Sir Ken Robinson on Changing education paradigms

28 Oct 2010

Sir Ken Robinson explains how and why public education is flawed, arguing that it is a system which fails to equip children for the present and the future, having been founded on the intellectual ideals of the Enlightenment and economic ambitions of the Industrial Revolution. He explains that these foundations alienate pupils, leaving many smart, capable kids thinking themselves stupid because public education still only values the narrowly academic. School is boring for most children, and is especially so for school children today, who are living in the most intensely stimulating period of history, besieged with information outside of school. This feeds the modern epidemic of ADHD – requiring children to be (often literally) anaesthetised through their school years. Sir Ken concludes that public education reflects our culture of institutions and its production-line mentality, which in turn inhibits our ability to be creative, to think laterally and give more than one answer to the question – and if we change our educational paradigms, our children will be better prepared for the world – and happier.