RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

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- [Ken] Every country
on Earth at the moment

is reforming public education.

There are two reasons for it.

The first of them is economic.

People are trying to work out,

how do we educate our children

to take their place in the
economies of the 21st century?

How do we do that?

Given that we can't anticipate

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

as the recent turmoil is demonstrating.

How do we do that?

The second though, is cultural.

Every country on Earth
is trying to figure out

how do we educate our children

so they have a sense of cultural identity

and so that we can pass
on the cultural genes

of our communities while being part

of the process of globalization?

How do we square that circle?

The problem is they're
trying to meet the future

by doing what they did in the past.

And on the way they're
alienating millions of kids

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

When we went to school, we
were kept there with a story,

which is, if you worked hard and did well

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

Our kids don't believe that,

and they're right not to by the way.

You are better having a degree than not,

but it's not a guarantee anymore,

and particularly not if the
route to it marginalizes most

of the things that you think
are important about yourself.

Some people say, we
have to raise standards

if this is a breakthrough.

You know, like, really, yes, we should.

Why would you lower them?

You know what I mean?

I haven't come across an argument

that persuades me of lowering them.

But raising them, of course,
we should raise them.

The problem is that the
current system of education

was designed and conceived

and structured for a different age.

It was conceived in the
intellectual culture

of the Enlightenment, and in
the economic circumstances

of the Industrial Revolution.

Before the middle of the 19th century,

there were no systems of public education.

Not really, I mean, you could
get educated by Jesuits,

you know, if you had the money.

But public education paid
for from taxation compulsory

to everybody and free at
the point of delivery,

that was a revolutionary idea,

and many people objected to it.

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

working class children to
benefit from public education.

They're incapable of
learning to read and write,

and why are we spending time on this?

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

assumptions about social
structure and capacity.

It was driven by an economic
imperative of the time,

but running right through
it was an intellectual

model of the mind, which was essentially

the enlightenment view of intelligence.

That real intelligence
consists in this capacity

for a certain type of deductive reasoning

and a knowledge of the
classics originally.

What we come to think
of as academic ability,

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

that there are really two
types of people, academic

and non-academic, smart
people and non-smart people.

And the consequence of that is

that many brilliant
people think they're not

because they're being judged against this

particular view of the mind.

So we have twin pillars,
economic and intellectual,

and my view is that this
model has caused chaos

in many people's lives.

It's been great for some,
there have been people

who have benefited wonderfully from it,

but most people have not.

Instead, they suffer this.

This is the modern epidemic

and it's as misplaced
and it's as fictitious.

This is the plague of ADHD.

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

or prescriptions for ADHD.

Don't mistake me here.

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

as attention deficit disorder.

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

I know that a great
majority of psychologists

and pediatricians think
there is such a thing,

but it's still a matter of debate.

What I do know for a fact
is it's not an epidemic.

These kids are being
medicated as routinely

as we had our tonsils taken out.

And on the same whimsical basis,

and for the same reason, medical fashion.

Our children are living in
the most intensely stimulating

period in the history of the Earth.

They're being besieged with information

and calls to their attention
from every platform, computers,

from iPhones, from advertising holdings,

from hundreds of television channels.

And we're penalizing them
now for getting distracted.

From what?

You know, boring stuff at
school for the most part.

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

that the instance of ADHD
has risen in parallel

with the growth of standardized testing.

Now, these kids are being
given Ritalin and Adderall

and all manner of things,
often quite dangerous drugs

to get them focused and calm them down.

But according to this, attention
deficit disorder increases

as you travel east across the country.

People start losing interest in Oklahoma.

(audience laughing)

They can hardly think
straight in Arkansas.

(audience laughing)

And by the time they get to Washington,

they've lost it completely.

(audience laughing)

And there are separate
reasons for that, I believe.

(audience laughing)

It's a fictitious epidemic.

If you think of it, the arts,

and I don't say that it's
exclusively the arts,

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

But let me, I say about
the arts particularly

because they are the victims
of this mentality currently,

particularly.

The arts especially address

the idea of aesthetic experience.

An aesthetic experience is
one in which your senses

are operating at their peak.

When you are present
in the current moment,

when you are resonating with
the excitement of this thing

that you are experiencing,
when you are fully alive.

An anesthetic is when
you shut your senses off

and deaden yourself to what's happening.

And a lot of these drugs are that.

We're getting our
children through education

by anesthetizing them.

And I think we should be
doing the exact opposite.

We shouldn't be putting them asleep,

we should be waking them
up to what they have

inside of themselves.

But the model we have is this.

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

that is modeled on the
interests of industrialism

and in the image of it.

I'll give you a couple of examples.

Schools are still pretty much
organized on factory lines,

ringing bells, separate facilities

specialized into separate subjects.

We still educate children by batches.

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

Why do we do that?

You know, why is there this assumption

that the most important thing kids

have in common is how old they are?

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

is their data of manufacture.

I mean, well, I know kids

who are much better than
other kids at the same age

in different disciplines, you know,

or at different times of the day,

or better in smaller groups
than in large groups,

or sometimes they want to be on their own.

If you're interested in
the model of learning,

you don't start from this
production line mentality.

These are, it's essentially
about conformity

and increasingly it's about
that as you look at the growth

of standardized testing
and standardized curricula.

And it's about standardization.

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

That's what I mean about
changing the paradigm.

There was a great study done
recently of divergent thinking.

It's published a couple of years ago.

Divergent thinking isn't the
same thing as creativity.

I define creativity as the process

of having original ideas that have value.

Divergent thinking isn't a synonym,

but it's an essential
capacity for creativity.

It's the ability to see lots

of possible answers to a question.

Lots of possible ways of
interpreting a question.

To think what Edward de Bono
would probably call laterally,

to think not just in
linear or convergent ways.

To see multiple answers, not one.

So I mean, there's a test for this.

I mean, one kind of cod example
would be people might be

asked to say, how many uses can you think

of for a paperclip?

One of those routine questions.

Most people might come up with 10 or 15,

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

And they do that by saying, well,

could the paperclip be 200 foot

tall and be made outta foam rubber?

You know, like, does it have to be

a paperclip as we know it, Jim?

You know.

Now the test for this, and
they gave them to 1500 people.

This is in a book called
"Break Point & Beyond",

and on the protocol of
the test, if you scored

above a certain level, you'd be considered

to be a genius at divergent thinking.

Okay, so my question to
you is, what percentage

of the people tested, of the
1500, scored at genius level

for divergent thinking?

Now you need to know one
more thing about them.

These were kindergarten children.

So what do you think, what
percentage at genius level?

- [Audience Member 1] 80.
- [Ken] 80.

You think 80, okay.

98%.

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

so they retested the same
children five years later.

Age of eight to 10, what do you think?

- [Audience Member 2] 50.
- [Ken] 50.

They retested them again five
years later, ages 13 to 15.

You can see a trend here, can't you?

(audience laughing)

Now, this tells an interesting story

because you could have imagined it

going the other way, couldn't you?

You start off not being very good,

but you get better as you get older.

But this shows two things.

One is we all have this capacity,

and two, it mostly deteriorates.

Now, a lot of things have
happened to these kids

as they've grown up, a lot.

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

I'm convinced, is that by
now they've become educated.

You know, they've spent 10 years at school

being told there's one
answer, it's at the back.

And don't look.

And don't copy, because that's cheating.

I mean, outside schools, that's called

collaboration, you know.

But inside schools.

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

it's just because it happens that way.

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

We have to think differently
about human capacity.

We have to get over this
old conception of academic,

non-academic, abstract,
theoretical, vocational,

and see it for what it is, a myth.

Secondly, we have to recognize

that most great learning
happens in groups.

That collaboration is the stuff of growth.

If we atomize people and separate them

and judge them separately,
we form a kind of disjunction

between them and their
natural learning environment.

And thirdly, it's
crucially about the culture

of our institutions, the
habits of the institution,

and the habitats that they occupy.