Sir Ken Robinson (1950 – 2020) was the most watched speaker in TED’s history, with his 2006 talk ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity?’ being viewed online over 60 million times and seen by an estimated 380 million people in 160 countries.
He was named as one of Time/Fortune/CNN’s ‘Principal Voices’; acclaimed by Fast Company magazine as one of ‘the world’s elite thinkers on creativity and innovation’ and ranked in the Thinkers50 list of the world’s top business thinkers. Source
He was a man who will always inspire. His vision to unlock the creative energy of people and organisations inspires the Picture You in Agriculture team
in this video filmed in May 2020 Sir Ken says
Human beings are like the rest of life on earth, we flourish under certain conditions and we wither in other circumstances.
The other parallel is sustainble agricultural systems based on cultivating the soil, this is also true of our communities in our cities, in our neighborhoods, in our schools. That people flourish when the culture is right. Great teachers, great principals, great school systems understand that you don’t make a successful education system based on driving people through pointless systems of tests and output and data driven hurdles.
The way you get people to flourish, is by recognizing their individuality. The great diversity and depth of people’s talents of children from every age are full of boundless possibilities.
You do that by creating a mixed culture in schools. One that values the sciences, the arts, technology, that values individual talent, the driving force of individual passions. In other words, successful schools don’t focus on output, they focus on culture in the same way the sustainable farmers focus on the soil.
You get the culture right, everything else takes care of itself. That means a culture of compassion, of collaboration, of empathy, and of the value of individuals and the necessity of our social lives thriving through our joint participation.
At Picture You in Agriculture we are delivering sustainability education programs through the lens of agriculture
The Archibull Prize and Kreative Koalas -Design a Bright Future Challenge are connecting learning to:
- Real world issues
- Real world people
- What young people value
Our programs are linked to all the key learning areas in the Australian curriculum as well as the general capabilities (employability skills) and the three cross curriculum priorities.
The programs also helps deliver the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration goals
In the process we are giving students agency and a voice
and thank you to the ABC Behind the News for supporting Kreative Koalas Kids at Caragabal Public School to amplify their voices
We agree with Sir Ken. We have found young people love to learn. They have values we can all aspire to, they are deeply curious creatures, highly creative, deeply compassionate, and highly collaborative.
Visit our Kreative Koalas Changemakers page to be inspired
We are showing we can reinvent school, we can revitalize learning, and we can reignite the creative compassion of our communities if we think differently when we try to go back to normal.
COVID19 has been challenging for our funding model and we look forward to coming out on the other side to a joint vision for a bright future. It would be great honour to support Sir Ken Robinson deliver his legacy
