Quotes from Ken Robinson

Being in your Element is about connecting with and dwelling in the positive feelings that express and fulfill your own spiritual energies. One way of discovering the roots of these feelings, and of finding your Element, is through the practices of mindfulness. These practices draw on the principles and techniques of meditation that I suggested in chapter one.

Weil argues that emotional well-being is just as important as physical well-being and that we need to create the conditions that allow us to be happy through circumstances within our control. "Happiness arises spontaneously from sources within us," he says. "Seeking it outside ourselves is counterproductive.

Along the way, I've lost track of the numbers of people I've met who have no real sense of what their individual talents and passions are. They don't enjoy what they are doing now but they have no idea what actually would fulfill them.

Life is not linear, it is organic. We create our lives symbiotically as we explore our talents in relation to the circumstances, they help create for us.

no aceptas que piensas el mundo de muchas maneras diferentes, estarás limitando inexorablemente tus posibilidades de encontrar a la persona que se supone que tienes que ser. Una

As a precocious youngster I had always been good at logical manipulations and puzzle-solving IQ tests. So if economics was made for me, it can be said that I too was made for economics. Never underestimate the vital importance of finding early in life the work that for you is play. This turns possible underachievers into happy warriors.

Encontrar nuestro Elemento es fundamental para nosotros como individuos y para el bienestar de nuestra comunidad. La educación tendría que ser uno de los procesos principales que nos llevara hasta el Elemento. Sin embargo, con demasiada frecuencia sirve para lo contrario. Y este es un asunto que nos afecta seriamente. En muchos sistemas educativos, los problemas se están agravando.

The mistake that many policymakers make is to believe that in education the best way to face the future is by improving what they did in the past. There are three major processes in education: the curriculum, which is what the school system expects students to learn; pedagogy, the process by which the system helps students to do it; and assessment, the process of judging how well they are doing.

Aun así, la ciencia no ha llegado a un acuerdo general sobre la naturaleza de la conciencia y qué es exactamente lo que nos hace ser como somos. No explica las cualidades del ser humano, el placer que sentimos ante la música, la poesía o el baile, nuestra pasión por crear bellos objetos y elaboradas teorías, o la desbordante euforia del primer amor. Tampoco las múltiples formas de vincularnos con el espíritu de los demás.

Much of the cause of the teacher attrition rate is the condition under which many teachers work. "The data suggest that school staffing problems are rooted in the way schools are organized and the way the teaching occupation is treated and that lasting improvements in the quality and quantity of the teaching workforce will require improvements in the quality of the teaching job."39

To meet them, we need a radical change in how we think about and do school—a shift from the old industrial model to one based on entirely different principles and practices. People do not come in standard sizes or shapes, nor do their abilities and personalities. Understanding this basic truth is the key to seeing how the system is failing—and also how it can be transformed. To do that we have to change the story: we need a better metaphor.

The effect of education on a person's life depends on the sort of school they go to and the teachers they have.

They have marginalized the very capabilities our children need to create a more equitable and sustainable world, including creativity, critical thinking, citizenship, collaboration, and compassion.

Vivimos en una época de profundos «ruidos» y distracciones. El mundo es cada vez más turbulento. Es difícil sobreponerse al impacto que las tecnologías digitales ejercen sobre nuestra manera de pensar, vivir y trabajar. Sus beneficios son extraordinarios, pero también hay desventajas.

Languages are the bearers of the cultural genes.

Imagination is the ability to bring to mind things that are not immediately present to our senses.

To make use of our imaginations we need to take them one step further: we need to be creative. If imagination is the ability to bring to mind things that are not present to our senses, then creativity is the process of putting your imagination to work. It is applied imagination

If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.

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.

Creativity is as important as literacy

Human resources are like natural resources; they're often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they're not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves.

For most of us the problem isn't that we aim too high and fail - it's just the opposite - we aim too low and succeed.

Curiosity is the engine of achievement.

We have to go from what is essentially an industrial model of education, a manufacturing model, which is based on linearity and conformity and batching people. We have to move to a model that is based more on principles of agriculture. We have to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process; it's an organic process. And you cannot predict the outcome of human development. All you can do, like a farmer, is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.