Quotes from Ken Robinson

Every education system on Earth has the same hierarchy of subjects: at the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and the bottom are the arts.

All kids have tremendous talents — and we squander them pretty ruthlessly.

There isn't an education system on the planet that teaches dance everyday to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why?

You don't think of Shakespeare being a child, do you? Shakespeare being seven? He was seven at some point. He was in somebody's English class, wasn't he? How annoying would that be?

It's education that's meant to take us into this future that we can't grasp.

One Size Does Not Fit All Some of the most brilliant, creative people I know did not do well at school. Many of them didn't really discover what they could do—and who they really were—until they'd left school and recovered from their education.

What we become as our lives evolve depends on the quality of our experiences here and now.

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.

When children aren't given the space to struggle through things on their own, they don't learn to problem-solve very well. They don't learn to be confident in their own abilities, and it can affect their self-esteem.

One of the strongest signs of being in the zone is a sense of freedom and of authenticity.

As the physicist John Wheeler said, "If you don't kick things around with people, you are out of it. Nobody, I always say, can be anybody without somebody being around.

a system that sets people against each other fundamentally misunderstands the dynamics that drive achievement. Education thrives on partnership and collaboration—within schools, between schools, and with other groups and organizations.

One of the enemies of creativity and innovation, especially in relation to our own development, is common sense.

Creative teams are dynamic.

Being in your element is not only about aptitude, it's about passion: it is about loving what you do.

The most powerful method of improving education is to invest in the improvement of teaching and the status of great teachers.

Great creative teams are diverse. They are composed of very different sorts of people with different but complementary talents.

You create your own life by how you see the world and your place in it;

Personalization means teachers taking account of these differences in how they teach different students. It also means allowing for flexibility within the curriculum so that in addition to what all students need to learn in common, there are opportunities for them to pursue their individual interests and strengths as well.

Learning in and about the arts is essential to intellectual development.

Although mindfulness does not remove the ups and downs of life, it changes how experiences like losing a job, getting a divorce, struggling at home or at school, births, marriages, illnesses, death and dying influence you and how you influence the experience. . . . In other words, mindfulness changes your relationship to life.

The dominant Western worldview is not based on seeing synergies and connections but on making distinctions and seeing differences.

Our ideas can enslave or liberate us.

Education is the system that's supposed to develop our natural abilities and enable us to make our way in the world. Instead, it is stifling the individual talents and abilities of too many students and killing their motivation to learn. There's a huge irony in the middle of all of this.