.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:47.68,0:08:55.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,When we moved to America, we put our kids into high school, and it was recognizable.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:55.97,0:09:01.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The curriculum is totally recognizable: Math, science and the English language at the top;
Dialogue: 0,0:09:01.31,0:09:03.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,then the humanities, down, and the arts way down at the bottom.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:04.03,0:09:08.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And in the arts, there is always another hierarchy, art and music are always thought to be more important
Dialogue: 0,0:09:08.59,0:09:10.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,than drama and dance.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:11.32,0:09:15.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,There isn't a school in the country that I know of - a school system, let me be clear -
Dialogue: 0,0:09:15.38,0:09:21.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,there isn't a school system actually anywhere that teaches dance every day, systematically,
Dialogue: 0,0:09:21.28,0:09:27.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to every child, in the way that we require them to learn mathematics.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:27.64,0:09:34.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now I'm not against mathematics, on the contrary. But why is dance such a looser in the system?
Dialogue: 0,0:09:34.85,0:09:39.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Well, I think, one of the reasons is, people never say any economic point in it.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:39.66,0:09:43.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So there's an economic judgment that's made in the structure of school curriculum.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:44.53,0:09:48.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I'm sure it was true of you: you probably found yourself benignly steered away
Dialogue: 0,0:09:48.90,0:09:53.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,from things you were good at in school, towards things that other people advised would be
Dialogue: 0,0:09:53.62,0:09:55.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,more useful to you.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:55.54,0:10:00.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So effectively, our school curricula are based on the premiss that there are two sorts of subjects:
Dialogue: 0,0:10:02.12,0:10:08.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,useful ones and useless ones. And the useless ones fall away, eventually.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:08.54,0:10:13.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And they fall away especially when money starts to become tight, as it always is.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:14.46,0:10:20.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,George Bush was in town, today, wasn't he? I just thought I'd share the pain, that was all.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:22.76,0:10:32.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I just - I'm feeling it. No: President Bush, as I call him, was responsible, with others,
Dialogue: 0,0:10:32.74,0:10:39.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for a cross-party piece of legislation in America, to reform public education.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:39.69,0:10:44.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I have had lots of conversations about it, now I live in America, which I shall keep saying, by the way,
Dialogue: 0,0:10:44.85,0:10:53.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to make you feel bad, OK? I live in California and you don't. So there.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:55.75,0:11:00.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,No, when I got to America, I was told that the Americans don't get irony.
Dialogue: 0,0:11:01.85,0:11:07.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This is not true. This is a British conceit. I feel OK about it, because there are other ones.
Dialogue: 0,0:11:07.32,0:11:09.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,When we went to America, we were given a guidebook
Dialogue: 0,0:11:09.40,0:11:16.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of how to behave in America - honestly, by our removals agent. How to behave in America.
Dialogue: 0,0:11:16.67,0:11:20.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'm handing it out now to all the Americans I meet now, like: "You do it, you do it", you know
Dialogue: 0,0:11:21.55,0:11:25.51,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Let's all behave properly, shall we?" But one of the things that was said in it was:
Dialogue: 0,0:11:25.51,0:11:29.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Don't hug people in America. They don't like it." Honestly, it's explicit:
Dialogue: 0,0:11:29.38,0:11:34.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Don't hug them, they don't like it." This turns out to be nonsens. They love it.
Dialogue: 0,0:11:34.25,0:11:37.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,People in my experience love getting hugged in America, but we thought they didn't, so
Dialogue: 0,0:11:37.44,0:11:41.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for the first year, we had kept our arms at our sides at social gatherings, for fear of committing offence
Dialogue: 0,0:11:41.66,0:11:45.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and this all added to the idea that we tipified British reserve, you know,
Dialogue: 0,0:11:47.01,0:11:50.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or that we were some refugees from River Dance.
Dialogue: 0,0:11:52.02,0:11:58.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But I was told the Americans don't get irony. And then I came across this piece of legislation in America,
Dialogue: 0,0:11:58.80,0:12:01.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,called No Child Left Behind.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:02.36,0:12:05.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I thought, whoever came up with that title gets irony, because
Dialogue: 0,0:12:06.37,0:12:08.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,this legislation is leaving millions of children behind.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:10.08,0:12:12.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Of, course, that's not a very attractive name for a legislation,
Dialogue: 0,0:12:12.33,0:12:17.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Millions of Children Left Behind"; I can see that, but give or take a twittle,
Dialogue: 0,0:12:17.45,0:12:20.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it's the 1998 Education Act in this country.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:22.59,0:12:28.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It was the manifesto, pretty much, that inspired the work of Chris Woodhead, I believe,
Dialogue: 0,0:12:28.84,0:12:30.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,during his time at OFSTED.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:30.68,0:12:36.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now I think this is important, because what it represents to me, is the ideology of education,
Dialogue: 0,0:12:36.48,0:12:38.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,written large, and that's the problem.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:38.43,0:12:46.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So let me talk about changing paradigms. My firm conviction is that we have to do much, much more
Dialogue: 0,0:12:46.40,0:12:50.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,than is currently happening. Every country on earth, at the moment, is reforming public education.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:52.24,0:12:57.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I don't know of an exception. Mind you, what's new? We've always been reforming public education.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:57.35,0:12:59.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But we are doing it now consistently and systematically, all over the place.
Dialogue: 0,0:13:00.21,0:13:05.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,There are two reasons for it. The first one is economic. People try to work out
Dialogue: 0,0:13:05.74,0:13:11.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,how do we educate our children to take their place in the economies of the 21st century?
Dialogue: 0,0:13:11.44,0:13:16.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,How do we do that, even if we can't anticipate what the economy will look like
Dialogue: 0,0:13:16.15,0:13:20.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,at the end of next week, as the recent turmoil is demonstrating.
Dialogue: 0,0:13:21.15,0:13:26.61,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,How do we do that? The second, though, is cultural. Every country on earth is trying to figure out,
Dialogue: 0,0:13:26.61,0:13:31.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,how do we educate our children so they have a sense of cultural identity
Dialogue: 0,0:13:31.20,0:13:35.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and so that we can pass on the cultural genes of our communities,
Dialogue: 0,0:13:35.20,0:13:39.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,while being part of the process of globalization? How do we square that circle?
Dialogue: 0,0:13:41.22,0:13:48.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Most countries, I believe, are doing what we were doing in 1988, operating on the premiss
Dialogue: 0,0:13:48.16,0:13:53.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that the challenge is to reform education, to make it a better version of what it was.
Dialogue: 0,0:13:54.32,0:14:00.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,In other words, the challenge is just to do better what we did before, but improve.
Dialogue: 0,0:14:00.42,0:14:04.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And we have to raise standards. And people say we have to raise standards, as if this is a breakthrough.
Dialogue: 0,0:14:05.74,0:14:09.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Like really, yes, we should. Why would you lower them, you know?
Dialogue: 0,0:14:11.00,0:14:13.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I haven't come across an argument that persuaded me of lowering them.
Dialogue: 0,0:14:14.17,0:14:19.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But raising them - of course we should raise them. The problem is that the current system of education,
Dialogue: 0,0:14:20.51,0:14:29.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in my view and experience, was designed and conceived and structured for a different age.
Dialogue: 0,0:14:30.02,0:14:37.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It was conceived in the intellectual culture of the Enlightenment, and in the economic circumstances
Dialogue: 0,0:14:37.84,0:14:42.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of the Industrial Revolution. Before the middle of the 19th century, there were no systems
Dialogue: 0,0:14:42.69,0:14:46.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of public education - not really, I mean, you could get educated by Jesuits, you know,
Dialogue: 0,0:14:46.74,0:14:52.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,if you had the money. But public education, paid for from taxation, compulsory to everybody
Dialogue: 0,0:14:52.76,0:14:55.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and free at the point of delivery, that was a revolutionary idea.
Dialogue: 0,0:14:56.33,0:15:02.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And many people objected to it. They said: "It's not possible for many street kids,
Dialogue: 0,0:15:02.34,0:15:05.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,working-class children, to benefit from public education: they're incapable of learning
Dialogue: 0,0:15:05.66,0:15:07.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to read and write, and why are we spending time on this?"
Dialogue: 0,0:15:08.04,0:15:11.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So there is also built into it, the whole series of assumptions about
Dialogue: 0,0:15:11.43,0:15:19.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,social structuring capacity. But it was designed for its purpose, which why, as the public system evolved
Dialogue: 0,0:15:19.29,0:15:26.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,into the 19th and early 20th century, we ended up with a very broad base of elementary education,
Dialogue: 0,0:15:26.88,0:15:31.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,junior schools. Everybody went to that. My father's father, my grandfather, he went to that.
Dialogue: 0,0:15:31.70,0:15:36.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,He left school by the time he was 12. Most people did, then, at the turn of the century.
Dialogue: 0,0:15:37.64,0:15:42.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And then, gradually, we introduced a layer above it, a secondary education,
Dialogue: 0,0:15:43.02,0:15:46.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and some people went into that, but my father left school at 14, having gone into that.
Dialogue: 0,0:15:47.18,0:15:50.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And then, a small university sector, set across the top of it.
Dialogue: 0,0:15:51.04,0:15:55.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And the assumption was that people would work up and a few would get to the top,
Dialogue: 0,0:15:55.50,0:16:01.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and would go to university. It was modelled on the economic premisses of industrialism,
Dialogue: 0,0:16:02.02,0:16:07.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that is, that we needed a broad base of people to do manual, blue-collar work
Dialogue: 0,0:16:07.63,0:16:11.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and, you know, roughly, they could do language and arithmetic;
Dialogue: 0,0:16:11.46,0:16:16.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a smaller group who would go to administrative work: that was what the grammar schools were for;
Dialogue: 0,0:16:16.64,0:16:20.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and an even smaller group who would go off and run the Empire for us, and become
Dialogue: 0,0:16:20.89,0:16:24.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the lawyers, and the judges, and the doctors - and they were the universities.
Dialogue: 0,0:16:25.51,0:16:28.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, I simplify, but that's essentially how the thing came about.
Dialogue: 0,0:16:28.93,0:16:34.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And it was driven by an economic imperative of the time, but running right through it,
Dialogue: 0,0:16:35.05,0:16:41.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was an intellectual model of the mind, which was essentially the Enlightenment's view of intelligence,
Dialogue: 0,0:16:41.46,0:16:45.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that real intelligence consists in this capacity for a certain type of deductive reasoning,
Dialogue: 0,0:16:45.62,0:16:50.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and a knowledge of the classics, originally, what we come to think of as academic ability.
Dialogue: 0,0:16:50.94,0:16:55.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And this is deep in the gene pool of public education, that there are really two types of people:
Dialogue: 0,0:16:55.68,0:16:59.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,academic and non academic; smart people and non smart people.
Dialogue: 0,0:16:59.95,0:17:03.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And the consequence of that is that many brilliant people think they're not,
Dialogue: 0,0:17:04.15,0:17:07.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because they're being judged against this particular view of the mind.
Dialogue: 0,0:17:08.14,0:17:16.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So we have twin pillars: economic and intellectual. And my view is that this model
Dialogue: 0,0:17:16.35,0:17:19.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,has caused chaos in many people's lives.
Dialogue: 0,0:17:19.76,0:17:22.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It has been great for some: there are people who benefitted wonderfully from it.
Dialogue: 0,0:17:22.79,0:17:27.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But most people have not, and it has created a massive problem.
Dialogue: 0,0:17:28.45,0:17:31.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I spoke at a conference a couple of - well, the TED conference that Matthew refered to.
Dialogue: 0,0:17:33.42,0:17:40.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,One of the other speakers was Al Gore, or Al, as I refer to him.
Dialogue: 0,0:17:44.25,0:17:48.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Al Gore gave the talk at the TED conference - by the way, if you don't know the TED conference,
Dialogue: 0,0:17:48.26,0:17:51.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I do recommend you visit the website, TED.com: it is fantastic.
Dialogue: 0,0:17:52.67,0:17:57.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But Al Gore gave the talk that became the movie "Inconvenient Truth".
Dialogue: 0,0:17:58.73,0:18:04.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Al Gore's view, which isn't his, he'd be the first to say it, it dates back to Rachel Carson
Dialogue: 0,0:18:04.31,0:18:11.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and earlier. It actually dates back, if you look, even to the work of Linnaeus in the 18th centry,
Dialogue: 0,0:18:11.49,0:18:14.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it dates back to Franklin, it dates back to the work of this society.
Dialogue: 0,0:18:15.22,0:18:19.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,A concern with the ecology of the natural world, and the sustainability of industrialism
Dialogue: 0,0:18:19.76,0:18:23.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in the 17th and 18th century, they were concerned about them.
Dialogue: 0,0:18:24.62,0:18:28.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But his work is an attempt to put the case back into a modern context.
Dialogue: 0,0:18:28.60,0:18:36.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I believe he's right, and it's not just his view. A group of geologists have recently published a paper,
Dialogue: 0,0:18:36.62,0:18:42.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in which they argue that the earth has entered a new geological period.
Dialogue: 0,0:18:44.06,0:18:50.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Classically, the view is that since the end of the last Ice Age, about 12'000 years ago,
Dialogue: 0,0:18:50.12,0:18:52.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,we are in a period called the Holocene period.
Dialogue: 0,0:18:53.26,0:18:57.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,They believe we've entered a new period. And they say, if people were to - a future generation
Dialogue: 0,0:18:57.56,0:19:01.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of geologists were to come to earth, they would see the evidence of it,
Dialogue: 0,0:19:01.34,0:19:06.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of a change in the earth's geological personality. They would see it in the evidence of
Dialogue: 0,0:19:07.28,0:19:11.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,carbon deposits in the earth's crust, the acidification of oceans,
Dialogue: 0,0:19:11.60,0:19:16.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the evidence of the mass extinction of species, the change in the earth's atmosphere,
Dialogue: 0,0:19:17.01,0:19:18.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and hundreds of other indicators.
Dialogue: 0,0:19:19.67,0:19:23.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,They say it's unmistakably, in their view, a new geological period.
Dialogue: 0,0:19:23.58,0:19:30.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,A series of Nobel scientists have agreed to this view. They are provisionally calling this, not the holocene
Dialogue: 0,0:19:30.17,0:19:38.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but the anthropocene. What they mean by that is a geological age created by the activities of people,
Dialogue: 0,0:19:39.27,0:19:42.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,as in anthropos. And they say there is no historical questioning of this.
Dialogue: 0,0:19:43.02,0:19:50.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And this is really what I want to get to. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, William Shipley,
Dialogue: 0,0:19:50.42,0:19:54.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the great figures of the Enlightenment, both in politics and science, and the arts,
Dialogue: 0,0:19:55.75,0:20:01.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,were conceiving public education, and civic structures, and politics of duty
Dialogue: 0,0:20:02.07,0:20:08.61,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,at a time of revolutionary turmoil. It was the age of revolutions in France, in America,
Dialogue: 0,0:20:08.92,0:20:11.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,not long after our civil disturbance here,
Dialogue: 0,0:20:11.90,0:20:16.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,at a time of extraordinary intellectual adventures and new horizons, extraordinary innovation.
Dialogue: 0,0:20:16.72,0:20:20.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Before them, there was nothing, really, that ever lead to an age of such innovation
Dialogue: 0,0:20:20.82,0:20:23.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and such extraordinary change - the rate of it.
Dialogue: 0,0:20:24.26,0:20:27.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And it was a fair caracterization of the times.
Dialogue: 0,0:20:28.61,0:20:32.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But there is every evidence to show now that what was happening then is as nothing
Dialogue: 0,0:20:32.44,0:20:33.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to what is happening now.
Dialogue: 0,0:20:34.04,0:20:38.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I believe the changes taking place on earth now are without precedent,
Dialogue: 0,0:20:38.70,0:20:41.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in terms of their character and their implications.
Dialogue: 0,0:20:41.96,0:20:48.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And our best salvation is to develop this capacity for imagination, and do it systematically
Dialogue: 0,0:20:48.26,0:20:52.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,through public education, and to connect people with their true talents.
Dialogue: 0,0:20:52.26,0:20:55.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We simply can't afford this devastation anymore.
Dialogue: 0,0:20:56.57,0:20:59.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So when Al Gore talks about this, I believe him. And I think that if you don't think that
Dialogue: 0,0:20:59.98,0:21:03.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,there is a crisis in the world's natural environment, then you're not paying attention.
Dialogue: 0,0:21:04.30,0:21:08.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I would take the option to leave the planet soon, right?
Dialogue: 0,0:21:09.77,0:21:13.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You see, I believe that there is a parallel climate crisis.
Dialogue: 0,0:21:15.25,0:21:17.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now one of them is probably enough for you, honestly.
Dialogue: 0,0:21:17.87,0:21:21.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You know: I think now I'm fine, one is good. I don't need a second one.
Dialogue: 0,0:21:22.10,0:21:26.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But there is a second one, and it's what my work is about, and I guess what many of you
Dialogue: 0,0:21:26.69,0:21:30.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,will be concerned about, and I know, what Edge is concerned about,
Dialogue: 0,0:21:30.13,0:21:32.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and what Matthew and the RSA's committee are concerned about.
Dialogue: 0,0:21:32.52,0:21:36.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But let me put it in a particular way to you. I believe there is a global crisis,
Dialogue: 0,0:21:36.07,0:21:41.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,not only in natural resources, though I believe it - a global crisis in human resources.
Dialogue: 0,0:21:43.22,0:21:47.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I believe that the parallel with the crisis in the natural world is exact.
Dialogue: 0,0:21:48.29,0:21:51.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And the costs of clearing this up are catastrophic.
Dialogue: 0,0:21:51.40,0:21:58.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'll give you a couple of quick examples. In California, the State Government last year spent
Dialogue: 0,0:21:59.70,0:22:04.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,about 3 billion dollars on the State University system.
Dialogue: 0,0:22:04.88,0:22:11.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,These are public figures. They spent over 9 billion dollars on the State prison system.
Dialogue: 0,0:22:13.07,0:22:18.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, I cannot believe that more potential criminals are born every year in California
Dialogue: 0,0:22:18.95,0:22:25.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,than potential college graduates. What you have are people in bad conditions going bad.
Dialogue: 0,0:22:26.10,0:22:28.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I remember Bernard Levin, once, he wrote in one of his articles in the Times
Dialogue: 0,0:22:28.76,0:22:33.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and he said he'd been at a dinner party, and he was asked - the question round the dinner table was:
Dialogue: 0,0:22:33.41,0:22:34.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Are people mainly good or mainly bad?".
Dialogue: 0,0:22:35.85,0:22:38.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And he said, without hesitation, they're mainly good.
Dialogue: 0,0:22:38.59,0:22:42.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,He said I was astonished to find I was in a minority round the table, a minority of one.
Dialogue: 0,0:22:42.68,0:22:46.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But he believed with Viktor Frankl, who survived the Holocaust
Dialogue: 0,0:22:46.60,0:22:50.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and saw his parents die, that for all of that, people are fundamentally good.
Dialogue: 0,0:22:50.50,0:22:55.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I believe they are fundamentally good, but there are people living in very bad circumstances and conditions.
Dialogue: 0,0:22:56.95,0:23:01.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And if you put people in poor conditions, they behave in particular ways.
Dialogue: 0,0:23:01.56,0:23:04.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So we spend a lot of our time remediating the damage.
Dialogue: 0,0:23:05.16,0:23:09.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And meanwhile, I think that the other exact parallel is that pharmaceutical companies
Dialogue: 0,0:23:10.56,0:23:14.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,are reaping a gold rush from this distress.
Dialogue: 0,0:23:16.11,0:23:23.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,If you look at the growth of antidepressants, of prescription drugs to treat depression,
Dialogue: 0,0:23:23.85,0:23:27.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to suppress people's feelings, this is a gold rush, I mean pharmaceutical companies
Dialogue: 0,0:23:27.36,0:23:29.100,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,don't want to cure depression, on the contrary.
Dialogue: 0,0:23:31.20,0:23:37.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I mean also, one of the things I saw recently is that suicide rates among 15-30 year olds
Dialogue: 0,0:23:37.68,0:23:42.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,have increased over 60% globally since the 1960's.
Dialogue: 0,0:23:42.69,0:23:44.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's one of the largest causes of death among the young people.
Dialogue: 0,0:23:45.42,0:23:50.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,What is that? You know, people born with hope and optimism, who decide to check out,
Dialogue: 0,0:23:50.42,0:23:51.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because they can't cope.
Dialogue: 0,0:23:51.90,0:23:56.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, I don't say education is part of that, or responsible for it,
Dialogue: 0,0:23:56.31,0:23:59.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but it contributes to it. That's really all I want to say.
Dialogue: 0,0:23:59.65,0:24:04.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So this crisis of human resources is, I think, absolutely urgent and palpable.
Dialogue: 0,0:24:05.01,0:24:11.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So the challenge, to me, is not to reform education, but to transform it into something else.
Dialogue: 0,0:24:12.35,0:24:15.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I think we have to come to a definite set of assumptions.
Dialogue: 0,0:24:16.06,0:24:18.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, I say this advisedly, because I have been involved in all kinds of initiatives
Dialogue: 0,0:24:20.10,0:24:25.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,over my professional life. I started out in drama work, I moved and began some school's project,
Dialogue: 0,0:24:25.78,0:24:28.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,some of the people in the room I've known for years and worked with for the years,
Dialogue: 0,0:24:29.00,0:24:30.61,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and I've had a long association here.
Dialogue: 0,0:24:30.76,0:24:36.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,One of the great initiatives of the RSA, in the 1980's, was "Education for Capability".
Dialogue: 0,0:24:36.48,0:24:40.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You should look at "Education for Capability", it said extraordinary useful and practical things,
Dialogue: 0,0:24:40.14,0:24:44.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and there were wonderful people around it: Charles Handy, whom I got to know recently,
Dialogue: 0,0:24:44.92,0:24:49.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,well, not recently, but I've got to know well in recent years: he was chairman here, of the RSA;
Dialogue: 0,0:24:49.94,0:24:54.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Tyrell Burgess, Corelli Barnet, Patrick Lutchens,
Dialogue: 0,0:24:54.12,0:24:57.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I shared an appartment, when I was a student, with Patrick's son -
Dialogue: 0,0:24:59.02,0:25:05.100,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and - a kind of galaxy of really powerful thinkers - John Tomlinson who was chairman here for a while,
Dialogue: 0,0:25:06.10,0:25:07.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,who was with me at Warwick University.
Dialogue: 0,0:25:08.45,0:25:12.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,There's been a long tradition of arguing for the change, arguing for the alternative.
Dialogue: 0,0:25:12.74,0:25:16.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And yet successive governments come in and do what they did before
Dialogue: 0,0:25:17.17,0:25:22.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And this really worries me - and I speak personally - you know, that after all the optimism I felt
Dialogue: 0,0:25:22.22,0:25:29.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,10 years ago, I feel that we've had, of the past 10 years - a kind of myriads of policies,
Dialogue: 0,0:25:30.26,0:25:34.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but too few principles. I can't see what they've added up to.
Dialogue: 0,0:25:35.17,0:25:38.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I say that because I didn't see it before, and I don't see it anywhere else.
Dialogue: 0,0:25:38.52,0:25:41.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I mean there are some countries, which I feel are getting this right, but we're not.
Dialogue: 0,0:25:41.32,0:25:45.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And the reason is, because we're not fundamentally changing the underlying assumptions of the system,
Dialogue: 0,0:25:45.82,0:25:50.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which should deal with intelligence, ability, economic purpose and what people need.
Dialogue: 0,0:25:50.53,0:25:54.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We still educate people from the outside in. We figure out what the country needs
Dialogue: 0,0:25:54.84,0:26:00.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and we try and get it to conform with it, rather than seeing what makes people drive forward
Dialogue: 0,0:26:00.34,0:26:05.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and building education systems around a model of personhood, which is what I think we should come to.
Dialogue: 0,0:26:05.71,0:26:11.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So let me - I just want to show you a couple of quick slides to - I don't have to,
Dialogue: 0,0:26:11.19,0:26:13.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but as I've gone through the trouble of preparing them, frankly -
Dialogue: 0,0:26:17.56,0:26:19.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I just want to give you an example of a couple of things, here.
Dialogue: 0,0:26:20.03,0:26:22.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Oh, by the way, so many things that Matthew kindly said, are in this book.
Dialogue: 0,0:26:23.09,0:26:32.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This book, by the way, is terrific. OK? You cound't do better than buying this book.
Dialogue: 0,0:26:32.90,0:26:34.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That is, unless you buy this book,
Dialogue: 0,0:26:36.59,0:26:40.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which is a new book, which is coming out in January from Penguin. I'm very excited about this book.
Dialogue: 0,0:26:40.94,0:26:44.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This book is about the nature of human talent and how people discover it.
Dialogue: 0,0:26:44.62,0:26:49.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's based on the premiss that people do their best when they do the thing they love,
Dialogue: 0,0:26:49.74,0:26:56.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,when they are in their element. So I was trying to get to what that is. What is it to be in your element?
Dialogue: 0,0:26:56.84,0:27:01.51,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I spoke to scientists and artists and business leaders and poets and parents and kids.
Dialogue: 0,0:27:01.82,0:27:06.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And it seems to me, the evidence is absolutely persuasive, when people connect to this
Dialogue: 0,0:27:06.42,0:27:11.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,powerful sense of talent in themselves, discover what it is they can do, they become somebody else.
Dialogue: 0,0:27:11.83,0:27:15.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And that, to me, is the premiss of building a new education system.
Dialogue: 0,0:27:15.84,0:27:19.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's not about bringing force in the old model, but reconstituting our sense of self.
Dialogue: 0,0:27:19.93,0:27:27.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And it happens to synergize - errh, is that a verb? I'm not sure - with the new economic purposes.
Dialogue: 0,0:27:30.79,0:27:34.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,There are 2 big drives of change, currently: one is technology, you know that?
Dialogue: 0,0:27:35.74,0:27:40.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This is a brain cell. What I want to draw on it, what I want to underline,
Dialogue: 0,0:27:40.70,0:27:44.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is that technology is moving faster than most people really, truthfully, understand.
Dialogue: 0,0:27:44.84,0:27:49.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Can I ask you, how many of you here consider yourselves to be baby-boomers or older?
Dialogue: 0,0:27:51.08,0:27:58.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I thought so. All of you - who is not? who consider yourselves to be a generation X or millenial? OK
Dialogue: 0,0:27:58.99,0:28:03.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You boomer types or older - Actually, no. If you are over 30, would you put your hand up
Dialogue: 0,0:28:03.50,0:28:05.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,if you are wearing a wristwatch?
Dialogue: 0,0:28:06.87,0:28:14.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,There we go, thank you. Just curious. No, this is interesting.
Dialogue: 0,0:28:14.48,0:28:19.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Ask a roomful of teenagers the same question. Ask them if they wear wristwatches. They mainly don't.
Dialogue: 0,0:28:19.84,0:28:24.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And the reason is - I wanted to make 2 points - the reason they don't wear wristwateches
Dialogue: 0,0:28:24.47,0:28:27.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is because they don't see the point. Because for them, time is everywhere.
Dialogue: 0,0:28:28.04,0:28:31.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You know, it's on their iPhones, their iPods their mobiles - it's everywhere.
Dialogue: 0,0:28:32.18,0:28:37.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,No, why would you wear this? And my daughter comes on: "Why should I put a special device
Dialogue: 0,0:28:37.43,0:28:45.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,on my wrist to tell the time?" And she said, "Plus, it only does one thing." you know, like,
Dialogue: 0,0:28:46.02,0:28:51.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"How lame is that? A single-function device, so you - have you cranked up?"
Dialogue: 0,0:28:53.25,0:28:58.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But we take it for granted, don't we? You have other options, but this thing I mean about
Dialogue: 0,0:28:58.18,0:29:01.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,taking for granted is important. It's the things we take for granted that we need to kind of
Dialogue: 0,0:29:01.86,0:29:05.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,identify and question. I mean, did you think about putting your warch on this morning?
Dialogue: 0,0:29:05.25,0:29:12.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Truthfully, was it like an agony? "Shall I" - you know - "Is it a 'watchy' day? I just don't know, really.
Dialogue: 0,0:29:12.49,0:29:15.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'll put it on to be safe, you know." You don't: you just do it.
Dialogue: 0,0:29:15.47,0:29:18.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Our kids don't, and the point is of some importance. A guy called Mark Prensky made this point,
Dialogue: 0,0:29:18.95,0:29:23.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that our children live in a different world. He made - talks about the difference between
Dialogue: 0,0:29:23.46,0:29:25.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,digital natives and digital immigrants.
Dialogue: 0,0:29:25.86,0:29:30.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,If you were born - If you're under 20, you're an immigrant - you're a native.
Dialogue: 0,0:29:30.16,0:29:33.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You speak digital, you were born with this stuff and it's in your head, like a first language.
Dialogue: 0,0:29:34.17,0:29:37.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We're less so. But the point is, this is getting faster and faster and faster.
Dialogue: 0,0:29:37.77,0:29:43.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,One of the new horizons is likely to be the merging of human intelligence with information systems.
Dialogue: 0,0:29:43.79,0:29:46.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That's a brain cell, and that's a brain cell growing on a silicon chip.
Dialogue: 0,0:29:47.56,0:29:52.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Well, we see. But there are things that lie ahead, for which there are no precedent.
Dialogue: 0,0:29:53.74,0:29:57.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And the impact on culture promises to be extraordinary.
Dialogue: 0,0:29:58.40,0:30:02.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This is the other thing I want to point to, which is the curve of the wold's population.
Dialogue: 0,0:30:03.09,0:30:07.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You see, 1750, when the RSA was being established, and William Shipley was wondering
Dialogue: 0,0:30:07.26,0:30:14.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,what to do in the evenings, there were about a billion people on the whole of the earth:
Dialogue: 0,0:30:14.42,0:30:20.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,pretty evenly distributed, mostly in the far-flung parts of what became the Empire,
Dialogue: 0,0:30:20.28,0:30:23.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but a lot of them in the industrialized - what would become the industrialized economies.
Dialogue: 0,0:30:23.56,0:30:26.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,About a billion people. London was a tiny place, by comparison.
Dialogue: 0,0:30:28.56,0:30:34.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, if you look at this curve, we are at around 6 billion, and the big jump happened in 1970.
Dialogue: 0,0:30:35.44,0:30:40.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Well, from 1970 to the year 2000, where the population on earth increased by over 3 million.
Dialogue: 0,0:30:42.09,0:30:46.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,1968, remember, was the Summer of love. It's probably a coincidence.
Dialogue: 0,0:30:46.47,0:30:50.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Yes but - but we all did our bit, you know. That's all right.
Dialogue: 0,0:30:51.53,0:30:56.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But this is interesting: the dot line is the growth of population in the developed economies.
Dialogue: 0,0:30:56.60,0:30:58.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The real growth is happening in the emergent economies:
Dialogue: 0,0:30:58.63,0:31:03.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Asia, Africa, parts of South America and so on. And it's heading to 9 billion.
Dialogue: 0,0:31:03.30,0:31:06.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The other thing that's happening is that the world is becoming increasingly urbanized.
Dialogue: 0,0:31:06.35,0:31:15.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,At the beginning of the 18th century, until 19th century, most people lived in the countryside.
Dialogue: 0,0:31:15.93,0:31:20.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,About 3% of people lived in the cities. Of course, the great social movement of industrialism
Dialogue: 0,0:31:20.85,0:31:22.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was the migration to the cities.
Dialogue: 0,0:31:23.00,0:31:28.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But even so, at the turn of the 20th century, still, something less than 20% of the people lived in cities.
Dialogue: 0,0:31:28.85,0:31:34.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Currently, 50% of the world's population lives in cities. 50% of the 6 billion,
Dialogue: 0,0:31:34.81,0:31:39.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and we are heading to 60% of nine billion people living in cities -
Dialogue: 0,0:31:39.74,0:31:47.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,not here, not in UK, not in America, not in the rest of Europe, but in the emergent economies.
Dialogue: 0,0:31:47.22,0:31:50.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, this massive migration is without precedent.
Dialogue: 0,0:31:51.05,0:31:56.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So these aren't going to be groovy cities, you know, with information booths and property taxes and Starbucks.
Dialogue: 0,0:31:56.22,0:32:00.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,These are massive, sprawling, vernacular cities, probably more like this.
Dialogue: 0,0:32:02.10,0:32:07.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This is Caracas, in Venezuela. A massive and rapidly growing metropolis.
Dialogue: 0,0:32:08.46,0:32:14.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The greater Tokyo, at the moment, has a population of 35 million people, which is more
Dialogue: 0,0:32:14.10,0:32:17.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,than the entire population of Canada, in one place.
Dialogue: 0,0:32:17.91,0:32:22.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now about the middle of the century, there may be 20 megacities, over 500 cities over a million.
Dialogue: 0,0:32:22.95,0:32:27.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You can see my point, here, that these are unprecedented circumstances,
Dialogue: 0,0:32:27.73,0:32:33.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,an unprecedented drain on the earth's resources, an unprecedented demand for innovation,
Dialogue: 0,0:32:33.47,0:32:38.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for fresh thinking, fresh social systems, fresh ways forgetting people to connect with themselves
Dialogue: 0,0:32:38.88,0:32:41.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and have lives with purpose and meaning.
Dialogue: 0,0:32:43.54,0:32:49.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Education is a major part of the solution. The problem is, I believe, we are backing the wrong horses.
Dialogue: 0,0:32:49.70,0:32:53.100,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, there was a report by McKinsey recently, which showed this
Dialogue: 0,0:32:54.26,0:33:01.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,These are American figures. In America, since 1980 more or less, spending on education
Dialogue: 0,0:33:01.28,0:33:05.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,has increased 73% in real money.
Dialogue: 0,0:33:07.01,0:33:10.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Class sizes have gone down to historically low levels.
Dialogue: 0,0:33:11.70,0:33:17.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But on this indicator, literacy, there has been no change in achievement.
Dialogue: 0,0:33:17.88,0:33:19.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,More money, smaller classes, no change.
Dialogue: 0,0:33:20.00,0:33:26.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Drop-put rates are increasing, graduation rates are declining: it's a major problem.
Dialogue: 0,0:33:27.18,0:33:32.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The problem is, they're trying to meet the future by doing what they did in the past.
Dialogue: 0,0:33:32.28,0:33:37.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And on the way, they're alienating millions of kids who don't see any purpose in going to school.
Dialogue: 0,0:33:37.99,0:33:42.09,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,When we went to school, we were kept there with a story, which was that if you worked hard
Dialogue: 0,0:33:42.09,0:33:45.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and did well, and got a college degree, you would have a job.
Dialogue: 0,0:33:45.44,0:33:48.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Our kids don't believe that. And they're right not to, by the way.
Dialogue: 0,0:33:48.86,0:33:53.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You're better having a degree than not, but it's not a guarantee anymore, and particularly not if
Dialogue: 0,0:33:53.56,0:33:57.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the route to it marginalizes most of the things that you think are important about yourself.
Dialogue: 0,0:33:57.95,0:34:01.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And one thing that sits right in the middle of this is this idea
Dialogue: 0,0:34:01.94,0:34:04.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that there are academic and non academic kids, that something called vocational training,
Dialogue: 0,0:34:05.06,0:34:11.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which is not as good as academic education, that people with theoretical degrees
Dialogue: 0,0:34:11.58,0:34:20.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,are inherently better people than those who can do real craft and the kind of work which
Dialogue: 0,0:34:20.26,0:34:22.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,previously would have been venerated in Guild systems.
Dialogue: 0,0:34:22.55,0:34:27.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We have this intellectual apartheid running through education.
Dialogue: 0,0:34:27.19,0:34:30.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And so, lots of people try to defend it or to repair it.
Dialogue: 0,0:34:30.40,0:34:34.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I think we just got to reconize its mythical. And we have to strip it out of our thinking.
Dialogue: 0,0:34:36.78,0:34:39.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This is one of the consequences of it. Let me ask you another question.
Dialogue: 0,0:34:40.22,0:34:49.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,How many of you who are not - how many of you over 30 have had your tonsils removed? Be frank with me.
Dialogue: 0,0:34:49.95,0:34:57.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Come. OK. I ask you this for a reason, connected with things we take for granted.
Dialogue: 0,0:34:58.10,0:35:05.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,People of my generation, and I was born in 1950. Now, I know you don't believe that.
Dialogue: 0,0:35:05.92,0:35:08.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I can see the sense of incredulity sweeping through the room, eh?
Dialogue: 0,0:35:09.84,0:35:13.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"How could it be?", you're saying to yourselves. Well, I live in Los Angeles, you know.
Dialogue: 0,0:35:15.79,0:35:26.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I have worked on it, what can I tell you? But er, no but people of my generation, in the 50's and 60's,
Dialogue: 0,0:35:26.34,0:35:32.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and in the 40's, I guess. The minute they had a sore throat, somebody pounced on them
Dialogue: 0,0:35:32.27,0:35:38.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and took their tonsils out. That's true, isn't it? It was routine to have your tonsils removed.
Dialogue: 0,0:35:38.11,0:35:42.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You could not afford to have a ticklish cough in the 1950's,
Dialogue: 0,0:35:43.12,0:35:47.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or somebody would reach for your throat, and hey pronto, would remove your tonsils.
Dialogue: 0,0:35:47.79,0:35:51.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It was routine. Millions of tonsils were removed in that period.
Dialogue: 0,0:35:52.10,0:35:57.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,What happened to them? We don't know. I mean - I believe it's a scandal, I don't know, but -
Dialogue: 0,0:35:57.48,0:36:00.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's one of those things like Rockwell, you know, like area 56.
Dialogue: 0,0:36:00.40,0:36:03.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Somewhere in America, in a desert, there is this stockpile. Anyway.
Dialogue: 0,0:36:05.34,0:36:10.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now the thing about this is this, that nowadays, people do have tonsilectomies,
Dialogue: 0,0:36:11.88,0:36:19.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but it's not common. It's unusual to have it done. You have to have a chronic case,
Dialogue: 0,0:36:20.62,0:36:24.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,with no hope of it being repaired in some other way, to have your tonsils taken out.
Dialogue: 0,0:36:24.67,0:36:27.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,When I was growing up, they were thought to be totally disposable.
Dialogue: 0,0:36:27.14,0:36:29.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We just wipped them out and let's not have anymore nonsense out them.
Dialogue: 0,0:36:29.98,0:36:33.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And some people voluntarily had it done, so that they could get the ice cream.
Dialogue: 0,0:36:35.23,0:36:41.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Our children, this generation, do not suffer the plague of tonsilectomies.
Dialogue: 0,0:36:41.75,0:36:48.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Instead, they suffer this: this is the modern epidemic, and it is as misplaced, and it's as fictitious.
Dialogue: 0,0:36:48.42,0:36:57.09,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This is the plague of ADHD. Now, this is a map of the incidence of ADHD in America,
Dialogue: 0,0:36:57.09,0:37:03.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or prescriptions for ADHD. Don't mistake me: I don't mean to say there is no such thing
Dialogue: 0,0:37:03.46,0:37:08.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,as Attention Deficit Disorder. I'm not qualified to say if there is such a thing.
Dialogue: 0,0:37:08.53,0:37:12.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I know that a great majority of psychologists and pediatricians think there is such a thing.
Dialogue: 0,0:37:13.52,0:37:15.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But it's still a matter of debate.
Dialogue: 0,0:37:17.13,0:37:24.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,What I do know for a fact, is it's not an epidemic. I believe that these kids are being medicated
Dialogue: 0,0:37:25.05,0:37:30.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,as routinely as we had our tonsils taken out, and on the same whimsical basis,
Dialogue: 0,0:37:30.65,0:37:33.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and for the same reason: medical fashion.
Dialogue: 0,0:37:34.07,0:37:41.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Our children are living in the most intense, intensely stimulating period in the history of the earth.
Dialogue: 0,0:37:42.03,0:37:46.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,They are being besieged with information and calls to their attention
Dialogue: 0,0:37:46.32,0:37:51.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,from every platform: computers, from iPhones, from advertising hoardings,
Dialogue: 0,0:37:51.43,0:37:52.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,from hundreds of television channels.
Dialogue: 0,0:37:52.91,0:37:55.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And we are penalizing them now for getting distracted.
Dialogue: 0,0:37:57.18,0:38:02.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,from what? you know, boring stuff at school, for the most part.
Dialogue: 0,0:38:02.49,0:38:06.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It seems to me it's not a coincidence, totally, that the incidence of ADHD has risen in parallel
Dialogue: 0,0:38:06.84,0:38:08.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,with the growth of standardized testing.
Dialogue: 0,0:38:09.51,0:38:13.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, these kids are being given Ritalin, and Adrol and all manner of things -
Dialogue: 0,0:38:13.51,0:38:17.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,often quite dangerous drugs - to get them focused and calm them down.
Dialogue: 0,0:38:19.12,0:38:21.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, I know this is nonsense, immediately you see this thing,
Dialogue: 0,0:38:22.26,0:38:24.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because the light areas are where there isn't much of it.
Dialogue: 0,0:38:24.92,0:38:31.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now I live in California and people there won't pay attention for more than a minute and a half,
Dialogue: 0,0:38:31.98,0:38:36.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you know, so - but according to this, Attention Deficit Disorder increases
Dialogue: 0,0:38:36.85,0:38:38.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,as you travel East across the country.
Dialogue: 0,0:38:38.71,0:38:41.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,People start losing interest in Oklahoma,
Dialogue: 0,0:38:47.72,0:38:49.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,they can hardly think straight in Arkansas,
Dialogue: 0,0:38:50.74,0:38:53.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and by the time you get to Washington, they've lost it completely.
Dialogue: 0,0:38:54.62,0:38:56.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And there are separate reasons for that, I believe.
Dialogue: 0,0:38:58.05,0:39:03.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's a fictitious disease. I'm sorry, I don't want to say it's a fictitious condition,
Dialogue: 0,0:39:03.44,0:39:04.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it's a fictitious epidemic.
Dialogue: 0,0:39:04.94,0:39:07.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,As I was saying earlier, I have a big interest in the arts
Dialogue: 0,0:39:07.66,0:39:15.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And if you think of it, the arts - and I don't say it's exclusively the arts, I think
Dialogue: 0,0:39:15.36,0:39:19.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it's also true of science and of math - but let me - I say about the arts, particularly, because
Dialogue: 0,0:39:19.63,0:39:23.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,they are the victims of this mentality, currently, particularly.
Dialogue: 0,0:39:24.09,0:39:30.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The arts especially address the idea of aesthetic experience.
Dialogue: 0,0:39:30.54,0:39:35.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,An aesthetic experience is one in which your senses are operating at their peak.
Dialogue: 0,0:39:35.41,0:39:40.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,When you're present in the current moment, when you're resonating with the excitement of this thing
Dialogue: 0,0:39:40.14,0:39:43.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that you're experiencing, when you are fully alive.
Dialogue: 0,0:39:43.94,0:39:49.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And anaesthetic is when you shut your senses off and deaden yourself to what's happening.
Dialogue: 0,0:39:49.88,0:39:56.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And a lot of these drugs are that. We are getting our children through education by anaesthetizing them.
Dialogue: 0,0:39:57.02,0:40:00.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I think we should be doing the exact opposite. We shouldn't be putting them asleep,
Dialogue: 0,0:40:00.29,0:40:03.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,we should be waking them up to what they have inside of themselves.
Dialogue: 0,0:40:03.57,0:40:09.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But the model we have is this: its - I believe we have a system of education that is modeled on
Dialogue: 0,0:40:09.78,0:40:14.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the interest of industrialism, and in the image of it.
Dialogue: 0,0:40:14.72,0:40:19.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'll give you a couple of examples. Schools are still pretty much organized on factory lines:
Dialogue: 0,0:40:19.21,0:40:24.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,ringing bells, separate facilities, specialized into separate subjects.
Dialogue: 0,0:40:24.92,0:40:30.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We still educate children by batches, you know, we put them through the system by age group.
Dialogue: 0,0:40:30.92,0:40:36.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Why do we do that? you know, Why is there this assumption that the most important thing
Dialogue: 0,0:40:36.26,0:40:40.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,kids have in common is how old they are? You know, it's like the most important thing about them
Dialogue: 0,0:40:40.44,0:40:45.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is their date of manufacture. I mean, well I know kids who are much better than an other kids
Dialogue: 0,0:40:45.12,0:40:49.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of the same age in different disciplines, you know, or at different times of the day.
Dialogue: 0,0:40:49.16,0:40:52.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Or better in small groups than in large groups. Or sometimes, they want to be on their own.
Dialogue: 0,0:40:52.85,0:40:57.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,If you're interested in the model of learning, you don't start from this production line mentality.
Dialogue: 0,0:40:57.11,0:40:59.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,These are some of the keywords in the industrial model:
Dialogue: 0,0:40:59.56,0:41:04.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Utility, which shapes the curriculum; linearity, which informs choices and the assumptions
Dialogue: 0,0:41:04.80,0:41:06.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of what matters and what doesn't.
Dialogue: 0,0:41:06.57,0:41:10.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's essentially about conformity, increasingly, it's about that, if you look at the growth
Dialogue: 0,0:41:10.08,0:41:14.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of standardized testing and standardized curricula. And it's about standardization.
Dialogue: 0,0:41:14.100,0:41:17.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, for reasons we'll come to before we're done,
Dialogue: 0,0:41:17.20,0:41:18.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I believe we have to go in the exact opposite direction.
Dialogue: 0,0:41:19.05,0:41:23.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That's what I mean by changing the paradigm. We have to question what we take for granted.
Dialogue: 0,0:41:23.86,0:41:27.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The problem in questioning what we take for granted is that we don't know what it is.
Dialogue: 0,0:41:27.27,0:41:29.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Let's have a quick read of this.
Dialogue: 0,0:41:29.17,0:41:32.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(B Russell: man as 4 astronomer or 4 Hamlet or both?)
Dialogue: 0,0:41:32.08,0:41:35.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I love this quote. As you can see, it's from Bertrand Russell.
Dialogue: 0,0:41:37.56,0:41:42.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And it seems to me to be the quintessential question of Western philosophy, you know.
Dialogue: 0,0:41:43.09,0:41:49.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,When it comes to it, what is this? Are we all that Hamlet thought we were,
Dialogue: 0,0:41:50.09,0:41:53.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or are we just a kind of cosmic accident of no importance?
Dialogue: 0,0:41:53.48,0:41:59.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I got very interested in this first part of the question, this "small, unimportant planet".
Dialogue: 0,0:42:01.70,0:42:05.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Well, how small, you know, how unimportant is this planet?
Dialogue: 0,0:42:05.52,0:42:10.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's hard to get an image of this, isn't it, because, if you think of it,
Dialogue: 0,0:42:10.27,0:42:14.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the distances of space are so vast, you know, like for example, this is an image from the Hubble telescope.
Dialogue: 0,0:42:14.45,0:42:16.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This is the Magellanic cloud.
Dialogue: 0,0:42:18.05,0:42:24.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Well, you know, distance in space is measured in light-years, distance that light travels in a year,
Dialogue: 0,0:42:24.38,0:42:30.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which is far, truthfully. I mean that's farther than Brighton, you know, really.
Dialogue: 0,0:42:32.05,0:42:37.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now that's 170'000 light years. I mean, can you get your head round them?
Dialogue: 0,0:42:37.82,0:42:39.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's just: oh, it's big.
Dialogue: 0,0:42:40.35,0:42:42.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,On Wednesday .... all of that
Dialogue: 0,0:42:42.17,0:42:45.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The problem with getting any sense of how big the earth is, or small is, the distances are so immense
Dialogue: 0,0:42:45.39,0:42:49.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that they blear our perception of relative size. So I came across this image.
Dialogue: 0,0:42:49.51,0:42:51.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,... it is on the internet, I just quickly want to show them to you.
Dialogue: 0,0:42:52.20,0:42:55.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I think they are fantastic. I had them rerendered for your benefit.
Dialogue: 0,0:42:56.44,0:43:01.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,These are pictures of - somebody had the brilliant idea of taking the Earth out of the sky
Dialogue: 0,0:43:03.23,0:43:05.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and lining it up with the other - with some other planets in the solar system
Dialogue: 0,0:43:05.81,0:43:12.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for purpose of comparison of size. So it's like a team photo, you know, of some of the planets
Dialogue: 0,0:43:12.87,0:43:15.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in the solar system and beyond. It starts with this:
Dialogue: 0,0:43:18.73,0:43:24.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,..... I love that image. ..... I think we're looking good, that's what the first example is.
Dialogue: 0,0:43:27.34,0:43:30.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,There are a couple of things I want to say about - a couple of things I want to say about this.
Dialogue: 0,0:43:30.45,0:43:34.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The first is that I think we are less concerned than we were about being invaded by Martian hoards.
Dialogue: 0,0:43:36.90,0:43:43.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Aren't we? I mean, bring it on, I feel, like, you and whose army - I think we are feeling.
Dialogue: 0,0:43:45.82,0:43:49.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The second thing is that Pluto is no longer a planet. And frankly, we can see why, now, can't we?
Dialogue: 0,0:43:49.94,0:43:53.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I mean, what were we thinking, you know, it's a boulder, frankly.
Dialogue: 0,0:43:55.17,0:44:01.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So pull back a bit. though. And it's a bit less encouraging, isn't it?
Dialogue: 0,0:44:05.50,0:44:09.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,don't you think? A bit less encouraging. And Pluto is a kind of cosmic embarassment now,
Dialogue: 0,0:44:09.45,0:44:18.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,so we don't seem to (contr). But we know the sun is a big deal. But how big exactly is the sun,
Dialogue: 0,0:44:18.40,0:44:22.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,compared to the earth? So this is - I checked this with some astrophysicists, they said,
Dialogue: 0,0:44:22.36,0:44:26.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,yes, this would be about right. Here we are with the sun in the picture.
Dialogue: 0,0:44:29.94,0:44:34.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Did you know that? But keep your eye on the sun, because that's not the biggest thing on the block.
Dialogue: 0,0:44:35.90,0:44:40.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This the sun against some other objects not in our solar system,
Dialogue: 0,0:44:40.38,0:44:41.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but that you can see in the night sky.
Dialogue: 0,0:44:44.08,0:44:50.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So Jupiter is one pixel, now, and the earth is gone. So we ought to be friends with Arcturus.
Dialogue: 0,0:44:53.40,0:44:55.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But keep your eye on Arcturus for a minute.
Dialogue: 0,0:44:59.11,0:45:01.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So I think our bet is on Antares.
Dialogue: 0,0:45:01.38,0:45:04.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I mean, that's extraordinary, isn't it?
Dialogue: 0,0:45:04.82,0:45:13.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So, go back to that, and we are infinitesimally, pitifully tiny in the great cosmic scheme.
Dialogue: 0,0:45:13.80,0:45:15.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, I just want to say a couple of things, quickly.
Dialogue: 0,0:45:15.98,0:45:24.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The first is, whatever you woke up worrying about, this morning, really, get over it.
Dialogue: 0,0:45:24.72,0:45:29.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Honestly, make the call and move on.
Dialogue: 0,0:45:30.94,0:45:40.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But the second thing is this: that this may be, but we do have this extraodinary power.
Dialogue: 0,0:45:40.28,0:45:46.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I can put it this way: we have a power, which enables us to conceive
Dialogue: 0,0:45:46.26,0:45:47.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of our own insignificance.
Dialogue: 0,0:45:48.82,0:45:54.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,No other species on earth is sitting around, getting anxiety attacks over these images, you know.
Dialogue: 0,0:45:54.75,0:46:00.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You don't see other species, in little forest clearings, saying, "I have no idea that you have -
Dialogue: 0,0:46:00.73,0:46:07.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I mean, trust me. I wasn't expecting this." They won't. And they didn't produce these images either.
Dialogue: 0,0:46:07.29,0:46:15.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We have this extraordinary human power to conceive of objects outside of our current experience
Dialogue: 0,0:46:15.28,0:46:21.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and to express them in conceptual, symbolic forms, in ways that other people can engage with and grasp.
Dialogue: 0,0:46:21.45,0:46:27.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And we are therefore the species that did produce Hamlet and the work of Mozart
Dialogue: 0,0:46:27.24,0:46:30.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and the Industrial Revolution, and this extraordinary building, with its amazing images
Dialogue: 0,0:46:31.13,0:46:37.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and hip hop, and jazz, and quantum mechanics, and the theory of relativity, and air travel,
Dialogue: 0,0:46:37.35,0:46:43.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and the jet engine, and all the things that characterize the extraordinary ascent of human culture.
Dialogue: 0,0:46:43.18,0:46:48.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But we destroy it in the way we educate, but I just want to end it and open up for some conversation
Dialogue: 0,0:46:48.62,0:46:54.79,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,by giving an example of something. There was a great study done recently of divergent thinking.
Dialogue: 0,0:46:56.40,0:47:00.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It was published a couple of years ago. Divergent thinking isn't the same thing as creativity.
Dialogue: 0,0:47:00.93,0:47:05.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I define creativity as the process of having original ideas that have value.
Dialogue: 0,0:47:05.90,0:47:12.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Divergent thinking isn't a synonym, but it is an essential capacity for creativity.
Dialogue: 0,0:47:13.31,0:47:20.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's the ability to - to see lots of possible answers to a question, lots of possible ways
Dialogue: 0,0:47:20.48,0:47:24.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of interpreting a question, to think whatever de Bono would call laterally,
Dialogue: 0,0:47:26.08,0:47:29.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to think not just in linear or convergent ways.
Dialogue: 0,0:47:30.44,0:47:34.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,To see multiple answers, not one. So I made a little test for this,
Dialogue: 0,0:47:34.21,0:47:37.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I mean one kind of counterexample would be, people might be asked to say
Dialogue: 0,0:47:37.43,0:47:42.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,how many uses can you think of for a paper clip. That's routine questions.
Dialogue: 0,0:47:42.84,0:47:46.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Most people might come with 10 or 15. People who are good at this might come with 200.
Dialogue: 0,0:47:47.48,0:47:51.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And they do that by saying, well, could the paper clip be turned - could be made out of foam rubber,
Dialogue: 0,0:47:52.18,0:47:54.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you know, like, does this have to be a paper clip as we know it, jim, you know.
Dialogue: 0,0:47:56.10,0:48:00.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, there are tests of this, and I gave them to 1500 people, it is in a bok called
Dialogue: 0,0:48:00.21,0:48:05.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Break Point and Beyond". And on the protocol of the text, if you score above a certain level,
Dialogue: 0,0:48:05.68,0:48:08.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you'd be considered to be a genius at divergent thinking.
Dialogue: 0,0:48:10.00,0:48:16.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So my question to you is what percentage of the people tested, of the 1500,
Dialogue: 0,0:48:16.03,0:48:18.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,scored at genius level for divergent thinking?
Dialogue: 0,0:48:19.04,0:48:24.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now you need to know one more thing about them: these were kndergarden children, OK?
Dialogue: 0,0:48:24.26,0:48:27.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So what do you think? What percentage at genius level?
Dialogue: 0,0:48:27.45,0:48:30.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(from the audience: 80) KR: 80 - 80 OK?
Dialogue: 0,0:48:35.16,0:48:40.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's not correct. 98%. Now, the thing about this was it was a longitudinal study.
Dialogue: 0,0:48:41.52,0:48:46.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So they re-tested the same children 5 years later, age of 8 to 10.
Dialogue: 0,0:48:46.65,0:48:47.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,What do you think?
Dialogue: 0,0:48:50.00,0:49:01.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,50? They retested them again 5 years later, ages 13 to 15. You can see a trend here, can't you?
Dialogue: 0,0:49:04.78,0:49:11.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,They tested 200'000 adults, 25 years and older, just once, as a control. What do you think?
Dialogue: 0,0:49:12.93,0:49:14.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Yes, you know.
Dialogue: 0,0:49:15.82,0:49:18.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, I always say, if you are in business, these are the people you're hiring, OK?
Dialogue: 0,0:49:18.60,0:49:26.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So now, this tells an interesting story, because you could have imagined it going the other way.
Dialogue: 0,0:49:26.41,0:49:30.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Couldn't you? You start of not being very good, but you get better as you get older.
Dialogue: 0,0:49:31.16,0:49:37.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But this shows two things. One is, we all have this capacity, and two, it mostly deteriorates.
Dialogue: 0,0:49:38.13,0:49:41.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, lots of things have happened to these kids as they've grown up, a lot.
Dialogue: 0,0:49:41.82,0:49:46.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But one of the most important things out of them, I'm convinced, is that by now, they've become educated.
Dialogue: 0,0:49:47.22,0:49:50.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You know, they've spent 10 years at school, being told that there's one answer, it's at the back.
Dialogue: 0,0:49:50.92,0:49:56.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And don't look. And don't copy, because that's cheating.
Dialogue: 0,0:49:56.82,0:50:01.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I mean, outside school, that's called collaboration, you know, but inside schools.
Dialogue: 0,0:50:01.74,0:50:05.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now this isn't because teachers want to do it this way. It's just because it happens that way.
Dialogue: 0,0:50:07.16,0:50:10.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's because it's in the gene pool of education.
Dialogue: 0,0:50:11.47,0:50:13.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And to transform it, we have to think differently
Dialogue: 0,0:50:13.43,0:50:14.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Well let me just quickly save this - about that -
Dialogue: 0,0:50:15.05,0:50:17.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,we have to think differently about human capacity
Dialogue: 0,0:50:17.58,0:50:22.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This is what in my book "The Element" is about. We have to get over this old conception
Dialogue: 0,0:50:22.40,0:50:26.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of academic, non academic, abstract, theoretical
Dialogue: 0,0:50:26.51,0:50:30.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,vocational, and see it for what it is: a myth
Dialogue: 0,0:50:31.90,0:50:35.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Second, we have to recognize that most great learning happens in groups
Dialogue: 0,0:50:35.76,0:50:41.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that collaboration is the stuff of growth, you know, if we atomize people and separate them
Dialogue: 0,0:50:42.03,0:50:47.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and judge them separately, we form a kind of disjunction between them and their natural learning environment.
Dialogue: 0,0:50:48.66,0:50:53.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And thirdly, it's crucially about the culture of our institutions, the habits of the institutions,
Dialogue: 0,0:50:53.54,0:50:58.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and the habitats that they occupy. Let me just put my hand on it.
Dialogue: 0,0:50:58.74,0:51:03.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,A great quote recently, which seemed to me to capture some of this,
Dialogue: 0,0:51:03.71,0:51:08.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,about this distinction between ourselves and the species.
Dialogue: 0,0:51:10.56,0:51:19.100,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and it says - just find it - probably in my other suit, isn't it? It's about - here we go:
Dialogue: 0,0:51:21.92,0:51:27.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I rather like this, as a view. It says that when we come to assess people, we should be fairer with ourselves
Dialogue: 0,0:51:28.51,0:51:33.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It says: "After all, human beings were born of risen apes, not fallen angels.
Dialogue: 0,0:51:35.10,0:51:41.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And so what shall we wonder at? Our massacres? Our missiles? Or our symphones?
Dialogue: 0,0:51:42.52,0:51:47.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The miracle of human kind is not how far we have sunk, but how magnificently we have risen.
Dialogue: 0,0:51:47.63,0:51:52.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We will be known among the stars, not by our corpses, but by our poems."
Dialogue: 0,0:51:53.85,0:51:55.51,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I believe there's a fair amount of profound truth in that.
Dialogue: 0,0:51:57.35,0:52:02.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We have it in our grasp to form systems of education based on these different principles
Dialogue: 0,0:52:03.10,0:52:10.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But it means a shift from the industrial metaphor of education to what I think of as the - an agricultural metaphor.
Dialogue: 0,0:52:10.92,0:52:14.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,If you think of it, if you look at the organizational chart of most companies and organizations,
Dialogue: 0,0:52:15.27,0:52:21.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it looks a bit like a wiring diagram, doesn't it, if you look at the structure, like boxes and things that are connected
Dialogue: 0,0:52:22.98,0:52:26.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But human organizations are not like mechanisms,
Dialogue: 0,0:52:27.10,0:52:30.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,even though these charts suggest the metaphor that they are.
Dialogue: 0,0:52:30.32,0:52:32.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Human organizations are much more like organisms.
Dialogue: 0,0:52:34.14,0:52:39.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That's to say, they depend upon feelings and relationships, and motivation,
Dialogue: 0,0:52:39.92,0:52:44.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and value, self-value, and a sense of identity, and of community.
Dialogue: 0,0:52:44.88,0:52:49.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You know the way you work in an organization is you're deeply affected by your feeling for it.
Dialogue: 0,0:52:51.14,0:52:56.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Therefore, I think, a much better metaphor is not industrialism but agriculture or an organic metaphor.
Dialogue: 0,0:52:57.26,0:53:02.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'm doing a whole project in the State of Oklahoma, where I'm trying to develop these ideas across the whole State.
Dialogue: 0,0:53:02.86,0:53:05.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But I mentioned Las Vegas at the beginning. I want to show a last image of this now.
Dialogue: 0,0:53:06.26,0:53:10.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Not far from Las Vegas there is a place called Death Valley.
Dialogue: 0,0:53:10.75,0:53:14.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Death Valley is the hottest place in America. Not much rse in Death Valley.
Dialogue: 0,0:53:16.14,0:53:22.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Because it doesn't rain. In the Winter of 2004, something remarkable happened.
Dialogue: 0,0:53:22.30,0:53:30.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It rained. 7 inches. And in the Spring of 2005, there was a phenomenon. The whole flora of Death Valley
Dialogue: 0,0:53:31.24,0:53:36.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was coated with Spring flowers. Photographers and botanist scientists came from all across of America
Dialogue: 0,0:53:37.19,0:53:41.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to witness this thing they might not see again. What it demonstrated was that Death Valley
Dialogue: 0,0:53:42.10,0:53:47.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,wasn't dead. It was asleep. Right beneath the surface were these seeds of growth
Dialogue: 0,0:53:47.94,0:53:51.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,waiting for conditions. And I believe it's exactly the same way with human beings.
Dialogue: 0,0:53:51.97,0:53:56.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,If we create the right conditions in our schools - if we create the right incentives,
Dialogue: 0,0:53:56.96,0:54:01.100,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,if we value each learner for themselves and properly, growth will happen.
Dialogue: 0,0:54:02.13,0:54:06.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And the growth always happens before - I don't know, I wanted to show you a couple of very short videos,
Dialogue: 0,0:54:06.84,0:54:09.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that will demonstrate, but we are going to our discussion, ... just now
Dialogue: 0,0:54:10.38,0:54:15.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But I think we need to shift from this industrial paradigm to an organic paradigm.
Dialogue: 0,0:54:15.20,0:54:19.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I think it's perfectly doable. We need to conceive institutions individually,
Dialogue: 0,0:54:19.72,0:54:26.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,not systemized, as ones that don't just value utility, but respect and promote living vitality,
Dialogue: 0,0:54:27.12,0:54:31.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the energy of the organization and its potential to be transformative,
Dialogue: 0,0:54:31.02,0:54:36.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that doesn't think in terms of linearity but thinks of creativity and multiple options and lots of possibilities for everybody in it,
Dialogue: 0,0:54:36.25,0:54:41.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that's not about conformity but about diversity and is critically about customization.
Dialogue: 0,0:54:41.87,0:54:46.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This is Death Valley in the Spring of 2005. I think all our schools could be like that.
Dialogue: 0,0:54:46.81,0:54:50.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Somebody once said: "The problem of human beings is not that we aim too high and fail,
Dialogue: 0,0:54:50.56,0:54:53.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it's we aim too low and succeed."
Dialogue: 0,0:54:54.01,0:54:58.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I think we owe it to William Shipley and Benjamin Franklin to aim high.
Dialogue: 0,0:54:58.52,0:55:02.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Benjamin Franklin once notably said: "There are three sorts of people in the world:
Dialogue: 0,0:55:04.07,0:55:10.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Those who are immovable, those who are movable, and those who move."
Dialogue: 0,0:55:10.66,0:55:19.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I encourage you, with the RSA, to move, and get a move on. Thank you. (Applause)