(Except where noted, this author has tried to capture, as best as possible, Robinson’s own views as presented at the in-service. This is the second part of a three-part series.)
(3) Discovering Talents Requires a Personalized Approach
Sharing ideas from his book The Element, Robinson professes that people are unaware of their own talents because they never had the chance to discover them. Most people endure their careers, while others love what they do. The latter are said to be in their element, a state of engagement where a person's
- sense of time changes so that for example, one hour seems like five minutes;
- aptitude for the task at hand comes naturally –they “get it”, and
- love for doing “it” stems from passion that the activity itself defines who they are.
Robinson professed that,
“Human talent, like natural resources, is hidden deep. . . [it is] diverse, rich, complex."
But people aren’t given the time and space in schools to discover their own individual talents. Only specific talents, or abilities, are the target of development in a classroom. And as a result, society, through schools, have squandered talent.
In his lecture, he stated:
“One of the problems of education is that we expect all kids to get certain things and if they don’t, we invented [a concept called] ‘abnormal ability.’ Education has a narrow conception of ability which is very specific, logical, involving facility with information and analysis."
He continued that:
“the educational system is dominated by the need to get it [academic ability] and if you don’t get it, the assumption is that you are somehow not able. . . .We have developed such a large conception of disability because we have such a narrow definition of [ability].”
And further,
“Life is not limited. Life is organic. We are human beings and our minds are agile, creative, and imaginative. It’s what distinguishes us from all other forms of life on earth. We have the ability to anticipate, to review, to step outside of ourselves, to go beyond our current circumstances, and to dwell in other possible realities. We can’t predict the future, but we can anticipate . . . . And because being alive is a creative process, we create our own lives, and if we can create them, there is a constant possibility of recreating them and turning them into something else.”
Sir Ken Robinson also quoted Carl Jung who wrote, “I am not what has happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”
Sir Ken Robinson continued that everyone he knows who has a purpose in his/her life always had somebody who told them to “Try it. Have a go!” And many times those people were teachers. Teaching is a creative profession, and legislation, like No Child Left Behind, has removed the creative capacity from the heart of teaching.
The following quote from his book The Element captures the essence of his message on educational transformation:
“The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn’t need to be reformed — it needs to be transformed. The key to this transformation is not to standardize education but to personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the individual talents of each child, to put students in an environment where they want to learn and where they can naturally discover their true passions.”
__________________________________________________________________________________
Feel free to leave your comments below or visit Grace at:
__________________________________________________________________________________
Here is a link to Sir Ken Robinson's lecture on a similar topic given in February 2010:
Bring on the Learning Revolution
Comments