The Roundhouse, London
January 17th 2007
A leading world authority on creativity in education and commerce, Sir Ken Robinson, gave the keynote speech on the second day of the Music Manifesto's State of Play music education conference.
He spoke for over an hour on the challenges facing our culture, our education systems, our politicians, our economic systems and our industries if we are to make education fit for purpose in the 21st Century.
He called for a complete re-think on how we educate our children and ourselves, from birth to the end of life. He called for a revolution.
Here you can access his groundbreaking, inspiring, humorous and impassioned speech in full in audio or video.
To help you navigate the speech we have presented it in 7 sections with an indication of how long each extract runs. (Please note: a full list of the resources referred to in Sir Ken's speech can be found at the end of this page.)
Sir Ken Robinson's Speech to State of Play:
Section One: Introduction, warm up and anecdotes
Listen to the audio here
Section Two: local and global proof that the ideology current systems of education are based on is "completely bankrupt"
Listen to the audio here
Section Three: how technology and demography are changing everything
Listen to the audio here
Section Four: how 19th Century views on education and intelligence still dominate today
Listen to the audio here
Section Five: a call to resurrect education so that children can have their ways of thinking developed and their best forms of intelligence promoted
Listen to the audio here
Section Six: how personalised learning and cultural education are priorities to develop the creative thinking, capability and confidence of each child
Listen to the audio here
Section Seven: setting the agenda for action to connect culture, communities, commerce and education in a revolutionary shift to a more "vivid, personal and uplifting education"
Listen to the audio here
You can download a text version of Sir Ken Robinson's speech here as a PDF
Publications in order of reference:
All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (1988) - Sir Ken Robinson
Out of Our Minds: Learning To Be Creative (2001) - Sir Ken Robinson
Nurturing Creativity in Young People (2006) - Paul Roberts
Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants (2001) - Marc Prensky
(Available to read here)
The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (2005) - Raymond Kurzweil
Culture and the Senses (2002) - Kathryn Linn Geurts (website here)
Personal Knowledge: towards a post-critical philosophy (1974) - Michael Polanyi
People and Organisations in order of reference:
Musical Futures, Dave Price, Claus Moser (Lord Moser)
Creative Partnerships
Ruth McKenzie, Director Manchester International Festival
Andrew Peggie, composer and writer
Academic Research Consortium (ARC) Dublin
Sir Ken Robinson's official website