Ken Robinson :学校扼杀创造力

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http://dotsub.com/view/8faa77e7-6d84-4ed6-881a-42bf4280929f
Ken Robinson :学校扼杀创造力
早上好. 还好吗?很好吧,对不对? 我已经飘飘然了! 我要飘走了.(笑声) 这次会议有三个主题 这三个主题贯穿会议始终,并且和 我要谈的内容有关 其中之一就是人类创造力的伟大例证 这些例证已经体现在之前的演讲当中 以及在座各位的身上. 从这些例证中我们看到了创新的多样化 和多领域. 第二点-- 这些创新也让我们意识到我们不知道未来会发生什么 完全不知道 未来会如何
我对教育感兴趣 事实上,我发现每个人都对教育感兴趣 难道不是吗? 我发现这很有趣 如果你参加一个晚宴,你说 你在教育部门工作 坦白的讲，如果你在教育部门工作，事实上你不会经常参加晚宴, (笑声) 所以你不会被问及你是做哪行的。 你永远不会被问到，很奇怪。 但是如果你被问及， 他们问:"你从事什么行业?" 你说你在教育部门工作 你会发现他们涨红了脸,那意思好像是 “我的天啊，”“为什么让我碰上？整整一周我才出来一次” (笑声) 但如果你要他们谈谈他们的受教育经历， 他们会把你“钉到墙上”. 因为这些事情都涉及 个人的隐私,对吗? 比如宗教信仰,薪水等 我对教育特别感兴趣,我认为我们都是如此 我们对此有巨大的既得利益 部分因为教育旨在 将我们带入我们无法掌握的未来 大家想想,今年入学的小孩 2065将退休. 没人知道会怎样-- 虽然过去四天会议进程里都是关于这方面的专业讨论-- 但我们还是无法预知这个世界 五年后的样子。这就是为何我们要让这些孩子 接受教育。我认为正是未来的不确定性 决定其非同寻常。
第三点就是 我们都认同一个观点-- 这些孩子的特别之处正是 他们的创新能力。我觉得昨晚Sirena的表现令人惊奇， 对吗？ 她很出色，但是我认为 她在孩提时代时没显得与众不同。 现在的教育提倡的是一个有奉献精神的老师 能发现一个天才学生。但我认为 所有孩子都是伟大的天才。 而我们却无情地扼杀了他们的才能。 所以我想谈谈教育和 创造力。我认为 创造力和文化知识在教育中占同样比重， 所以这两方面我们应同等对待。 （掌声）谢谢。而且， 非常感谢。（笑声）还剩15分钟。 我出生于--说错了（笑声）
最近我听到一个很不错的故事--我很愿意讲讲这个故事-- 说的是一个小女孩正在上绘画课。小女孩只有六岁 她坐在教室的后排，正在画画， 而她的老师评价她几乎从不 注意听讲，但在绘画课上她却听得很认真。 老师饶有兴趣地走过去 问她：“你在画什么？” 她说：“我画的是上帝。” 老师说：“可是没人知道上帝长什么样。” 这时小女孩说：“他们马上就能知道上帝的样子了。” （笑声）
我儿子四岁时在英国-- 实际上他那会儿在哪都四岁（笑声） 严格地说他四岁那年在哪个国家记不清了，只记得他四岁那年 去演舞台剧《基督诞生》 你们记得那部剧的情节吗？应该记不得，情节太长。 故事太长。梅尔.吉布森演过那部剧的续集。 你们也许看过，叫《基督诞生II》。我儿子James在那部舞台剧里演Joseph, 我们为此很兴奋。 我们以为那是个主要角色。 我们给观众们发了T恤： 上面印着“James Robinson 扮演 Joseph"(笑声） 他的角色不一定有台词，剧情是 三个国王拿着礼物走进来 他们分别拿着黄金，乳香精油，没药精油。 演出开始了。我们坐在观众席上 我认为他们应该按顺序出场， 演出结束后我们对James说： “你们刚才演的对吗？”他说：“对啊，怎么了，哪错了吗？” 其实他们把剧情改了。 他们是这么演的：三个小演员出场， 四岁的小家伙们头上戴着擦杯子用的毛巾， 他们放下手上拿的盒子 第一个孩子说：“我带来了黄金。” 第二个孩子说：“我带来了没药精油。” 第三个孩子说：“Frank带来了这个”
（笑声）（注：“frankincense乳香精油”英文发音和“Frank sent this”英文发音相似）
以上例子的共同点就是孩子们愿意冒险。 对于未知的事物，他们愿意去尝试。 难道不是吗？即使尝试的结果是错误的，他们也不惧怕。 当然，我并不认为错误的尝试等同于创新。 但我们都知道 如果你不打算做错误的尝试 你永远不会创造出新东西。 如果你不想让孩子们做错误的尝试，等他们长大了， 多数孩子就会丧失创新的能力。 那就会使他们也变得惧怕错误的尝试。 这种情况也存在于公司经营方面。 我们不能容忍任何错误。这就使得现在的 教育体系成为 最不能容忍错误的领域。 这样做的后果就是我们的教育体制正在扼杀 孩子们的创造力。毕加索曾说过: “孩子们是天生的艺术家” 问题是我们长大后能否继续保有艺术灵感。我坚信： 我们随着年龄的增长而丧失了创造力， 甚至可以说，是我们所受的教育让我们丧失了创造力。 为什么会这样？
五年前，我住在Stratford-on-Avon（注：英国市镇，莎士比亚出生与埋葬之地）。 现在我已经搬到了洛杉矶。 可想而知，这是个多么合乎逻辑的移居。 （笑声）其实， 那时我们住在Snitterfield 就在Stratford郊外，那里是 莎士比亚父亲的出生地。你有过灵感吗？我曾经有过。 你没把莎士比亚和他的父亲联想在一起，对吗？ 因为你忽略了 莎士比亚也曾经是个孩子，对吗？ 莎士比亚七岁时什么样？我从没想过--他七岁时 的某个特定场景。比如他在上 英语课，想想他在上英语课--多么不可思议 （笑声)“你要努力学习”你能想象他父亲边说边把他抱上床， “现在该睡觉了” 他父亲又说：“放下笔， 别再写那些东西了，别人都看不懂。” （笑声）
话说远了，刚才说到我们从Stratford搬到洛杉矶， 我想说的是，对于这次搬家， 我儿子并不愿意。 我有两个孩子。儿子现在21岁了，女儿16岁。 我儿子不愿搬到洛杉矶。虽然他喜欢这， 但在英国，他有个女友，是他的最爱，叫Sarah. 他们认识只有一个月后就开始交往了。 我们要搬家时他们已交往了4年。 这对于16岁的年龄来说已经很长了。 我儿子上了飞机后很郁闷， 他说：“我再也找不到像Sarah那样的女孩了。” 但说实话，做为家长的我们为此很庆幸。 因为那个女孩是我们搬家的主要原因。 （笑声）
但搬到美国后，有些事使我印象深刻 如果你周游世界 你会发现每个国家的教育体系都存在相同的学科等级制度。 没有例外。不论哪个国家。 你认为也许会有例外，但没有。 排在最前面的学科是数学和语言， 接下去是人文学科，艺术排在最后。 世界上所有国家都是如此。 而且相同的还有 就是在艺术学科范围内也有等级制。 通常学校把美术课和音乐课看的较重要 然后是戏剧课和舞蹈课。没有哪个国家的教育体系 天天安排舞蹈课 但却每天都安排数学课。为什么？ 为什么不是每天安排舞蹈课呢？我认为舞蹈课很重要。 我认为舞蹈课和数学课同样重要。 如果有允许，孩子们会不停地跳舞，我们也一样。 我们都有体会，对吗？ （笑声）事实上， 随着孩子年龄增长，我们开始教导他们 别的东西，（以前是教他们走和跑），而随着他们长大，我们更关注的是他们的头脑。 而且略微偏重大脑的一侧。
如果你以一个外国人的身份来参观我们的教育体系， 带着这样的问题：“公办教育的目的是什么？” 那么当你看到我们的教育体系产业化的发展，我相信，你就会明白 是谁在真正从中受益， 是谁被教导着该做什么不该做什么， 是谁得了满分，谁是第一名-- 关于公办教育的目的，我想你会得出这样的结论 世界上所有的公办教育 都以培养大学教授为目的。难道不是吗？ 因为大学教授是象牙塔尖上的人。 我也曾是一名大学教授，也是塔尖上的人。（笑声） 我倾慕大学教授的学识，但 我们不应该用这样一个头衔作为衡量一个人成功与否的分水岭。 其实大学教授只是360行中的一行， 只不过他们比较好求知， 我这样说不是因为对他们的倾慕。 在我看来，大学教授有个特点-- 虽然不是共性，但很典型--他们只用脑子生活。 而且偏重于大脑的一侧。 用书面语来说就是--他们脑体分离。 他们只是把身体当作 大脑的载体而已，难道不是吗？
（笑声)这个载体可以载着大脑去开会。 如果你想亲身体验 你就去参加一次会议 --学术研讨会， 然后在会议结束后再去迪厅蹦迪。 （笑声）在那你会看到，成年男女 在不和乐拍地疯狂摇摆。 期待夜晚的结束好回家写篇关于蹦迪的论文。
注重培养学术能力的观点根植于我们的教育体系之中。 形成这种状况还有个原因-- 所有国家的教育体系在最初建立时 也就是在19世纪之前--那时教育还不是公共事业。 那时建立教育体系 是为了满足工业化发展的需要。 所以有两点基本的等级原则。 第一点，对工作最实用的科目 是最重要的科目。这样就能轻易地避开 孩子们喜欢的科目，从小就不让他们碰触。 理由就是 不这样学就找不到工作。对吗？ 别玩音乐了，你成不了音乐家； 别画画了，你成不了艺术家。 这些温和的忠告--筑成现在的大错。全世界 都被卷入了工业革命的热潮。 第二点，学术能力已经成为 衡量好学生的主要标准 这种标准是那些大学自己制定的。 只要你思考一下就会发现整个教育体系 不论哪个国家的公共教育都是一种按部就班的程序 最终目标是为了考入大学。 造成的后果就是许多很有天才的 有创造力的学生被钝化了。 因为这些学生发现他们的专长在学校 并不受重视甚至还受到蔑视。 我认为我们不能再这样扼杀孩子们的天才了。
根据联合国教科文组织的统计，今后30年 全世界毕业的学生将超过 过去的总和。 这就是人口增长造成的，人口增长关系到 我们谈论的许多话题-- 包括技术和技术变革对生产力的影响、人口统计学 及人口爆炸。 很快，文凭就不再有含金量了。是这样吧？ 我上学那会儿，有文凭就有工作。 那时候如果你没工作，那是因为你不想找。 说实话，我那时候就是这样。（笑声） 但现在的状况是，孩子们有文凭却经常 呆在家里打电脑游戏， 因为以前只要学士学位的工作岗位现在需要硕士学位， 现在还没毕业的孩子将来就得有个博士学位才好找工作。 这就是学术学位的通货膨胀。 这是整个教育体系 坍塌的前兆。我们必须从根本上反思 我们评价好学生的标准。
培养人才有三个原则 第一，多样化。我们认知世界的角度不同 有的从视觉角度， 有的从听觉角度，有的从美学角度 有的从抽象的角度，有的从动态的角度。 第二，好学生应该是充满活力的。 如果观察一下人类大脑的内部组织，就像我们 昨天所看到的演讲中演示的， 大脑发育具有关联性。 大脑不应被分成几部分。 其实我认为应该创造性地把大脑看作一整套工序-- 生产有价值的原创想法的工序-- 这种原创想法往往来自互动的思考方式 而不是呆板的常规模式。
大脑本来就是 由神经来连接左脑和右脑 这个连接部分叫胼胝体（医学名词）。女性大脑中的这个部分比男性的要厚。 昨天听了Helen的演讲受到启发，我认为 脑部特征可能使女性更善于应对头绪纷乱的事情。 对吗？ 虽然关于这方面的研究有很多，但我对于这方面的了解其实来源于我的亲身体验。 我妻子在家做饭时-- 感谢上帝，她不常做饭，（笑声） 虽然她不擅厨艺但很擅长其他一些事-- 不过她做饭时总是 打打电话， 和孩子们说说话，给天棚刷刷漆， 还在旁边做开胸手术。 而我做饭时就会关上厨房门，不让孩子们进来打扰， 不打电话，这时如果我妻子进来我会很生气。 我会这样对我妻子说：“Terry，我在煎鸡蛋，请你别打扰。”（笑声） 大家都知道那句有哲理的话-- 如果森林里有棵树倒了可没人听到， 那是否意味着没发生过？记得这句话吗？ 最近我看到一件很棒的T恤，上面印着：“如果一个男人说出他的心声 却是在森林里说的，而且没被女人听到， 那应该不算犯错吧？”（笑声）
培养好学生的第三个原则就是-- 个性化。我目前在写本书-- 书名叫《顿悟》，素材来自一些 访谈，访谈内容是关于怎样发现 自身的才能。对于这点我很感兴趣。 激发我写这本书的原因是一次对话 我采访了一位很优秀的女士，也许很多人 没听说过这个人，她叫Gillian Lynne, 你们知道这个人吗？应该有人知道吧。她是一个舞蹈编剧 所有人都知道她的作品。 她编舞的作品有《猫》、《歌剧魅影》。 她很有才华。我在英国看过由皇家芭蕾舞团演出的她的作品。 你们也看过她的作品。 有一次，我和Gillian 吃午饭，我问她： “Gillian,你是怎样成为舞蹈家的？她回答说： 说起来很有意思，她上学的时候， 觉得自己完全没有希望。她上学那会儿是1930年代， 老师给她家长写信说：“我们认为 Gillian患有学习障碍症。”她无法集中注意力， 她老是坐不安生。用现在的话讲，那意思就是 她有多动症。你们也这么想吧？但那时候是1930年代， “多动症”这个词还没出现。 那个老师用词不当。
（笑声） 那时候人们还不知道用“多动症”这个词。
于是，Gillian去看病。 她妈妈带她去的， 医生让她坐在椅子上， 她把手压在腿下，这样过了20分钟 她妈妈一直在向医生讲述 Gillian在学校的表现： 她在学校不安生， 她总是晚交作业，等等， 其实不过是个才8岁的孩子--最后，医生走过去坐到 Gillian的旁边对她说：“Gillian, 你妈妈跟我说了很多 现在我想和你妈妈单独谈谈。” “你在这儿等一下，我们马上谈完。” 医生和她妈妈出去了。 但医生在出去时把收音机打开了 收音机在医生办公桌上。在他们 走出房间后，医生对她妈妈说: “我们就站在这儿观察一下她。”他们离开房间后， Gillian站起来，随着音乐跳起舞来。 她妈妈和医生在门外看了几分钟 医生对她妈妈说： Lynne太太，Gillian没病，她是个舞蹈天才。 让她去上舞蹈学校吧。”
话说到这，我问Gillian：“后来怎么样了？” 她回答道：“我妈妈送我去了舞蹈学校。我无法形容那里有多棒。 那里有很多 像我这样的人--坐不住的人。 我们必须在动态中才能思考。” 他们跳芭蕾，跳踢踏舞，跳爵士舞， 跳现代舞。 后来她考入皇家芭蕾舞学校， 成为芭蕾舞女主演，事业发展很成功 从那毕业后 从皇家芭蕾舞学校毕业后 她成立了自己的公司--Gillian Lynne 舞蹈公司 遇到了Andrew Lloyd Weber（注：歌舞剧《猫》的编曲者）。她负责 担任过一些极其成功的音乐剧的编舞 她给数以万计的观众带来了艺术享受， 她也是个亿万富翁。可是，有人 也许曾认为她有多动症命令她 “冷静。”
现在，我想说的是--（掌声） AL Gore（注：美国前副总统） 曾在这里做过一次演讲 内容是关于生态学以及Rachel Carson（注：美国海洋生物学家）引发的那次环境保护运动。 我相信对于未来，我们的唯一出路 是贯彻一种新的人性化生态的思想， 也就是说我们应重新定义 人类能力的多样化。 我们的教育体系培养我们的方式 正如我们开采地球的方式--以功利为目的。 但这种方式对于未来将不再适用。 我们必须重新思考那些最基本的准则 也就是我们教育孩子的准则。 Jonas Salk（注：美国生物学家、医学家）曾说过：“如果所有的昆虫 都从地球上消失的话， 那么50年之内，所有生命也将从地球上消失。 而如果人类从地球上消失的话， 那么50年之内，其他物种会活得更好。” 他说的很对。
TED倡导的是人类的创造性思维。 现在，我们必须运用这种思维方式小心地 避开那些按部就班的规则 达到这个目的唯一的方法 就是运用创造力 最大限度地发挥创造力，而且 用孩子们喜欢的方式培养他们。我们的任务 是全方位地培养孩子，这样他们才能面对未来的社会。 顺便说句--我们可能活不到未来那天 但孩子们会。而我们要做的就是帮助 他们能在未来有所作为。
谢谢大家。


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Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity
Good morning. How are you? It's been great, hasn't it? I've been blown away by the whole thing. In fact, I'm leaving. (Laughter) There have been three themes, haven't there, running through the conference, which are relevant to what I want to talk about. One is the extraordinary evidence of human creativity in all of the presentations that we've had and in all of the people here. Just the variety of it and the range of it. The second is that it's put us in a place where we have no idea what's going to happen, in terms of the future. No idea how this may play out.

I have an interest in education -- actually, what I find is everybody has an interest in education. Don't you? I find this very interesting. If you're at a dinner party, and you say you work in education -- actually, you're not often at dinner parties, frankly, if you work in education. (Laughter) You're not asked. And you're never asked back, curiously. That's strange to me. But if you are, and you say to somebody, you know, they say, "What do you do?" and you say you work in education, you can see the blood run from their face. They're like, "Oh my God," you know, "Why me? My one night out all week." (Laughter) But if you ask about their education, they pin you to the wall. Because it's one of those things that goes deep with people, am I right? Like religion, and money and other things. I have a big interest in education, and I think we all do. We have a huge vested interest in it, partly because it's education that's meant to take us into this future that we can't grasp. If you think of it, children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue -- despite all the expertise that's been on parade for the past four days -- what the world will look like in five years' time. And yet we're meant to be educating them for it. So the unpredictability, I think, is extraordinary.

And the third part of this is that we've all agreed, nonetheless, on the really extraordinary capacities that children have -- their capacities for innovation. I mean, Sirena last night was a marvel, wasn't she? Just seeing what she could do. And she's exceptional, but I think she's not, so to speak, exceptional in the whole of childhood. What you have there is a person of extraordinary dedication who found a talent. And my contention is, all kids have tremendous talents. And we squander them, pretty ruthlessly. So I want to talk about education and I want to talk about creativity. My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status. (Applause) Thank you. That was it, by the way. Thank you very much. (Laughter) So, 15 minutes left. Well, I was born ... no. (Laughter)

I heard a great story recently -- I love telling it -- 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, and 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." (Laughter)

When my son was four in England -- actually he was four everywhere, to be honest. (Laughter) If we're being strict about it, wherever he went, he was four that year. He was in the Nativity play. Do you remember the story? No, it was big. It was a big story. Mel Gibson did the sequel. You may have seen it: "Nativity II." But James got the part of Joseph, which we were thrilled about. We considered this to be one of the lead parts. We had the place crammed full of agents in T-shirts: "James Robinson IS Joseph!" (Laughter) He didn't have to speak, but you know the bit where the three kings come in. They come in bearing gifts, and they bring gold, frankincense and myrhh. This really happened. We were sitting there and I think they just went out of sequence, because we talked to the little boy afterward and we said, "You OK with that?" And he said, "Yeah, why? Was that wrong?" They just switched, that was it. Anyway, the three boys came in -- four-year-olds with tea towels on their heads -- and they put these boxes down, and the first boy said, "I bring you gold." And the second boy said, "I bring you myrhh." And the third boy said, "Frank sent this." (Laughter)

What these things have in common is that kids will take a chance. If they don't know, they'll have a go. Am I right? They're not frightened of being wrong. Now, I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. If you're not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way. We stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities. Picasso once said this. He said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately, that we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it. So why is this?

I lived in Stratford-on-Avon until about five years ago. In fact, we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles. So you can imagine what a seamless transition that was. (Laughter) Actually, we lived in a place called Snitterfield, just outside Stratford, which is where Shakespeare's father was born. Are you struck by a new thought? I was. You don't think of Shakespeare having a father, do you? Do you? Because you don't think of Shakespeare being a child, do you? Shakespeare being seven? I never thought of it. I mean, he was seven at some point. He was in somebody's English class, wasn't he? How annoying would that be? (Laughter) "Must try harder." Being sent to bed by his dad, you know, to Shakespeare, "Go to bed, now," to William Shakespeare, "and put the pencil down. And stop speaking like that. It's confusing everybody." (Laughter)

Anyway, we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles, and I just want to say a word about the transition, actually. My son didn't want to come. I've got two kids. He's 21 now; my daughter's 16. He didn't want to come to Los Angeles. He loved it, but he had a girlfriend in England. This was the love of his life, Sarah. He'd known her for a month. Mind you, they'd had their fourth anniversary, because it's a long time when you're 16. Anyway, he was really upset on the plane, and he said, "I'll never find another girl like Sarah." And we were rather pleased about that, frankly, because she was the main reason we were leaving the country. (Laughter)

But something strikes you when you move to America and when you travel around the world: Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. Every one. Doesn't matter where you go. You'd think it would be otherwise, but it isn't. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and the bottom are the arts. Everywhere on Earth. And in pretty much every system too, there's a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are normally given a higher status in schools than drama and dance. There isn't an education system on the planet that teaches dance every day to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think math is very important, but so is dance. Children dance all the time if they're allowed to, we all do. We all have bodies, don't we? Did I miss a meeting? (Laughter) Truthfully, what happens is, as children grow up, we start to educate them progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And slightly to one side.

If you were to visit education, as an alien, and say "What's it for, public education?" I think you'd have to conclude -- if you look at the output, who really succeeds by this, who does everything that they should, who gets all the brownie points, who are the winners -- I think you'd have to conclude the whole purpose of public education throughout the world is to produce university professors. Isn't it? They're the people who come out the top. And I used to be one, so there. (Laughter) And I like university professors, but you know, we shouldn't hold them up as the high-water mark of all human achievement. They're just a form of life, another form of life. But they're rather curious, and I say this out of affection for them. There's something curious about professors in my experience -- not all of them, but typically -- they live in their heads. They live up there, and slightly to one side. They're disembodied, you know, in a kind of literal way. They look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads, don't they? (Laughter) It's a way of getting their head to meetings. If you want real evidence of out-of-body experiences, by the way, get yourself along to a residential conference of senior academics, and pop into the discotheque on the final night. (Laughter) And there you will see it -- grown men and women writhing uncontrollably, off the beat, waiting until it ends so they can go home and write a paper about it.

Now our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability. And there's a reason. The whole system was invented -- around the world, there were no public systems of education, really, before the 19th century. They all came into being to meet the needs of industrialism. So the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas. Number one, that the most useful subjects for work are at the top. So you were probably steered benignly away from things at school when you were a kid, things you liked, on the grounds that you would never get a job doing that. Is that right? Don't do music, you're not going to be a musician; don't do art, you won't be an artist. Benign advice -- now, profoundly mistaken. The whole world is engulfed in a revolution. And the second is academic ability, which has really come to dominate our view of intelligence, because the universities designed the system in their image. If you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they're not, because the thing they were good at at school wasn't valued, or was actually stigmatized. And I think we can't afford to go on that way.

In the next 30 years, according to UNESCO, more people worldwide will be graduating through education than since the beginning of history. More people, and it's the combination of all the things we've talked about -- technology and its transformation effect on work, and demography and the huge explosion in population. Suddenly, degrees aren't worth anything. Isn't that true? When I was a student, if you had a degree, you had a job. If you didn't have a job it's because you didn't want one. And I didn't want one, frankly. (Laughter) But now kids with degrees are often heading home to carry on playing video games, because you need an MA where the previous job required a BA, and now you need a PhD for the other. It's a process of academic inflation. And it indicates the whole structure of education is shifting beneath our feet. We need to radically rethink our view of intelligence.

We know three things about intelligence. One, it's diverse. We think about the world in all the ways that we experience it. We think visually, we think in sound, we think kinesthetically. We think in abstract terms, we think in movement. Secondly, intelligence is dynamic. If you look at the interactions of a human brain, as we heard yesterday from a number of presentations, intelligence is wonderfully interactive. The brain isn't divided into compartments. In fact, creativity -- which I define as the process of having original ideas that have value -- more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.

The brain is intentionally -- by the way, there's a shaft of nerves that joins the two halves of the brain called the corpus callosum. It's thicker in women. Following off from Helen yesterday, I think this is probably why women are better at multi-tasking. Because you are, aren't you? There's a raft of research, but I know it from my personal life. If my wife is cooking a meal at home -- which is not often, thankfully. (Laughter) But you know, she's doing -- no, she's good at some things -- but if she's cooking, you know, she's dealing with people on the phone, she's talking to the kids, she's painting the ceiling, she's doing open-heart surgery over here. If I'm cooking, the door is shut, the kids are out, the phone's on the hook, if she comes in I get annoyed. I say, "Terry, please, I'm trying to fry an egg in here. Give me a break." (Laughter) Actually, you know that old philosophical thing, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it happen? Remember that old chestnut? I saw a great t-shirt really recently which said, "If a man speaks his mind in a forest, and no woman hears him, is he still wrong?" (Laughter)

And the third thing about intelligence is, it's distinct. I'm doing a new book at the moment called "Epiphany," which is based on a series of interviews with people about how they discovered their talent. I'm fascinated by how people got to be there. It's really prompted by a conversation I had with a wonderful woman who maybe most people have never heard of, she's called Gillian Lynne, have you heard of her? Some have. She's a choreographer and everybody knows her work. She did "Cats," and "Phantom of the Opera." She's wonderful. I used to be on the board of the Royal Ballet, in England, as you can see. Anyway, Gillian and I had lunch one day and I said, "Gillian, how'd you get to be a dancer?" And she said it was interesting, when she was at school, she was really hopeless. And the school, in the '30s, wrote to her parents and said, "We think Gillian has a learning disorder." She couldn't concentrate, she was fidgeting. I think now they'd say she had ADHD. Wouldn't you? But this was the 1930s, and ADHD hadn't been invented at this point. It wasn't an available condition. (Laughter) People weren't aware they could have that.

Anyway, she went to see this specialist. So, this oak-paneled room, and she was there with her mother, and she was led and sat on a chair at the end, and she sat on her hands for 20 minutes while this man talked to her mother about all the problems Gillian was having at school. And at the end of it -- because she was disturbing people, her homework was always late, and so on, little kid of eight -- in the end, 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 the room, he turned on the radio that was sitting on his desk. And when they got out the room, he said to her mother, "Just stand and watch her." And the minute they left the room, she said, 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."

I said, "What happened?" She said, "She did. I can't tell you how wonderful it was. We walked in this room and it was full of people like me. People who couldn't sit still. People who had to move to think." Who had to move to think. They did ballet, they did tap, they did jazz, they did modern, they did contemporary. She was eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet School, she became a soloist, she had a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet. She eventually graduated from the Royal Ballet School and founded her own company -- the Gillian Lynne Dance Company -- met Andrew Lloyd Weber. 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.

Now, I think ... (Applause) What I think it comes to is this: Al Gore spoke the other night about ecology, and the revolution that was triggered by Rachel Carson. I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth: for a particular commodity. And for the future, it won't serve us. We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we're educating our children. There was a wonderful quote by Jonas Salk, who said, "If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on Earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish." And he's right.

What TED celebrates is the gift of the human imagination. We have to be careful now that we use this gift wisely, and that we avert some of the scenarios scenarios that we've talked about. And the only way we'll do it is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are, and seeing our children for the hope that they are. And our task is to educate their whole being, so they can face this future. By the way -- we may not see this future, but they will. And our job is to help them make something of it. Thank you very much.