A question posed by Sir Ken Robinson, world renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the Royal Society of the Art’s, Benjamin Franklin award in October 2010.
You can follow it in an animated version on RSA animate or through TED. He explains that; countries are all trying to reform public education.
It falls into two models, firstly, economic; how do we educate in the economy of the 20th century? Secondly, cultural; how do we educate for cultural identity whilst being part of a global world?
And the way this is happening is by meeting the future with what they did in the past! On the way we are alienating millions of kids who see no purpose in school.
What good is a university education? Of course it is good in its own right, but not if it marginalises everything you believe in.
Our UK system was built on the premise that it is paid for, compulsory and free. There were certain assumptions on social structure and academic capacity. Now, says Sir Ken, we need to wake children up to what they have inside of themselves. We are anaesthetising our children and dulling them down to learn what is directed.
An interesting argument, really good to watch and hard to do justice in a few words on a blog.
But following on from our blog before which points the way to a global access to free information, a gathering of publications without the reliance on paper, trillions of bytes of information.
Not an easy one for schools and colleges to move onto. We have sat in many places where the argument for status quo wins every time! It is less of a challenge than moving forward with an unpredictable model…
Is it scary stuff or a real WOW factor? 