Bring on the learning revolution! (Excerpts)
By Ken Robinson
I believe fundamentally, as many speakers have said during the past few days, that we make very poor use of our talents. Very many people go through their whole lives having no real sense of what their talents may be, or if they have any to speak of. I meet all kinds of people who don't think they're really good at anything.
Human communities depend upon our diversity of talent, not a singular conception of ability. And at the heart of the challenge is to reconstitute our sense of ability and of intelligence.
We have to go from what is essentially an industrial model of education, a manufacturing model, which is based on linearity and conformity and batching people. We have to move to a model that is based more on principles of agriculture. We have to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process; it's an organic process. And you cannot predict the outcome of human development. All you can do is, like a farmer, (is) create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.