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I was here four years ago,

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and I remember, at the time,

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that the talks weren't put online.

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I think they were given
to TEDsters in a box,

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a box set of DVDs,

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which they put on their shelves,
where they are now.

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(Laughter)

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And actually, Chris called me
a week after I'd given my talk, and said,

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"We're going to start putting them online.
Can we put yours online?"

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And I said, "Sure."

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And four years later,

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it's been downloaded four million times.

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So I suppose you could multiply that
by 20 or something

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to get the number
of people who've seen it.

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And, as Chris says, there is
a hunger for videos of me.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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Don't you feel?

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(Laughter)

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So, this whole event
has been an elaborate build-up

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to me doing another one
for you, so here it is.

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(Laughter)

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Al Gore spoke at the TED conference
I spoke at four years ago

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and talked about the climate crisis.

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And I referenced that
at the end of my last talk.

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So I want to pick up from there

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because I only had 18 minutes, frankly.

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(Laughter)

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So, as I was saying --

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(Laughter)

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You see, he's right.

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I mean, there is a major
climate crisis, obviously,

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and I think if people don't believe it,
they should get out more.

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(Laughter)

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But I believe there is
a second climate crisis,

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which is as severe,

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which has the same origins,

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and that we have to deal with
with the same urgency.

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And you may say, by the way,

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"Look, I'm good.

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I have one climate crisis,
I don't really need the second one."

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(Laughter)

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But this is a crisis of,
not natural resources --

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though I believe that's true --

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but a crisis of human resources.

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I believe fundamentally,

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as many speakers have said
during the past few days,

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that we make very poor use of our talents.

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Very many people go
through their whole lives

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having no real sense
of what their talents may be,

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or if they have any to speak of.

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I meet all kinds of people

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who don't think
they're really good at anything.

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Actually, I kind of divide the world
into two groups now.

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Jeremy Bentham, the great
utilitarian philosopher,

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once spiked this argument.

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He said, "There are two types
of people in this world:

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those who divide the world into two types

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and those who do not."

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(Laughter)

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Well, I do.

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(Laughter)

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I meet all kinds of people
who don't enjoy what they do.

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They simply go through their lives
getting on with it.

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They get no great pleasure
from what they do.

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They endure it rather than enjoy it,

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and wait for the weekend.

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But I also meet people

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who love what they do
and couldn't imagine doing anything else.

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If you said, "Don't do this anymore,"

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they'd wonder what you're talking about.

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It isn't what they do, it's who they are.

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They say, "But this is me, you know.

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It would be foolish to abandon this,

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because it speaks
to my most authentic self."

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And it's not true of enough people.

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In fact, on the contrary, I think
it's still true of a minority of people.

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And I think there are many
possible explanations for it.

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And high among them is education,

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because education, in a way,

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dislocates very many people
from their natural talents.

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And human resources
are like natural resources;

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they're often buried deep.

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You have to go looking for them,

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they're not just lying around
on the surface.

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You have to create the circumstances
where they show themselves.

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And you might imagine
education would be the way that happens,

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but too often, it's not.

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Every education system in the world
is being reformed at the moment

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and it's not enough.

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Reform is no use anymore,

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because that's simply improving
a broken model.

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What we need --

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and the word's been used
many times in the past few days --

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is not evolution,

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but a revolution in education.

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This has to be transformed
into something else.

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(Applause)

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One of the real challenges
is to innovate fundamentally in education.

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Innovation is hard,

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because it means doing something
that people don't find very easy,

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for the most part.

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It means challenging
what we take for granted,

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things that we think are obvious.

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The great problem for reform
or transformation

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is the tyranny of common sense.

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Things that people think,

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"It can't be done differently,
that's how it's done."

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I came across a great quote recently
from Abraham Lincoln,

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who I thought you'd be pleased
to have quoted at this point.

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(Laughter)

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He said this in December 1862
to the second annual meeting of Congress.

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I ought to explain that I have no idea
what was happening at the time.

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We don't teach
American history in Britain.

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(Laughter)

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We suppress it.
You know, this is our policy.

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(Laughter)

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No doubt, something fascinating
was happening then,

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which the Americans among us
will be aware of.

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But he said this:

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"The dogmas of the quiet past
are inadequate to the stormy present.

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The occasion
is piled high with difficulty,

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and we must rise with the occasion."

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I love that.

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Not rise to it, rise with it.

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"As our case is new,

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so we must think anew and act anew.

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We must disenthrall ourselves,

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and then we shall save our country."

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I love that word, "disenthrall."

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You know what it means?

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That there are ideas
that all of us are enthralled to,

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which we simply take for granted
as the natural order of things,

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the way things are.

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And many of our ideas have been formed,

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not to meet the circumstances
of this century,

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but to cope with the circumstances
of previous centuries.

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But our minds
are still hypnotized by them,

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and we have to disenthrall ourselves
of some of them.

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Now, doing this is easier said than done.

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It's very hard to know, by the way,
what it is you take for granted.

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And the reason
is that you take it for granted.

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(Laughter)

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Let me ask you something
you may take for granted.

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How many of you here
are over the age of 25?

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That's not what you take for granted,
I'm sure you're familiar with that.

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Are there any people here
under the age of 25?

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Great. Now, those over 25,

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could you put your hands up
if you're wearing your wristwatch?

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Now that's a great deal of us, isn't it?

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Ask a room full of teenagers
the same thing.

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Teenagers do not wear wristwatches.

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I don't mean they can't,

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they just often choose not to.

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And the reason is we were brought up
in a pre-digital culture,

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those of us over 25.

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And so for us,
if you want to know the time,

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you have to wear something to tell it.

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Kids now live in a world
which is digitized,

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and the time, for them, is everywhere.

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They see no reason to do this.

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And by the way, you don't need either;

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it's just that you've always done it
and you carry on doing it.

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My daughter never wears a watch,
my daughter Kate, who's 20.

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She doesn't see the point.

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As she says,

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"It's a single-function device."

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(Laughter)

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"Like, how lame is that?"

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And I say, "No, no,
it tells the date as well."

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(Laughter)

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"It has multiple functions."

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(Laughter)

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But, you see, there are things
we're enthralled to in education.

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A couple of examples.

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One of them is the idea of linearity:

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that it starts here
and you go through a track

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and if you do everything right,

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you will end up set
for the rest of your life.

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Everybody who's spoken at TED
has told us implicitly,

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or sometimes explicitly,
a different story:

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that life is not linear; it's organic.

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We create our lives symbiotically

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as we explore our talents

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in relation to the circumstances
they help to create for us.

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But, you know, we have become obsessed
with this linear narrative.

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And probably the pinnacle for education
is getting you to college.

188
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I think we are obsessed
with getting people to college.

189
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Certain sorts of college.

190
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I don't mean you shouldn't go,
but not everybody needs to go,

191
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or go now.

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Maybe they go later, not right away.

193
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And I was up in San Francisco
a while ago doing a book signing.

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There was this guy buying a book,
he was in his 30s.

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I said, "What do you do?"

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And he said, "I'm a fireman."

197
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I asked, "How long
have you been a fireman?"

198
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"Always. I've always been a fireman."

199
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"Well, when did you decide?"
He said, "As a kid.

200
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Actually, it was
a problem for me at school,

201
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because at school,
everybody wanted to be a fireman."

202
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(Laughter)

203
00:09:35,039 --> 00:09:36,976
He said, "But I wanted to be a fireman."

204
00:09:37,752 --> 00:09:40,541
And he said, "When I got
to the senior year of school,

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my teachers didn't take it seriously.

206
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This one teacher didn't take it seriously.

207
00:09:45,276 --> 00:09:47,323
He said I was throwing my life away

208
00:09:47,347 --> 00:09:49,363
if that's all I chose to do with it;

209
00:09:49,387 --> 00:09:52,693
that I should go to college, I should
become a professional person,

210
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that I had great potential

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and I was wasting my talent to do that."

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He said, "It was humiliating.

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It was in front of the whole class
and I felt dreadful.

214
00:10:00,202 --> 00:10:02,709
But it's what I wanted,
and as soon as I left school,

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00:10:02,733 --> 00:10:05,031
I applied to the fire service
and I was accepted.

216
00:10:05,055 --> 00:10:07,341
You know, I was thinking
about that guy recently,

217
00:10:07,365 --> 00:10:10,556
just a few minutes ago when you
were speaking, about this teacher,

218
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because six months ago, I saved his life."

219
00:10:13,833 --> 00:10:17,045
(Laughter)

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He said, "He was in a car wreck,
and I pulled him out, gave him CPR,

221
00:10:21,452 --> 00:10:23,301
and I saved his wife's life as well."

222
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He said, "I think he thinks
better of me now."

223
00:10:26,215 --> 00:10:27,976
(Laughter)

224
00:10:28,000 --> 00:10:33,810
(Applause)

225
00:10:34,532 --> 00:10:35,731
You know, to me,

226
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human communities depend
upon a diversity of talent,

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not a singular conception of ability.

228
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And at the heart of our challenges --

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(Applause)

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At the heart of the challenge

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is to reconstitute our sense of ability
and of intelligence.

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This linearity thing is a problem.

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When I arrived in L.A.
about nine years ago,

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I came across a policy statement --

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00:11:03,153 --> 00:11:04,416
very well-intentioned --

236
00:11:04,440 --> 00:11:06,898
which said, "College
begins in kindergarten."

237
00:11:08,864 --> 00:11:10,054
No, it doesn't.

238
00:11:10,078 --> 00:11:13,809
(Laughter)

239
00:11:14,571 --> 00:11:15,631
It doesn't.

240
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If we had time,
I could go into this, but we don't.

241
00:11:18,850 --> 00:11:21,064
(Laughter)

242
00:11:21,088 --> 00:11:23,564
Kindergarten begins in kindergarten.

243
00:11:23,588 --> 00:11:25,898
(Laughter)

244
00:11:25,922 --> 00:11:27,675
A friend of mine once said,

245
00:11:27,699 --> 00:11:30,136
"A three year-old
is not half a six year-old."

246
00:11:30,160 --> 00:11:31,976
(Laughter)

247
00:11:32,000 --> 00:11:37,529
(Applause)

248
00:11:37,553 --> 00:11:38,665
They're three.

249
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But as we just heard in this last session,

250
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there's such competition now
to get into kindergarten --

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to get to the right kindergarten --

252
00:11:45,883 --> 00:11:49,715
that people are being interviewed
for it at three.

253
00:11:51,839 --> 00:11:53,913
Kids sitting in front
of unimpressed panels,

254
00:11:53,937 --> 00:11:55,414
you know, with their resumes --

255
00:11:55,438 --> 00:11:58,029
(Laughter)

256
00:11:58,053 --> 00:12:00,327
Flicking through and saying,
"What, this is it?"

257
00:12:00,351 --> 00:12:01,976
(Laughter)

258
00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:05,319
(Applause)

259
00:12:05,343 --> 00:12:08,299
"You've been around
for 36 months, and this is it?"

260
00:12:08,323 --> 00:12:15,376
(Laughter)

261
00:12:15,400 --> 00:12:17,154
"You've achieved nothing -- commit.

262
00:12:17,178 --> 00:12:18,564
(Laughter)

263
00:12:18,588 --> 00:12:21,389
Spent the first six months
breastfeeding, I can see."

264
00:12:21,413 --> 00:12:24,072
(Laughter)

265
00:12:26,532 --> 00:12:29,119
See, it's outrageous as a conception.

266
00:12:29,143 --> 00:12:31,333
The other big issue is conformity.

267
00:12:31,357 --> 00:12:34,976
We have built our education systems
on the model of fast food.

268
00:12:35,615 --> 00:12:38,488
This is something Jamie Oliver
talked about the other day.

269
00:12:38,512 --> 00:12:41,059
There are two models
of quality assurance in catering.

270
00:12:41,083 --> 00:12:43,723
One is fast food,
where everything is standardized.

271
00:12:43,747 --> 00:12:46,062
The other is like Zagat
and Michelin restaurants,

272
00:12:46,086 --> 00:12:47,849
where everything is not standardized,

273
00:12:47,873 --> 00:12:49,898
they're customized to local circumstances.

274
00:12:49,922 --> 00:12:53,299
And we have sold ourselves
into a fast-food model of education,

275
00:12:53,323 --> 00:12:56,398
and it's impoverishing
our spirit and our energies

276
00:12:56,422 --> 00:12:59,243
as much as fast food is depleting
our physical bodies.

277
00:12:59,809 --> 00:13:05,120
(Applause)

278
00:13:05,889 --> 00:13:08,004
We have to recognize
a couple of things here.

279
00:13:08,028 --> 00:13:10,376
One is that human talent
is tremendously diverse.

280
00:13:10,400 --> 00:13:12,203
People have very different aptitudes.

281
00:13:12,227 --> 00:13:15,976
I worked out recently
that I was given a guitar as a kid

282
00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:18,976
at about the same time
that Eric Clapton got his first guitar.

283
00:13:19,000 --> 00:13:20,604
(Laughter)

284
00:13:20,628 --> 00:13:22,860
It worked out for Eric,
that's all I'm saying.

285
00:13:22,884 --> 00:13:23,906
(Laughter)

286
00:13:23,930 --> 00:13:25,017
In a way --

287
00:13:26,145 --> 00:13:27,412
it did not for me.

288
00:13:27,436 --> 00:13:29,977
I could not get this thing to work

289
00:13:30,001 --> 00:13:32,533
no matter how often
or how hard I blew into it.

290
00:13:32,557 --> 00:13:34,264
It just wouldn't work.

291
00:13:34,288 --> 00:13:35,612
(Laughter)

292
00:13:37,898 --> 00:13:39,279
But it's not only about that.

293
00:13:39,303 --> 00:13:40,461
It's about passion.

294
00:13:41,151 --> 00:13:44,058
Often, people are good at things
they don't really care for.

295
00:13:44,082 --> 00:13:45,276
It's about passion,

296
00:13:45,300 --> 00:13:47,976
and what excites
our spirit and our energy.

297
00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:51,381
And if you're doing the thing
that you love to do, that you're good at,

298
00:13:51,405 --> 00:13:53,675
time takes a different course entirely.

299
00:13:54,120 --> 00:13:56,297
My wife's just finished writing a novel,

300
00:13:56,321 --> 00:13:59,352
and I think it's a great book,

301
00:13:59,376 --> 00:14:01,976
but she disappears for hours on end.

302
00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:04,381
You know this, if you're doing
something you love,

303
00:14:04,405 --> 00:14:06,290
an hour feels like five minutes.

304
00:14:06,943 --> 00:14:09,991
If you're doing something
that doesn't resonate with your spirit,

305
00:14:10,015 --> 00:14:11,606
five minutes feels like an hour.

306
00:14:11,630 --> 00:14:14,314
And the reason so many people
are opting out of education

307
00:14:14,338 --> 00:14:16,655
is because it doesn't feed their spirit,

308
00:14:16,679 --> 00:14:19,457
it doesn't feed their energy
or their passion.

309
00:14:19,774 --> 00:14:21,764
So I think we have to change metaphors.

310
00:14:22,303 --> 00:14:25,834
We have to go from what is essentially
an industrial model of education,

311
00:14:25,858 --> 00:14:27,659
a manufacturing model,

312
00:14:27,683 --> 00:14:32,046
which is based on linearity
and conformity and batching people.

313
00:14:32,468 --> 00:14:34,373
We have to move to a model

314
00:14:34,397 --> 00:14:36,976
that is based more
on principles of agriculture.

315
00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:38,263
We have to recognize

316
00:14:38,287 --> 00:14:42,214
that human flourishing
is not a mechanical process;

317
00:14:42,238 --> 00:14:44,167
it's an organic process.

318
00:14:44,191 --> 00:14:47,777
And you cannot predict
the outcome of human development.

319
00:14:47,801 --> 00:14:50,494
All you can do, like a farmer,
is create the conditions

320
00:14:50,518 --> 00:14:52,691
under which they will begin to flourish.

321
00:14:53,279 --> 00:14:56,540
So when we look at reforming
education and transforming it,

322
00:14:56,564 --> 00:14:58,822
it isn't like cloning a system.

323
00:14:58,846 --> 00:15:01,418
There are great ones,
like KIPP's; it's a great system.

324
00:15:01,442 --> 00:15:03,281
There are many great models.

325
00:15:03,305 --> 00:15:06,527
It's about customizing
to your circumstances

326
00:15:06,551 --> 00:15:09,976
and personalizing education
to the people you're actually teaching.

327
00:15:10,628 --> 00:15:13,701
And doing that, I think,
is the answer to the future

328
00:15:13,725 --> 00:15:17,140
because it's not
about scaling a new solution;

329
00:15:17,164 --> 00:15:19,481
it's about creating
a movement in education

330
00:15:19,505 --> 00:15:21,976
in which people develop
their own solutions,

331
00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:25,285
but with external support
based on a personalized curriculum.

332
00:15:25,309 --> 00:15:26,976
Now in this room,

333
00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:30,976
there are people who represent
extraordinary resources in business,

334
00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:33,292
in multimedia, in the Internet.

335
00:15:33,316 --> 00:15:34,976
These technologies,

336
00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:37,766
combined with the extraordinary
talents of teachers,

337
00:15:37,790 --> 00:15:41,643
provide an opportunity
to revolutionize education.

338
00:15:41,667 --> 00:15:43,762
And I urge you to get involved in it

339
00:15:43,786 --> 00:15:47,406
because it's vital, not just to ourselves,
but to the future of our children.

340
00:15:47,430 --> 00:15:49,833
But we have to change
from the industrial model

341
00:15:49,857 --> 00:15:51,508
to an agricultural model,

342
00:15:51,532 --> 00:15:54,556
where each school can be
flourishing tomorrow.

343
00:15:54,580 --> 00:15:56,428
That's where children experience life.

344
00:15:56,452 --> 00:15:58,318
Or at home, if that's what they choose,

345
00:15:58,342 --> 00:16:00,555
to be educated
with their families or friends.

346
00:16:00,579 --> 00:16:04,730
There's been a lot of talk about dreams
over the course of these few days.

347
00:16:05,214 --> 00:16:07,240
And I wanted to just very quickly --

348
00:16:07,264 --> 00:16:10,169
I was very struck
by Natalie Merchant's songs last night,

349
00:16:10,193 --> 00:16:11,478
recovering old poems.

350
00:16:12,208 --> 00:16:14,344
I wanted to read you
a quick, very short poem

351
00:16:14,368 --> 00:16:16,458
from W. B. Yeats,
who some of you may know.

352
00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:20,869
He wrote this to his love, Maud Gonne,

353
00:16:20,893 --> 00:16:23,774
and he was bewailing the fact

354
00:16:23,798 --> 00:16:27,048
that he couldn't really give her
what he thought she wanted from him.

355
00:16:27,072 --> 00:16:30,468
And he says, "I've got something else,
but it may not be for you."

356
00:16:30,492 --> 00:16:31,634
He says this:

357
00:16:32,508 --> 00:16:35,380
"Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

358
00:16:35,404 --> 00:16:38,277
Enwrought with gold and silver light,

359
00:16:39,372 --> 00:16:42,809
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

360
00:16:42,833 --> 00:16:45,760
Of night and light and the half-light,

361
00:16:46,902 --> 00:16:49,047
I would spread the cloths under your feet:

362
00:16:50,054 --> 00:16:54,028
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

363
00:16:54,896 --> 00:16:57,480
I have spread my dreams under your feet;

364
00:16:58,749 --> 00:16:59,757
Tread softly

365
00:17:00,401 --> 00:17:02,161
because you tread on my dreams."

366
00:17:02,857 --> 00:17:05,641
And every day, everywhere,

367
00:17:05,665 --> 00:17:08,854
our children spread
their dreams beneath our feet.

368
00:17:09,680 --> 00:17:11,024
And we should tread softly.

369
00:17:12,189 --> 00:17:13,262
Thank you.

370
00:17:13,286 --> 00:17:16,920
(Applause)

371
00:17:16,944 --> 00:17:18,323
Thank you very much.

372
00:17:18,347 --> 00:17:22,365
(Applause)

373
00:17:22,389 --> 00:17:23,404
Thank you.

374
00:17:23,428 --> 00:17:26,428
(Applause)