Sir Ken Robinson stopped by to discuss the education landscape and how irony plays a role in the policies of the American education system while attending and keynoting at ASCD 2014 in Los Angeles. Sir Ken Robinson, is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity and innovation in education and in business.
He has worked with governments in Europe, Asia and the USA, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and some of the world’s leading cultural organizations.
Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we’re educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.
He spoke to us about motivating and incentivizing teachers and how we must focus on broader concept of talent. He added to that that the assessments like PISA focus on narrow concept of education – only Science, Numeracy and literacy.
When asked the question “Is policy a necessary evil?”, he said “We definitely need policy but what policy is helpful now is to be known. Great people are doing great job in spite of policies and other barriers existing.”
About trends like MOOCs/online learning he said, “I think we are still at early stage to use digital technologies in education, but one thing is for sure that tech will not replace face to face teaching, it will help transform classroom teaching.”
What he has observed about schools in Finland is that they don’t promote competition between schools but collaboration between them which is the key according to him. Getting the culture right is very important, he added.
He also highlighted that “There is a strong need for better conversation between business and education.”
