Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative (2024)

Maybe I should have read a few reviews before reading this book, since it was not at all what I anticipated based on the title. Most of these reviews are positive, which should be a good sign, but, still, I would have thought that the author was offering ideas to stimulate creativity in individuals given the cover. Instead we have an overview of educational systems going back thousands of years, changing paradigms, anecdotal stories of geniuses, most of whom flourished in spite of stifling societal ideas of their times...and so on. All very general, and most of which I already knew because I read the newspapers regularly, and have read a biography or two. If you're looking for ways to become creative personally (and not trying to change society), then look elsewhere.

Love this stuff!
Q:
The academic life tends to deny the rest of the body. In many schools, students are educated from the waist up and attention eventually comes to focus on their heads, and particularly the left side. This is where many professional academics live: in their heads, and slightly to one side. They are disembodied in a certain way. They tend to look upon their bodies as a form of transport for their heads: it’s a way of getting their heads to meetings. If you want real evidence of out of body experiences, sign up for a residential conference for senior academics and go along to the dance on the final night. There you will see it. Grown men and women, writhing uncontrollably, off the beat, waiting for it to end so that they can go home and write a paper about it. (c)
Q:
An article in the New York Times concluded that, “Television will never be a serious competitor for radio.” If you’re listening to the radio, you can get on and do other things. To experience television, the Times argued, “People must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen.” Ironically, of course, this was to become the very attraction of the whole system. Nonetheless, it seemed clear to the writer that, “The average American family doesn’t have time for it.” Well, they found time. On average, the average American family went on to squeeze about 25 hours a week from their busy schedules to sit and keep their eyes glued on the television.
The fault line in the Times’ assessment of television was to judge it in terms of contemporary cultural values where there seemed to be no place for it. In fact, television was not squeezed into existing American culture: it changed the culture forever. After the arrival of television, the world was never the same place again. Television proved to be a transformative technology, just as print, the steam engine, electricity, the motorcar and others before it had been. (c)

We are not teaching our children how to be creative, but teaching them how not to be creative...I'm paraphrasing, of course...Ken Robinson stated in a more eloquent and thought-provoking way. Basically, he writes about how the educational system is broken and how we need to change it to foster creativity. Some readers who gave this book a bad review point out that he doesn't really write about how we can tap into our creativity. I think that's kind of his point...our formal education has taken away our ability to be truly creative (not all of us, I'm sure, but still)and now we're trying to find instructions from a book on how to do it. My son isn't going to come up to me in a few years and say, "Hey, mom...what can I do with this cardboard box?" No, he's going to look at a cardboard box and say, "Cool! A pirate ship! Aaarrrrghhh!" How am I going to foster that when all I see is a cardboard box? A fascinating read. I highly recommend it.

Subtitled, “The Power of Being Creative,” looks at how education and training can bring creativity to the forefront and how – if it is possible – we can ‘teach’ people to be creative. For those of us who work in education, this is an interesting idea, because fostering, and nurturing, creativity is important and yet, in some parts of the world, where rote learning is applied, children often do much better in some subjects (maths, science) but less well in more creative subjects. I work with adults, rather than children (although some students go to teach and so this is relevant); but still I find this a fascinating area and I found this a very interesting read.

As much as you teach people, the reality is that they have to then go out to the workplace and we all have to deal with day to day problems creativity and problem solving. I am not sure that I accept all the arguments in this book, but I do agree that it is important for people to be creative – to question, to deal with the changing world and to cope with all the issues that we encounter. This book certainly does put the idea of creativity centre stage and suggests useful ways to promote and encourage it.

I give 5 stars to Sir Ken Robinson's talks @ the TED conference and this animated talk on "Changing Educational Paradigms": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcD...

While I gobbled my way through this readable book, there is a lot of overlap between the various, easily accessible speeches online and what is pressed within these pages. Robinson has a plethora of evidence here--lots of examples of how different educational structures are reinvigorating schools, tapping creativity, and taking big risks through the innovation of everyday people. For me, though--one frustrated educator sitting firmly in the middle of a public school system and its backward (albiet well-intentioned) protocols--I'm left with few alternatives.

Without the space to be creative about how to change a school system so entrenched in the past in order to be more open to the creativity of our students, how much change can I really make happen? I would love to spend an evening discussing these things with Robinson. Not only does he has my respect, but he has a wonderful sense of humor, something I don't channel enough when thinking about the implications of change and revolution in my career.

I appreciate the ideas in this book--and I'm not opposed to reading more from Robinson--but I did find his speeches online a bit more engaging, even if in both cases I'm left with way more questions than answers.

The argument in "Out of Our Minds: Learning to be creative" is by now a familiar one. There are multiple intelligences, schools tend to favor the rather narrow fact- and logic-based kinds, that damages our creativity and especially our children who have other kinds of intelligence (kinesthetic, spatial, artistic, emotional) and grow up thinking they're no good or at least not very smart. Astonishing numbers of these kids, according to Robinson, go on to become successes in interesting walks of life. The book came out in 2001, and represented Robinson's long, hard-slogging battle to make the English educational system more flexible and creative. As such, many of the references are to the UK and its schools, and Americans may find those references occasionally a little puzzling. But overall, this is a strong book full of compelling arguments for taking a more holistic view of education and (at least) putting study of the arts back into public education. The only weak point of the book is at the end, when Robinson gives a few recommendations for making bureaucracies, whether in schools or businesses, more creative. The recs strike me as unduly tentative and they fail to show how we can transform bureaucracies everywhere. But as a call to action, Out of Our Minds is wonderful.

Covers a LOT of territory -- too much, too briefly. His use of headings drove me crazy: all the same level, so all the same importance? There was clearly some hierarchy of ideas here, but it wasn't displayed; rather, it was a series of sound bites. Found myself skimming a lot, as much of the summary I've read elsewhere.

Exposing people to creative mediums, though, came through as a message. We know 'em when we see 'em, but getting them in front of us still seems the trick.

In this book Sir Ken Robinson is very clear:
Imagination is the source of all human achievement.
Anywhere in the world either, Public Schools (fee-charging private schools) or State Schools are absolute "evil". They don't just kill creativity as the title of the book says, if the students don't possess the soul and single mind of a bloody stupid Achilles, the school will also reduce their self-esteem and very soul to ashes, transforming them into unhappy zombies for the rest of theirs lives.
He defends that children's intelligence is, when they start school, completely "open".
One, it's diverse, secondly, intelligence is dynamic and the third thing about intelligence is, it's distinct.
But schools are squeezing all those possibilities promised by children's capacity by resetting students' brains to a single pattern of behavior and way of thinking and filling their heads with knowledge that is almost completely useless. I dare anyone to enunciate all the mathematical formulae that we were forced to memorize back in the school benches… Those who fail to adapt are stigmatized or forced to drop out of school.
Very few are fortunate enough to discover their natural aptitude and receive the moral, educational and logistical support to flourish into a successful future career and a fulfilled life.
The vast majority depends on "Luck". In several conferences, Sir K. R. used to tell the story of Gillian Lynne:
She's a choreographer and she produced "Cats" and "Phantom of the Opera" and worked with Andrew Lloyd Weber.
when she was at school, in the '30s she was hopeless. And the school, wrote to her parents saying: "We think Gillian has a learning disorder." She couldn't concentrate; she was fidgeting."
I think nowadays they'd say she had ADHD. But this was the 1930s, and ADHD hadn't been invented at this point. It wasn't an available condition. People weren't aware they could have that. Anyway, her mother went with her to see a specialist. So, they got into this oak-paneled room, and she was there with her mother, and she was led and sat on this chair, on her hands, for 20 minutes while this man talked to her mother about all the problems she was having at school. And at the end of it, the doctor went and sat next to Gillian and said, "Gillian, I've listened to all these things that your mother's told me, and I need to speak to her privately." He said, "Wait here. We'll be back; we won't be very long," and they went and left her. But as they went out of the room, he turned on the radio that was sitting on his desk. And when they got out of the room, he said to her mother, "Just stand and watch her." And the minute they left the room, she was on her feet, moving to the music. And they watched for a few minutes and he turned to her mother and said, "Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn't sick; she's a dancer. Take her to a dance school."
Her mother took her to a dance school, and eventually, she auditioned for the Royal Ballet School; she became a soloist and had an extraordinary career at the Royal Ballet. She founded her own company -- the Gillian Lynne Dance Company -- She's been responsible for some of the most successful musical theater productions in history; she's given pleasure to millions, and she's a multi-millionaire. Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down.

But this is a specific situation about a single person. Another small story tells us what a big surprise and free of restrains a children's brain can be:

It's the story of a little girl who was in a drawing lesson. She was six and she was at the back, drawing, and the teacher said this little girl hardly ever paid attention, but in this drawing lesson she did. The teacher was fascinated and she went over to her and she said, "What are you drawing?" And the girl said, "I'm drawing a picture of God." And the teacher said, "But nobody knows what God looks like." And the girl said, "They will in a minute…"

I think the point the author wants to make is that schools in particular and society, in general, are systematically destroying the individuality of each of us by replacing it with a "ready-to-wear" standard to which everyone has to adapt.
Although scientific research has already shown that the female brain works differently from the male one, which would explain, at least in part, the superior ability of women to multitask and, on the contrary, the superior ability of men to totally focus on a single task. The reason, probably, is the set of nerves that connects the two halves of the human brain called the Corpus Callosum. It's thicker in women than in men which is probably why women are better at multitasking.
Nevertheless, school systems are the same for everyone with no regard or care for the possible differences from individual to individual. And NO, I don't accept the financial excuse as the reason that explains why we are destroying lives systematically at their very berth.
In short: kill the creativity of our children and the future of mankind will be very, very dark…

PS
Just a little joke that Sir K.R. told and I can't resist reproducing it here:
George Berkeley, an Anglican Bishop, and philosopher in the 1600's uttered that old philosophical thing:
“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
What about a T-shirt with:
"If a man says something in a forest and no woman hears him is he still wrong?"

Sir K. Robinson (1950-2020 R.I.P.)

Nu a fost chiar ceea ce mă așteptam și mi-ar fi plăcut niște idei practice, de pus în aplicare. Într-adevăr, autorul pune accent pe importanța creativității dezvoltate la copii și analizează evoluția școlii și a rolului ei, dar mi se pare că ideile sunt repetitive și nu se concretizează.

Loy Machedo’s Book Review – Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative by Sir Ken Robinson

Out of Our Minds is a book of 286 pages divided into ten chapters where the main focus is Education Versus Creativity, the History of Creativity, the Drawbacks, the Challenges and the Changes required in the Current Educational System to promote creativity.

In the book, the author believes that creativity is a skillset we are all born with, but then it gets shunted aside because the school systems attempt to commoditize us into their preconfigured preplanned and pre-canned judging format of who and what we should become. To support his point of view, Robinson gives anecdotes of the Pixar World and also insights into Edison, Einstein, H.G. Wells, Jean Piaget, Johannes Gutenberg, John Kenneth Galbraith, Picasso, Shakespeare, Sir Frances Bacon taking us from the Industrial to the Information and now the current Networking Revolution. I especially loved when the author stated that the Educational System in US (and I believe it is the same the world over) was modeled on the needs of the Industrial Revolution – on Linearity, Conformity, Standardization, Unquestionable Obedience and Mass Production. (And this is what lead to the 2008 Financial Meltdown).

Throughout the book, he had great examples. I also found it thought-provoking when he added that in 1950, the average American traveled 5 miles per day. Ten years ago, it was 30 miles per day. In ten years (2020), it will be 60 miles per day. Another great example was when he reminded us that a digital wrist watch today has more computing power than the spaceship Neil Armstrong used to land on the moon.

And if you were every looking out to get out of Academia and into a Creative Career, this is one book that would convince you to make the transition easily. There is quite a lot of content dedicated to the current educational system, the pit-falls, the challenges, the blind-spots, and the drawbacks it currently suffers from. In fact the amount of content in this book can qualify this book to be a dissertation for a PhD. This book also addresses some very important questions like: Can you learn to be creative? How does a lack of thinking or acting in creative ways impact people, society, customs, culture, arts, and business? What are the global ramifications of the degradation of creativity? What kinds of environments and practices are conducive to enabling creativity? Where has the ability to identify and find forward leadership gone? Why didn't people see the problems ahead of time, or react to them quicker, or avoid them in the first place? Who is to judge what is creative and how is creativity judged? Why are core curriculum courses in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) considered more important than the studies under the umbrella of art? Why can't businesses find the types of workers and leaders they need to make their businesses successful and resilient on every level within a company? Why do so many people feel they are not creative?

The major drawback I found to this book was that the content was at times repetitive and recurring. It could be because I had read ‘The Element’ before but then again, because of his virtual online presence many of the anecdotal passages almost verbatim – a trait many professionals speaker adopt (which is understood as I found this to be the case earlier on in my career as a speaker) and also I felt that the Title was kind of misleading as it didn’t sorely focus on Creativity by itself rather the History of Creativity along with interesting anecdotes, factoids, statements, quotes, arguments, statistics, stories, suggestions, speculations and opinions.

Moment of Truth.
After evaluating the good and the repetitive sides of this book, I would recommend this book to Parents, Teachers, Evaluators, Decision Makers, Leaders, Managers, Children and just about anyone who can make a change and difference into the lives of others. However, if you are looking for an entertaining book or something easy to read and kill time with – this is not the book for you.

Overall Rating
7.5 out of 10

Loy Machedo
loymachedo.com & loymachedo.tv

I had to review this book for my 'Management of Change' class and thus I had to do a very through analysis of every part of the book. This is just inform that this review can sound very descriptive to some, so bear with me.

The author talks about the challenges facing the HR professionals and the business executives in the ever changing business environment.
The book starts with an example how we used to see situations in isolation. This approach can no longer be used in present dynamic situations when every company is fighting for the top notch talent and the fierce competition in the market.

Author’s friend, Dave is an actor and had severe drinking problem. He cherished 12 pints a day of a local beer which was a very powerful drink. When he suddenly started to feel severe back pain his physician referred him to a kidney specialist. The kidney specialist after coming to know the full situation advised him to switch to spirits. On this, Dave told him that he fears to develop Cirrhosis of liver if he changes to spirits. The specialist replied that he is not concerned about his liver because he has come to him in relation to his kidney.

The above is a classical example of what in medical terms is called Septic focus, the tendency to look at a problem in isolation from its context. Similarly, companies are witnessing major changes in the environment they work in. As the axis is shifting towards intellectual labours and services, they urgently need people who are creative, innovative and flexible.

This book proposes 3 basic ideas that are being explained with suitable examples

1.Everyone has creative capacities, but they often do not know what they are;

2.These capacities are the greatest resource available to an organization; and that

3.Developing and exploiting creative capacities calls for a systemic strategy to generate a culture of innovation across the whole organization – but not only- the creative departments.

The challenges mentioned by Robinson which are driving the need to learn an organization to be creative and to drive it are

1.The war for talent
2.The dearth of talent in spite of high number of jobless people
3.Technological changes
4.Progress in the mode of transportations
5.Mode of communication
6.Nanotechnology
7.E-business
8.Population Growth
9.The Grey Revolution
10.Work from home
11.Academic Inflation

What is Creativity?

Creativity is never in an abstract. Creativity is applying the imagination.

Power of imagination: imaginative processes with outcome in the public world

Being Original: Creative outcome can be original on different levels: personal originality, social originality, historic originality.

Values: Relationship between cultural values and creativity have implications in promoting creative activities in organizations.

The author brings the point home by giving a very fitted example:

An Australian farmer had a large tract of land which he has inherited from his forefathers. Every year he diligently tilled the land and tried to grow something in it. But the produce was always negligible and stunted. After a few years he grew tired and frustrated and decided to give up the land. According to the law in Australia at that time the whole land went to the government after the abandonment.

Few years later the farmer decided to visit his lands once more. When he reached there He found a lot of factories and houses constructed on the land. On inquiry he came to know that the land had steel reserves just 10 feet below the ground.

The man had been tilling just above the reserve the whole time, if he had just gone a little deeper.

By this the author wants to convey the irony that if only we can dig a little deeper, what we may find is known to no one. All the treasure we are looking for may be right here!

I was interested in reading Ken Robinson’s for a couple of reasons. First, I’m an educator who thinks that my classes should perhaps be doing more to foster creativity in my students. I thought that I might get some ideas from a book subtitled “Learning to Be Creative.” Second, I’ve watched some of the videos of Robinson’s famous TED talks. He makes some large (i.e. schools follow and industrial model and so don’t promote creativity) and controversial (i.e. student cheating, if done in the business world, would be called collaborating) claims in the videos, and I wanted to see if he could back up the claims. I came to the book interested and open to his ideas.

Unfortunately, I came away from Out of Our Minds very disappointed. I was disappointed for several reasons. First of all, I thought that it featured a real lack of creative ideas and suggestions for producing creativity. During the section at the end of the book, when Robinson attempts to give teachers advice on methods for promoting creativity, I kept thinking, “What is new here?” With regard to suggestions for how to actually conduct a class, I can’t see what he would suggest that we don’t already do and haven’t been doing for decades. Robinson does make some more novel suggestions about ways that whole schools or school districts could be structured differently so as to promote creativity. These, however, struck me as wildly unrealistic and unwieldy for public schools to implement. They also struck me as failing to take into account the diverse, and often troubled, set of students that we attempt to teach in schools. I have read a lot of reviews from non-educators who fault the book for not offering them any takeaways. The book, some of these reviewers have said, is focused too much on the education world. As an educator, I’m sad that the book failed to offer any takeaways for me either.

The bigger problem that I had with the book is Robinson’s tremendous failure to back up his claims with research. Over and over and over Robinsons arrives at conclusions which he supports only with anecdotal evidence or with statements from people he’s consulted with in the business world. For example, on page 235, Robinson begins a section called “Creativity loves collaboration.” This, in fact, is one of the themes of Robinson’s videos and of this book (it’s also something that I hear continually from my school administrators), and I was very curious what he had to say on the subject. After all, I’ve read several studies and books that dispute the notion that creativity works best in collaborative atmosphere (read Susan Cain’s popular Quiet for a much better researched discussion on the subject). Some people and some types of creativity require collaboration, this research says, but not most.

How does Robinson support his argument? With an anecdote, of course. Pixar runs a school in which all employees, including engineers, security people, and janitors, may learn about the creative arts of filmmaking in the hope that the whole company will be fostering new connections and innovations. Pixar’s is an interesting idea and set-up, but nothing in the anecdote demonstrates that the company-wide creative training has actually contributed to any of Pixar’s creations. And the anecdote certainly doesn’t adequately support the general notion that collaboration loves creativity.

This is just one example of the either unfounded or, at best, unsupported claims which saturate the book. I’m not sure that Robinson is all wrong on what he says. A lot of other people are echoing him. But I think this book is bold and loud and, ultimately, pretty empty. This is an interesting subject, but I’d look elsewhere to learn about it.

إن الاقتصاد حالياً يعاني من فجوة بين العرض والطلب على العقول المبدعة حيث أن هناك طلباً متزايداً يفوق العرض

وتزايد الطلب حصل كنتيجة لما يسمية الكاتب "ثورة اقتصادية" حيث يمر الاقتصاد وسوق العمل في القرن الواحد والعشرين بتغيرات كبيرة تفوق التصور تشبه الثور الصناعية بحجمها وتأثيرها وتعتمد أيضاً على التقدم التقني كمحرك أساسي، الأمر الذي يتطلب عقولاً مبدعة لتوظفها في سوق العمل

ولزيادة العرض من هذه العقول تقترح معظم السياسات رفع مستوى التعليم الأمر الذي زاد المشكلة سوءاً، إذ أن الحل يقتضي بضرورة تغيير سبل التعليم وليس رفع مستواها، فهذا الفهم الخاطئ لكل من الإبداع والذكاء يرى أن رفع مستوى التعليم الحالي الذي يتضمن العلوم والتكنو��وجيا على حساب الفنون والعلوم الإنسانية كفيل برفع مستويات الذكاء والإبداع، وكأن الذكاء لا يمكن أن يقاس إلا بالشهادات العلمية

وكحل لهذه الفجوة يطرح الكاتب عدة حلول لتغيير أساليب التعليم تعتمد على تصحيح مفاهيمنا المتعلقة بالذكاء والإبداع حيث أن السؤال التقليدي الذي نسأله دائماً:"ما هو مستوى ذكاء هذا الشخص؟" يجب أن يستعاض عنه بالسؤال:"ما هو مجال الذكاء عند هذا الشخص؟"

وأخيراً طرح هذا الكتاب مشكلة العقل المبدع في ظل المنافسة والمعلوماتية بشكل جيد، كما أنه حللها وقدم بعض الحلول
لكنه كان مليئاً بالحشو كما أنه قام بتكرار معظم الأفكار تقريباً، الأمر الذي خفض من قيمة هذا الكتاب

The premise of the importance of creativity and the idea that many factors are stifling creativity, both in ourselves and our children is one I firmly believe in. I watched the author’s TED talk and thought it was great.

The book was very academically written (somewhat ironically) and dense with information. It seemed like any topic that was mentioned had to have the history of it from the beginning of time reviewed. The depth of exploration felt unnecessary.

I appreciate the ideas presented, but the presentation was not as engaging as I expected or hoped.

Ho preso questo libro qualche anno fa, dopo essere rimasto affascinato dall'intervento dell'autore a un TED Talk. Avrei fatto bene a fermarmi al video. I concetti, per me sacrosanti, vengono mescolati e rimescolati alla noia, rendendo tutto, per me, pesante. Alcuni passi meritano, ma sono un po' soffocati. Mi tengo stretta solo una citazione, del direttore dell'Ark Children's Theatre di Dublino: "un bambino di tre anni, non è la metà di un bambino di sei. Un bambino di sei anni, non è la metà di un bambino di 12".

man patīk, kā viņš vienkāršā valodā apraksta izglītības un pārvaldības procesus. ja vien būtu tik vienkārši dekonstruēt esošās sistēmas, lai to vietā radītu jaunas. bet fundamentāli piekrītu par noziegumu mācību priekšmetus skolās šķirot “svarīgajos” un “mazāk svarīgajos” un aizlaicīgo domāšanu, ka mācīšanās - tā ir standartizētu normatīvu izpilde, un nekas vairāk.

This review applies to the third edition, released September, 2017

Like most of us who do not work in the field of education, and we all do, of course, my first introduction to Sir Ken Robinson was his now famous TED Talk. It remains one of the most viewed talks of all time. And this book is every bit as engrossing and stimulating.

“Out of Our Minds is about why creativity matters so much, why people think they are not creative, how we arrived at this point and what we can do about it.”

The why it matters question seems self-evident but Robinson goes to great length to give it dimension and you will certainly come away with a heightened sense of just how timely and urgent the challenge is. The statistics are mind-boggling and will certainly give you plenty of fuel to both wow and amaze (and frighten) your family and colleagues.

Upon reading his statement of purpose, however, I do admit that I wondered if I needed to know “why people think they are not creative.” That, too, seemed self-evident. I was, however, colossally wrong. That part of the book is essential to the book’s ultimate impact because it is here that the author provides a clear and concise definition of what creativity is. It is logical, but it is not self-evident if you, like me, are applying standard cultural assumptions.

One of the more powerful themes for me has to do with the integrated and cross-functional nature of contemporary knowledge. This plays out at many levels. Some of the most ground-breaking work in science today is happening between the traditional seams of science, in cross-functional disciplines like the psychology of economics, evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, etc., and among collaborative cross-functional business teams brought together for a specific goal or project.

In my own words I think of it as the need for both the inductive and deductive worldview. Much of our thinking in the modern scientific era has been skewed toward the deductive; the supremacy and universality of cause and effect and the emphasis this puts on process, often at the expense of objective truth. He quotes Carl Sagan: “mere critical thinking without creative and intuitive insights, without the search for new patterns is sterile and doomed.”

Science and business analytics is often a blind search for pattern, and that is where the creativity gets lost. In the end, science is a methodology for interpreting reality, not a body of knowledge. Knowledge, the way in which we interpret it, and the way in which we express it are all equally important and inter-related, as Robinson so aptly puts it.

In the end, the way the brain gathers and processes knowledge, the author explains, is not dissimilar to how an orchestra works. The power of the symphony to move is influenced by the strings, the woodwinds, and the percussion sections, but it is the sum total and integration of them all that defines its overall impact.

Robinson also spends considerable time on precognitive conclusion, although he never uses that specific term. He notes, however, that knowledge is layered and that the impact is a function of fact, interpretation, and expression. It is in this latter sense that he makes an impassioned plea for the educational importance of dance and other forms of art which are often given less educational emphasis when resource allocation forces priorities.

The most intriguing section of the book for me revolves around a new field of research known as “connectomics” and, specifically, the work of Harvard professor Jeff Lichtman relating to the neural growth and pruning that occurs in the developing brain. “During infancy the child’s brain is tremendously plastic. To begin with, each neuron has dozens of connections, but these connections pare down to just a few strong ones as the brain develops and according to how it is used.”

The neural pruning process and the greater implication that each of us is born with talents that are never allowed to blossom certainly gives support to the nurture in the nature v. nurture debate. “Each of us is a unique moment in history: a distinctive blend of our genetic inheritance, of our experiences and of the thoughts and feelings that have woven through them and constitute our unique consciousness.”

And in that regard, I think this book belongs on every bookshelf; not just those interested in education reform. The wisdom imparted here will be just as valuable to young people just getting started, anyone looking to find purpose and meaning in life, and for sexagenarians like myself who live to learn another day.

My only reservation about the book is that it is the “third” edition. I have not read the first two but there is nothing here that struck me as “re-hashed.” The data and the examples are very current and the perspective is both timely and urgent. My own impression is that there is nothing third about it and I dearly hope people do not pass it by because they expect more of anything.

My gold standard for great books is that they are transformative for society or for me personally. In this case, “transformative” does not do the book justice on either front. I would eagerly give it a six star rating were it available.

Postojeći sistem školstva je zastareo, pročitajte šta su alternative

A fost o lectura draguta. In urma cu vreo doi ani am citit si o alta carte a lui - Descopera-ti elementul. Cred ca aceea mi-a placut putin mai mult. Acolo ideea era ca odata ce ai descoperit ce iti place cel mai mult, poti sa zici ca nici nu mai muncesti, chiar daca ai un loc de munca.

Legat de O lume iesita din minti, Ken atrage atentia asupra creativitatii si cat de importanta este ea. In facultate am participat la un curs extra, sustinut de profesorul de sociologie, Gheorghe Onut - figura mare. Exista un interviu al Andreei Esca cu el, ce merita vazut/ascultat - e pe YouTube. La cursul asta ne-a spus ceea ce am aflat si acum in carte si anume faptul ca atunci cand suntem mici, pana la 5-6 ani, toti suntem la fel de creativi. Dar pe urma intervine scoala si ne indobitoceste. Autorul cartii zice ca cea mai potrivita metoda de invatare este una personalizata fiecarui elev. Sa aiba posibilitatea de a alege individual ce materii sa urmeze intr-un anumit an, iar profesorul sa il ajute sa evolueze in felul lui. Pare o utopie pentru moment, cu atat mai mult pentru Romania. Cred ca ar fi o lectura potrivita pentru profesorii din scolile noastre, pentru ca ar trezi ceva in ei, pentru a incerca sa faca lucruri in plus in scoli.

Revenind la creativitate, aceasta exista ascunsa in noi, dar trebuie exersata. Onut chiar a scris o carte intreaga cu asemenea exercitii - Dictionar de tehnici creative. Bine am facut ca mi-am adus aminte de el, pentru ca am reusit sa gasesc acum pentru prima data in stoc carticica lui.

Iar ca sa inchei, fac o analogie cu ceea ce am scris la Fahrenheit 451, dar pe care l-am gasit si la Ken si anume: "doar educatia este in stare sa ne salveze societatile de la o posibila prabusire, fie ea violenta sau graduala".

PS: Daca nu ai de unde procura cartea, discursul de aici https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY este la fel de bun :)

This guy is a successful businessman. His business is happy positive snake oil. Some sort of Deepak Chopra of education. And he writes on the book covers and his own site the long list of charmed institutions that have paid well for his preaching. This book is not for individuals. It is for the institutions that pay for his rent and his children's tuition. As in his other books, "nobody can make predictions" is well paired with visions of how the computers and other appliances are going to be. So when your boss asks you why you wasted half of this year's budget with this clown you can write a nice essay with all the needed keywords.

'In the foreseeable future the most powerful computers may have the processing power of the brain of a six-month-old human baby' Wow! The guy is born in 1950. He has about 10 more years to live. What is the foreseeable future? His future or the future of a certain society? Why the most powerful and not the common? How can you measure the processing power of a 6mo baby? Who cares? It is upbeat. The expert has spoken. And his understanding is at the level of the next Cheerios advert.

The end result? Anything that is bad in the popular culture, is bad in his book too. Anything that is good - well, it's good. Does he have any help? Like a hindu guru: find the something inside you. But, unlike most gurus, this fraud always remembers to sign with Sir and PhD. So you know he knows.

I was excited to read the book after watching Ken Robinson speak in TED. But the book did not live up to my expectations. The title and subtitle are misleading, and throughout the whole book I was trying my best to link the ideas to the title, but failing every time.
Some ideas in the book were interesting, but the only relevant parts were the very beginning and the last chapter.
Like many other reviews, the writer seems to have a breadth but not depth in the content. He tries to cover a lot of ideas that are related to creativity, but also not so directly related? A bit hard to explain.
I found myself trying to finish the book quickly and skimming through the chapters.
I'm yet to read The Element by the same author, I'm hoping that it would be better and with more quality content.
The positive thing that I learnt from this book at least was that anyone can be creative. I found myself being more encouraged to attempt things that I don't know instead of saying that I'm not meant for them or I don't have the brains for them.

При всій значущості постаті Кена Робінсона для сучасної освіти, за його харизми і гумору, ця книга радше схожа на збірник окремих есеїв, а не цілісний текст. Багато корисного фактажу, до якого за потреби можна звернутися, цікава інформація щодо влаштування і організації освітніх процесів у Британії та США. Ця книга не надихає так, як його живі виступи, але буде корисною для учнів та вчителів.

Не кажу вже про користь для адміністраторів у освітньому середовищі, але боюся, що наше Міністерство ств��рить на основі чудових ідей лише ще гіршу ситуацію. Тому не рекомендую цю книгу читати бюрократам старої радянської системи, бо буде біда нам всім.

The author drowns a poor argument with lengthy proliferation of superficially-related examples. The final payoff of some implementable solutions seems hardly worth the suffering required to get to them.

The true value in the reading was the potential for cross-functional enhancement of my own creativity as I went ���behind enemy lines” to see what is going on in the field of creativity. I’ve peaked into the mind of a jealous, brooding, disenfranchised and yet wannabe academic...I didn't like what I saw.

In my opinion, this book is overrated. What it says is true and necessary for education and business, but the writing style is pedestrian at best, and not at all creative, though it is a book about creativity. I had trouble staying awake through most of it. However, what it says is definitely important, and it may have been written more with businessmen in mind, and if that's the case, it's probably more effective for them.

The structure of this wording is so neat, tells you the design framework of the book, what to expect. This sets you up to enjoy it as long as those expectations are met. Love it.

"The physical world owes no allegiance. to any particular set of interpretations. Despite the successive reformulations of scientific theory, the physical universe just carries on being itself. What changes is how we make sense of it. This is not true of the social world."

Reading another book by Ken Robinson.
I did not like his Creative Schools so much, but I did find his ideas interesting. So I thought I would give this one a try.

I felt enthusiastic about it in the beginning. Those first chapters were inspiring - instead of handing directly the "solutions" to the problem Robinson offers you some material to digest and consider. It made me think, it made me even re-think what I previously thought, and I would have said at that point that it was an awesome book.

Then it went back to what I disliked about Creative Schools.
Show a few examples of very different innovative projects and simply assume that they are just better than traditional ones. Don't bother to go any deeper or to offer any critic - no, you want to "prove" that traditional education is "bad" so you show us a handful of "good" schools.

While I think that our current educational system requires deep changes - even a revolution! - I don't think that these examples mean much as they are.
Maybe take one or two of those and talk in detail about them, show the reader what makes them some marvelous (and also what does not actually work yet and needs to be improved).
Develop some sort of theory instead of just throwing random school names.

As always, Sir Ken Robinson manages to say the essential with great humour and taste. This book is a page turner - and it can turn also your mind around. Must read for all who think that creativity matters - and for those who think that it doesn't matter.
His books should be prescribed reading for all educationists, parents and especially government appointees to education departments. The world situation, with very few exceptions, is in dire straights and an imperative reason for parrents to read his works, is that it is a means of becoming informed and educated about what should be happening in educating the younger generatiosn and those to come. Governments need to be put under pressure and held accountable for supporting the creation of education systems that do just that - provide the means of educating rather than indoctrinating. The most inspiring books I have read on the subject ever and his three talks on the series "TED Talks" are defining.

Great read to reshape the educational systems that for too long have emphasized the understanding of intelligence through the divergence of science and art.

“There is a ‘continual dance between intellect and emotions, feeling and reason, which is essential to the proper functioning and maintenance of both.’”

“Creativity is possible in all areas of human activity and it draws from all areas of human intelligence.”

For business leaders this means fostering environments where creativity is given the space to grow and shape our greatest resource, our people.

“Organisations that make the most of their people find that their people make the most of them.”

“Facilitating creative development is a sophisticated process that must balance learning skills with stimulating the imagination to explore new ideas.”

I was a little underwhelmed with the policy ideas, aside from his pointing to examples of what people are already doing. But the overall analysis of the state of education - in particular the idea of education as a societal concern - seemed right on, to me. Very much worth the read for anyone concerned about education in the U.S., or anywhere.

I think I was expecting a more hands-on approach to fostering creativity rather than a historical perspective on how and why we have an education system that suppresses creativity more than fostering it. I really enjoy Sir Ken’s talks, he has a great sense of humour and beautiful timing on his delivery, but this book is an academic read, so a lot more work! 😁