Sir Ken Robinson Interview on TED

Sir Ken Robinson has become a bit of a folk hero in educational circles over recent years. His inspirational TED talk from 2006 on schools "killing creativity" is as close to I guess an education video will get to going "viral" - if you haven't seen it before - here it is - take 20 minutes to watch it - you won't be disappointed.


But what I found today was that Sir Ken, again via the TED website, has answered a number of questions about his talk and these questions and his answers are posted on the TED site here.

You will find some good questions and some very detailed answers, including his advice for what teachers can do to make a difference. Perhaps this is best summed up by a question that ends with "

"So what three things should I do in September to foster creativity? I'm talking about definite, in-the-one-hour-lesson things I can do to my classes to change their experience." and the first part of the reply ... "To me, the heart and soul of education is pedagogy. There are three components to education, as I was saying earlier. There is curriculum: what students are supposed to be learning. There is pedagogy: the actual teaching. And assessment: the process by which we form judgments about how well they're done, where we make comments about student's progress. But the heart of it is pedagogy." He goes on to give some practical solutions - which is great. But bringing the focus down to the individual teacher is important - plenty of research points to the importance of what the teacher does and the rapport with students.

So, if you are not a Ken Robinson fan, or have never heard of him, and you are a teacher - then after watching his talk and reading the interview, I would be surprised if you weren't motivated to change. And soon!