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[Music]
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every country on Earth at the moment is
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reforming public education there are two
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reasons for it the first of them is
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economic people are trying to work out
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how do we educate our children to take
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their place in the economies of the 21st
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Cent how do we do that given that we
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can't anticipate what the economy will
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look like at the end of next
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week as the recent turmoil is
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demonstrating how do we do that the
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second though is cultural every country
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on the earth on Earth is trying to
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figure out how do we educate our
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children so they have a sense of
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cultural identity and so that we can
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pass on the cultural genes of our
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communities while being part of the
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process of globalization how do we
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square that
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Circle the problem is they're trying to
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meet the future by doing what they did
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in the past and on the way they're
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alienating millions of kids who don't
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see any purpose in going to school when
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we went to school we were kept there
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with a story which was if you worked
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hard and did well and got a college
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degree you would have a job our kids
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don't believe that and they're right not
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to by the way you're better having a
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degree than not but it's not a guarantee
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anymore and particularly not if the root
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to it marginalizes most of the things
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that you think are important about
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yourself some people say we have to
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raise standards if this is a
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breakthrough you know like really yes we
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should why would you lower them you
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know I haven't come across an argument
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that persuades me of lowering them but
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raising them of course we should raise
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them the problem is that the current
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system of Education was designed and
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conceived and structured for a different
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age it was conceived in the intellectual
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culture of the
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Enlightenment and in the economic
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circumstances of the Industrial
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Revolution before the middle of the 19th
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century there were no systems of public
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education not really I mean you could
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get educated by Jesuits you know if if
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you had the money but public education
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paid for from taxation compulsory to
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everybody and free at the point of
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delivery that was a revolutionary idea
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and many people objected to it they said
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it's not possible for many Street kids
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workingclass children to benefit from
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public education they're incapable of
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learning to read and write and why are
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we spending time on this so there's also
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built into it a whole series of um
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assumptions about social structure and
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capacity it was driven by an economic
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imperative of the time but running right
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through it um was an intellectual model
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of the mind which was essentially the
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enlightenment view of intelligence that
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real intelligence consists in the
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capacity for a certain type of deductive
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reasoning and a knowledge of the
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classics originally what what we come to
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think of is academic ability and this is
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deep in the gene pool of public
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education there are really two types of
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people academic and non-academic smart
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people and non-smart people and the
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consequence of that is that many
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brilliant people think they're not
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because they've been judged against this
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particular view of the mind so we have
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twin pillars economic and intellectual
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and my view is that this model has
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caused chaos in many people's lives it's
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been great for some there have been
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people who benefited wonderfully from it
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but most people have not instead they
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suffer this this is the modern epidemic
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and it's as misplaced and it's as
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fictitious this is the plague of
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ADHD now this is a map of the instance
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of ADHD in America or prescription for
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ADHD don't mistake me here I don't mean
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to say there is no such thing as
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attention deficit disorder I'm not
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qualified to say if there is such a
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thing I know that a great majority of
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psychologists and CH and pediatrician
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think there is such a thing but it's
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still a matter of dis of
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debate what I do know for a fact is it's
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not an epidemic these kids are being
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medicated as routinely as we had our
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tonsils taken out and on the same
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Whimsical basis and for the same reason
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medical
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fashion our children are living in the
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most intensely stimulated ating period
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in the history of the
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earth they're being besieged with
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information and calls to their attention
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from every platform computers from
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iPhones from advertising Holdings from
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hundreds of television channels and were
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penalizing them now for getting
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distracted from what you know boring
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stuff at school for the most part it
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seems to me not a coincidence totally
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that the incidence of ADHD has risen in
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parallel with the growth of standardized
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testing now these kids are being given
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rellin and adol and all manner of things
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often quite dangerous drugs to get them
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focused and calm them down but according
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to this attention deficit order
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increases as you travel east across the
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country people start losing interest in
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Oklahoma they can hardly think straight
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in
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Arkansas and by the time they get to
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Washington they've lost it
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completely and there are separate
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reasons for that I
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believe it's a fictitious epidemic if
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you think of it the Arts and I don't say
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this exclusively the Arts I think it's
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also true of Science and of maths but
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let me I say about the art particularly
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because they are the victims of this
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mentality currently
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particularly the Arts especially address
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the idea of aesthetic experience an
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aesthetic experience is one in which
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your senses are operating at their Peak
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when you're present in the current
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moment when you're resonating with the
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excitement of this thing that you're
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experiencing when you are fully
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Alive an anesthetic is when you shut
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your senses off and deaden yourself to
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what's
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happening and a lot of these drugs are
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that we're getting our children through
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education by anzing them and I think we
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should be doing the exact opposite we
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shouldn't be putting them asleep we
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should be waking them up to what they
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have inside of themselves but the model
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we have is this it's I believe we have a
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system of Education that is modeled on
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the interests of
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industrialism and in the image of it
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I'll give you a couple of examples uh
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schools are still pretty much organized
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on Factory lines ringing Bells separate
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facilities uh specialized into separate
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subjects um we still educate children by
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batches you know we put them through the
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system by age group
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why do we do that you know why is there
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this assumption that the most important
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thing kids have in common is how old
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they are you know it's like the most
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important thing about them is their date
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of
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manufacturer I mean well I know kids who
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are much better than other kids at the
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same age in different disciplines you
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know or at different times of the day or
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better in smaller groups than in large
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groups or sometimes they want to be on
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their own if you're interested in the
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model of learning you don't start from
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this production line mentality these are
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it's essentially about Conformity and
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increasingly it's about that as you look
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at the growth of standardized testing
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and standardized curricular and it's
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about standardization I believe we've
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got to go in the exact opposite
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direction that's what I mean about
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changing the Paradigm there is a great
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study done recently of Divergent
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thinking published a couple of years ago
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Divergent thinking isn't the same thing
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as creativity I Define creativity is the
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the process of having original ideas
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that have value Divergent thinking isn't
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a synonym but it's a an essential
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capacity for creativity it's the ability
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to see lots of possible answers to a
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question lots of possible ways of
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interpreting a question uh to think what
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Edward deona would probably call
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laterally uh to think not just in linear
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or convergent ways uh to see multiple
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answers not one so I mean there are test
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for this I mean one kind of cod example
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would be people might be asked to say
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how many uses can you think of for a
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paperclip one those routine questions
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most people might come up with 10 or 15
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people who good at this might come up
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with 200 and they do that by saying well
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could the paperclip be 200t tall and be
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made out of foam rubber you know like
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does it have to be a paperclip as we
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know it Jim you know um now they test
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for this and they gave them to 1,500
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people this in a book called breakpoint
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and Beyond and on the protocol of the
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test if you scored above a certain level
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you'd be considered to be a genius at
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divergent thinking okay so my question
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to you is what percent of the people
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tested of the 1500 scored at genius
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level for Divergent thinking now you
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need to know one more thing about them
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these were kindergarten children so what
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you think what percentage at genius
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level 80 80 80 okay 98% now the thing
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about this was it was a longitudinal
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study so they retested the same children
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5 years later age of 8 to 10 what you
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think 50 they retested them again five
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years later ages uh 13 to 15 you can see
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a trend here can't
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you now this tells an interesting story
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because you could have imagined it going
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the other way could you you start off
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not being very good but you get better
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as you get older but this shows two
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things one is we all have this
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capacity and two it mostly deteriorates
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now a lot of things have happened to
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these kids as they've grown up a lot but
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one of the most important things happen
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them I'm convinced is that by now
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they've become
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educated you know they spent 10 years at
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school being told there's one answer
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it's at the back and don't
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look and don't copy because that's
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cheating mean outside schools that's
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called collaboration you know but inside
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schools now this isn't because teachers
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want it this way it's just because it
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happens that
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way um it's because it's in the gene
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pool of Education
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we have to think differently about human
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capacity we have to get over this old
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conception of academic non-academic
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abstract theoretical vocational uh and
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see it for what it is um a myth uh
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secondly we have to recognize that most
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great learning happens in groups that
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collaboration is the stuff of growth if
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we atomize people and separate them and
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judge them separately
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we form a kind of disjunction between
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them and their natural learning
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environment
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and thirdly it's crucially about the
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culture of our institutions the habits
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of the institution and the habitats that
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they
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occupy for
