WEBVTT

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[marker squeaking on board]

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(Ken Robinson) Every country
on Earth, at the moment,

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is reforming public education.

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There are two reasons for it.

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The first of them is economic.

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People are trying to work out

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how do we educate our children
to take their place

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in the economies
of the 21st century?

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How do we do that?

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Even though we can't anticipate

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what the economy will look like 
at the end of next week,

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as the recent turmoil
is demonstrating.

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How do we do that?

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The second, though, is cultural.

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Every country on Earth,
on earth is trying to figure out

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how do we educate our children

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so they have a sense
of cultural identity,

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and so that we can pass on the
cultural genes of our communities,

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while being part of the
process of globalization?

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How do we square that circle?

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The problem is they're
trying to meet the future

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by doing what
they did in the past.

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And on the way, they're
alienating millions of kids

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who don't see any purpose
in going to school.

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When we went to school,

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we were kept there with a story,

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which is, if you worked hard
and did well,

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and got a college degree, 
you would have a job.

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Our kids don't believe that.

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And they're right not to,
by the way.

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You're better having
a degree than not,

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but it's not a guarantee anymore.

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And particularly not
if the route to it

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marginalizes
most of the things

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that you think are
important about yourself.

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Some people say we
have to raise standards,

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as if this is a breakthrough.

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You know, like, really,
yes we should.

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Why would you lower them?

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[laughter]

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I haven't come
across an argument

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that persuades me
of lowering them.

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But raising them,
of course we should raise them.

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The problem is

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that the current
system of education

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was designed and conceived

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and structured for a different age.

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It was conceived in the intellectual
culture of the Enlightenment.

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And in the economic circumstances
of the Industrial Revolution.

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Before the middle 
of the 19th century,

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there were no systems
of public education.

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Not really.

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I mean, you could get
educated by Jesuits,

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you know, if you had the money,

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but public education, 
paid for from taxation,

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compulsory to everybody and
free at the point of delivery,

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that was a revolutionary idea.

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And many people objected to it.

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They said it's not possible
for many street kids,

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working class children,
to benefit from public education.

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They're incapable of
learning to read and write,

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and why are we spending
time on this?

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So, there's also built into it
a whole series of assumptions

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about social structure and capacity.

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It was driven by an economic
imperative of the time,

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but running right through it

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was an intellectual model
of the mind.

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Which was essentially the
Enlightenment view of intelligence.

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That real intelligence consists
in this capacity

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for a certain type of
deductive reasoning,

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and the knowledge
of the classics, originally.

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What we've come to think
of as academic ability.

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And this is deep in the gene
pool of public education,

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that there are really
two types of people:

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academic and non-academic;

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smart people and non-smart people.

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And the consequence of that

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is that many brilliant people
think they're not,

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because they've been judged against
this particular view of the mind.

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So, we have twin pillars,
economic and intellectual.

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And my view is

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that this model has caused chaos
in many people's lives.

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It's been great for some.

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There have been people that
have benefited wonderfully from it.

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But most people have not.

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Instead they suffer this.

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This is the modern epidemic,

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and it's as misplaced,

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and it's as fictitious.

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This is the plague of ADHD.

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Now, this is a map of the
instance of ADHD in America,

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or prescriptions for ADHD.

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Don't mistake me,

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I don't mean to say
there is no such thing

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as Attention Deficit Disorder.

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I'm not qualified to say
if there is such a thing.

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I know that a great majority
of psychologists,

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and pediatricians think
there is such a thing.

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But it's still a matter of debate.

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What I do know, for a fact,

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is it's not an epidemic.

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These kids are being medicated

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as routinely as we had
our tonsils taken out.

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And on the same whimsical basis,

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and for the same reason -
medical fashion.

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Our children are living in the most
intensely stimulating period

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in the history of the earth.

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They're being besieged
with information,

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and force their attention
from every platform, computers,

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from iPhones,

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from advertising holdings,

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from hundreds of television channels.

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And we're penalizing them now
for getting distracted.

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From what? Boring stuff,

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at school, for the most part.

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It seems to me it's not
a coincidence, totally,

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that the instance of ADHD
has risen in parallel

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with the growth of
standardized testing.

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Now, these kids are being
given Ritalin and Adderall,

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and all manner of things,

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often quite dangerous drugs,

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to get them focused
and calm them down.

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But according to this,

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Attention Deficit Disorder increases

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as you travel east
across the country.

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People start losing interest
in Oklahoma

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[laughter].

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They can hardly think
straight in Arkansas

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[laughter].

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And by the time
they get to Washington,

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they have lost it completely.

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And there are separate
reasons for that, I believe

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[laughter].

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It's a fictitious epidemic.

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If you think of it, the arts,

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and I don't say this
exclusively of the arts.

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I think it's also true
of science and of maths.

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But let me, I say about
the arts particularly

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because they are the victims

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of this mentality currently,
particularly.

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The arts especially address the
idea of aesthetic experience.

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And aesthetic experience

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is one in which your senses
are operating at their peak.

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When you are present
in the current moment.

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When you're resonating with
the excitement of this thing

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that you're experiencing.

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When you are fully alive.

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And anesthetic is when
you shut your senses off

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and deaden yourself
to what's happening.

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And a lot of these drugs are that.

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We're getting our children through
education by anesthetizing them.

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And I think we should be
doing the exact opposite.

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We shouldn't be
putting them asleep,

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we should be waking them up

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to what they have
inside of themselves.

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But the model we have is this,

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it's, I believe, we have
a system of education

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that is modeled on the
interests of industrialism,

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and in the image of it.

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I'll give you a couple of examples.

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Schools are still pretty much
organized on factory lines -

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ringing bells, separate facilities,

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specialized into separate subjects.

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We still educate children by batches.

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You know, we put them
through the system by age group.

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Why do we do that?

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You know, why is there
this assumption

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that the most important thing
kids have in common

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is how old they are?

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You know, it's like the most
important thing about them

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is their date of manufacture.

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Well, I know kids who are
much better than other kids

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at the same age in different
disciplines, you know,

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or at different times of the day,

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or better in smaller groups
then in large groups,

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or sometimes they
want to be on their own.

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If you're interested in
the model of learning,

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you don't start from this
production line mentality.

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These are, it's essentially
about conformity.

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And increasingly it's about
that

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as you look at the growth 
of standardized testing

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and standardized curricula.

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And it's about standardization.

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I believe we've got to go in
the exact opposite direction.

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That's what I mean about
changing the paradigm.

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There was a great study done
recently of divergent thinking,

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published a couple of years ago.

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Divergent thinking isn't
the same thing as creativity.

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I define creativity as the process

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of having original ideas 
that have value.

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Divergent thinking
isn't a synonym.

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But it's an essential
capacity for creativity.

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It's the ability to see lots of
possible answers to a question,

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lots of possible ways of
interpreting a question.

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To think, what Edward de Bono
would probably call laterally.

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To think, not just in linear
or convergent ways.

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To see multiple answers, not one.

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So, I mean, there are tests for this.

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I mean, one kind of
cod example would be,

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people might be asked to say

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how many uses can you
think of for a paper clip.

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Those routine questions.

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Most people might
come with 10 or 15.

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People who are good at
this might come up with 200.

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And they do that by saying,

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well, could the paper clip be turned,
and a foot tall,

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and be made out
of foam rubber.

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You know, like, does it have to
be a paper clip as we know it, Jim.

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Now, there are tests for this.

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And they gave them to 1,500 people.

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It's in a book called
Break Point and Beyond.

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And on the protocol of the test,

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if you scored 
above a certain level,

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you'd be considered to be a
genius at divergent thinking.

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Okay?

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So, my question to you is,

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what percentage of
the people tested,

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of the 1500,

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scored at genius level
for divergent thinking?

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You need to know one
more thing about them.

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These were kindergarten children.

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So, what you think?

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What percentage at genius level?

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(Audience member) 80.

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(Ken Robinson) You think 80, okay.

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98%.

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Now, the thing about this was,
it was a longitudinal study.

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So, they retested the same
children five years later.

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Age of eight to ten.

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What do you think?

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50?

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They retested them again,

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five years later, 
ages 13 to 15.

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You can see a trend here,
can't you

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[laughter]

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Now, this tells an interesting story.

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Because you could have
imagined it going the other way,

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couldn't you.

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You start off not being very good,

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but you get better 
as you get older.

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But this shows two things.

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One is, we all have this capacity.

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And two, it mostly deteriorates.

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Now, a lot of things have
happened to these kids

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as they've grown up, a lot.

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But one of the most important
things that happened to them,

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I am convinced,
is that by now,

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they've become educated.

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They know, they spent 10 years at
school being told there's one answer.

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It's at the back and don't look.

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And don't copy,

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because that's cheating.

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I mean, outside schools that's
called collaboration, you know.

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But inside schools...

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And this isn't
because teachers want it this way,

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it's just because it happens that way.

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It's because it's in the gene
pool of education.

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We have to think differently
about human capacity.

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We have to get over this old conception
of academic, non-academic,

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abstract, theoretical, vocational,

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and see it for what it is: a myth.

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Secondly, we have to recognize

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that most great learning
happens in groups.

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That collaboration
is the stuff of growth.

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If we atomize people and separate
them and judge them separately,

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we form a kind of disjunction
between them

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and their natural learning environment.

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And thirdly, it's crucially about
the culture of our institutions,

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the habits of the institution,

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and the habitats that they occupy.