do schools kill creativity Wow Wow
that’s a thought-provoking idea well
that was the title of a talk by Sir Ken
Robinson and probably the most popular
TED talk that ted has had during its
history and that would tip what he
talked about was the fact that sort of
the industrial school system we have
today doesn’t serve the creative arts
very well and we will need these
creative arts in the future so I enjoyed
his talk I really enjoyed his humor very
entertaining talk but what was
interesting is he really didn’t offer a
solution now years later I was really
looking for a solution because my own
kids were going into high school and
this all became very personal and
emotional for me so I saw my kids going
to the normal system and really my gut
started hurting because I as I saw how
they operated the schools operated they
just didn’t seem to work very well you
know the teachers were nice and
competent but the whole thing just
didn’t seem to work very well it
reminded me a lot of the things that I
see in my day job so now I guess I need
to talk to you about my day job so I’m a
strategist I look at help companies
large and small with their strategy and
operations you know I guess what I want
to do today is tell you about my
two-year journey about using the skills
for my day job and looking at the
educational system now you know all of
us will probably went through the
educational system but at that point
where they’re at in the maze right we
don’t go there yes sir you know and so
on but it’s interesting to look at it
from the outside and with a scientific
view so here’s how I want to do it first
I want to make some high-level
observations second I’m
talk about the fundamental economic
underpinnings of the education system I
know that’s not something we talk about
very much but I’m going to talk about
that because I think that really will go
a long way in explaining why it behaves
the way it does
third I want to talk about why it’s so
hard to change okay and fourth a
positive note after these two years I
want to let you know that I’m actually
quite positive about the prospect for
change for the education systems that is
I think we can get to low cost high
quality lifelong education if we can all
do just a couple of things so hold that
thought
so observations yeah you know when you
first look at the system the first
observation you make is we take kids and
we segregate them from society and put
them into this thing called the
education system they can’t leave it’s a
prison right and after about 11 years or
so we say so what do you want to do in
life I mean you know I don’t think
that’s a particularly fair question to
ask how would they know another
observation the education system is
amazingly insular the people that work
in it the professors the administrators
the teachers have likely worked with it
their whole careers the interesting
thing about that is we as a society look
at the education system as the key thing
that produces workers and citizens for
the rest of society again this doesn’t
seem to jive right there’s almost no
interaction going on third you know most
of us have to K through 12 education we
hope our kids go to fabulous colleges
and in order to facilitate this process
there’s all sorts of college prep
programs there’s AP there’s IB and ace
and so on now what’s interesting is
there
pretty self-similar you know four years
of English three years of math two years
of foreign language and so on but what’s
the first question that really great
colleges ask so how are you different
now again I don’t think that’s
particularly fair you know we load down
the kids with this largely selfless
still self-similar program and then sort
of say hey you know how can i build true
differentiation so then what are we left
with we’re left with standardized tests
on the one hand and grades now I want to
talk about grades what are they for just
a just basic question what are they for
I mean certainly there’s some
certification you know if you get a tail
algebra we think you know algebra but
what I’m really interested in is what if
you get a D in algebra what does that
mean what certainly means you don’t know
algebra I think that’s pretty clear but
why wait maybe you’re not a good student
maybe you didn’t have a good teacher you
know it may be that you were just enough
not in a life condition where you know
algebra was important to you I guess my
point is this Dean algebra really
doesn’t have an economic benefit and
that’s kind of funny
if you think about it because this is
one of the few circumstances where we
pay for an economic good that can
actually filter us out of our own future
so we have a funny system right I mean
you just let’s just MIT it now when you
were you whenever you as a strategist
look at something like this you have to
ask well why is it the way it is after
all things that have been running for
hundreds of years don’t end up that way
for no reason so I think the key insight
to understanding the educational system
is to understand its economic
underpinnings and by the way this is
true whether you’re talking about k-12
education you’re talking about college
education even graduate education to a
certain degree and here’s the key thing
the whole education system is based on
the following there’s a scarce resource
which we call the teacher
there’s a scarce resource which we call
the classroom and the education system
takes these two things together and
through a craftsman like model delivers
education to banks of kids as they go by
okay so those are the three fundamentals
its craftsman model scarcity of the two
aspects of Education now you know as
long as the scarcity is real
one could argue maybe it’s not a bad
system right but what’s interesting to
me is you know let’s consider the
craftsman model nearly every industry
starts out as a craftsman model but you
know what happens rapidly afterwards
people start looking at the basic
processes that occur and say well how
can we optimize these in such a way that
the quality of delivery is consistent
the cost goes down and maybe there’s
different service levels well I mean we
know this I mean if the food industry
has you can have McDonald’s Panera etc
the hotel industry has this but
education uniquely we’re still in the
craftsman model you know and the
consequences are huge in terms of waste
I mean just think about it how old is
algebra hundreds of years old
but thousands of teacher today teachers
today the cross the United States will
get up develop a lecture deliver the
lecture do assessment correct the
assessments and then get on the hamster
wheel to do it over and over again now
every other industry would look at that
and say you know let’s optimize the heck
out of this and let’s take the most core
resource we have the teacher and the
one-on-one time that’s the most valuable
thing that’s there maximize that and
automate the rest of this stuff it can
be done let me tell you let’s talk about
these other two scarcities that drive
the whole economics of the system so one
is the classroom well we all know with
computer technology in the internet we
can have virtual classrooms and they’re
advantageous in many many ways but one
key way their advantages
advantageous is eminently scalable we’re
currently building physical buildings
all over the place enormous amounts of
money are being spent on physical
buildings as if buildings could teach
you no let’s talk about the teacher I’ve
talked about the productivity of the
teacher but realistically would sit with
the Internet technology one can actually
source a much wider variety of teachers
and quality of teachers geographically
so if you want to get an industrial arts
teacher living in Michigan to teach
something in Florida you can if you want
to get a you know Chinese speaking
teacher from San Francisco to teach in
Michigan you can we just have to think
broadly so what is this all net up to if
we just in education did the things
every other industry does focus on
process optimization focus on using
technology and innovation and do that as
a forward-looking process I think we can
fundamentally change how education works
so that leads the question so why hasn’t
already happened
obviously these are large bureaucracies
there and they don’t want to change
right by the way that’s true for every
bureaucracy not just education and I
think one could say there’s like kind of
this local versus global decision making
that happens a lot let me take that
algebra teacher if you’ve been teaching
algebra for nine years teaching it the
same way the 10th year really isn’t that
that much incremental effort but
teaching it a completely different way
with higher productivity well that’s a
lot of work so there’s a lot of inertia
in the system also the work what I’m
talking about here is pretty different
day to day so it’s kind of like you know
Sears trying to figure out ecommerce
it’s hard for them right but you know
all of us that I just said it’s true in
other industries so what what’s really
different here well what’s really
different here I think is
we tolerated let me give you an example
I know of IB programs where different
teachers use different software programs
and because they use different software
programs there are students that are
managing 20 20 to 25 different logins no
I don’t think managing logins is a huge
educational benefit but my point is just
notice what just happened here all the
aggregate complexity for that education
got pushed from the individual teachers
to the student and their parents we
would not tolerate this in any other
aspect of our life I mean if you went to
a bank and every single teller told you
there was a different way to interact to
them you wouldn’t tolerate it so what’s
different about education is we tolerate
it that’s one thing the second thing
that’s different is we have this kind of
social psychological straightjacket
around education that is if you want to
do something unconventional it’s kind of
a social stigma tied to it it’s
different oh you didn’t get quite the
degree that we thought you should have
gotten or you didn’t do it the way we
want it right and that itself creates
inertia in the whole system because
there’s only one way to do things I’m
here to tell you there’s actually a lot
of exciting stuff happening I mean if
you look around in the unconventional
world you have folks like Western
Governors University or the University
of Arizona offering self-paced
competency-based education at reasonable
cost you have Florida Virtual School
doing the same thing for K through 12
education you know just to realize what
that means is the student can move at
their own pace
they have 24/7 access to the materials
they can have a one-on-one relationship
with the teacher and we do this today
right it’s available all of you your
folks like Khan Academy which are
bypassing the
nation functions and talking directly to
to the employers and building a scale
system for building those skills and you
know the educational system is paying
attention when Purdue University a large
public university buys Kaplan learning
systems okay so if you add it all up
there’s very interesting things
happening in this unconventional world
now you might ask well if you think this
is all so great what did you do with
your kids and indeed what I’m going to
tell you is when I looked at this whole
space
I had a left-brain right-brain fight and
the left brain said yeah then analysis
part said I’m looking at this this is
obvious this is actually the best
education at independent of cost you can
get but my right brain said that’s
different
what will others say right but after two
years you know the subjects of my
scientific experiment my kids I can tell
you that they’re thriving now I’m not
saying everybody should do what I did in
fact kind of my point is you should all
do what’s right for you
but what I’m saying is whoever your
institutions of Education are you really
need to demand from them innovative
techniques and and innovation in terms
of what they do day to day and when they
don’t provide it be very open to the
unconventional methods because the
system won’t change until you do okay
and the second thing is let’s all
collectively get rid of this social
stigma around around doing different
ways of education so sort of finally I
think if we do all of this sort of stuff
there’s an opportunity to really change
the education system and I think we can
get to a point where the
big part of Education we don’t talk
about it as adults you know as well as
kids and college kids all of us I think
should have an ability to get access to
education literally as a utility and I
think we can get there okay I thought
this is an interesting idea and that’s
why I wanted to share with you thank you
that’s a thought-provoking idea well
that was the title of a talk by Sir Ken
Robinson and probably the most popular
TED talk that ted has had during its
history and that would tip what he
talked about was the fact that sort of
the industrial school system we have
today doesn’t serve the creative arts
very well and we will need these
creative arts in the future so I enjoyed
his talk I really enjoyed his humor very
entertaining talk but what was
interesting is he really didn’t offer a
solution now years later I was really
looking for a solution because my own
kids were going into high school and
this all became very personal and
emotional for me so I saw my kids going
to the normal system and really my gut
started hurting because I as I saw how
they operated the schools operated they
just didn’t seem to work very well you
know the teachers were nice and
competent but the whole thing just
didn’t seem to work very well it
reminded me a lot of the things that I
see in my day job so now I guess I need
to talk to you about my day job so I’m a
strategist I look at help companies
large and small with their strategy and
operations you know I guess what I want
to do today is tell you about my
two-year journey about using the skills
for my day job and looking at the
educational system now you know all of
us will probably went through the
educational system but at that point
where they’re at in the maze right we
don’t go there yes sir you know and so
on but it’s interesting to look at it
from the outside and with a scientific
view so here’s how I want to do it first
I want to make some high-level
observations second I’m
talk about the fundamental economic
underpinnings of the education system I
know that’s not something we talk about
very much but I’m going to talk about
that because I think that really will go
a long way in explaining why it behaves
the way it does
third I want to talk about why it’s so
hard to change okay and fourth a
positive note after these two years I
want to let you know that I’m actually
quite positive about the prospect for
change for the education systems that is
I think we can get to low cost high
quality lifelong education if we can all
do just a couple of things so hold that
thought
so observations yeah you know when you
first look at the system the first
observation you make is we take kids and
we segregate them from society and put
them into this thing called the
education system they can’t leave it’s a
prison right and after about 11 years or
so we say so what do you want to do in
life I mean you know I don’t think
that’s a particularly fair question to
ask how would they know another
observation the education system is
amazingly insular the people that work
in it the professors the administrators
the teachers have likely worked with it
their whole careers the interesting
thing about that is we as a society look
at the education system as the key thing
that produces workers and citizens for
the rest of society again this doesn’t
seem to jive right there’s almost no
interaction going on third you know most
of us have to K through 12 education we
hope our kids go to fabulous colleges
and in order to facilitate this process
there’s all sorts of college prep
programs there’s AP there’s IB and ace
and so on now what’s interesting is
there
pretty self-similar you know four years
of English three years of math two years
of foreign language and so on but what’s
the first question that really great
colleges ask so how are you different
now again I don’t think that’s
particularly fair you know we load down
the kids with this largely selfless
still self-similar program and then sort
of say hey you know how can i build true
differentiation so then what are we left
with we’re left with standardized tests
on the one hand and grades now I want to
talk about grades what are they for just
a just basic question what are they for
I mean certainly there’s some
certification you know if you get a tail
algebra we think you know algebra but
what I’m really interested in is what if
you get a D in algebra what does that
mean what certainly means you don’t know
algebra I think that’s pretty clear but
why wait maybe you’re not a good student
maybe you didn’t have a good teacher you
know it may be that you were just enough
not in a life condition where you know
algebra was important to you I guess my
point is this Dean algebra really
doesn’t have an economic benefit and
that’s kind of funny
if you think about it because this is
one of the few circumstances where we
pay for an economic good that can
actually filter us out of our own future
so we have a funny system right I mean
you just let’s just MIT it now when you
were you whenever you as a strategist
look at something like this you have to
ask well why is it the way it is after
all things that have been running for
hundreds of years don’t end up that way
for no reason so I think the key insight
to understanding the educational system
is to understand its economic
underpinnings and by the way this is
true whether you’re talking about k-12
education you’re talking about college
education even graduate education to a
certain degree and here’s the key thing
the whole education system is based on
the following there’s a scarce resource
which we call the teacher
there’s a scarce resource which we call
the classroom and the education system
takes these two things together and
through a craftsman like model delivers
education to banks of kids as they go by
okay so those are the three fundamentals
its craftsman model scarcity of the two
aspects of Education now you know as
long as the scarcity is real
one could argue maybe it’s not a bad
system right but what’s interesting to
me is you know let’s consider the
craftsman model nearly every industry
starts out as a craftsman model but you
know what happens rapidly afterwards
people start looking at the basic
processes that occur and say well how
can we optimize these in such a way that
the quality of delivery is consistent
the cost goes down and maybe there’s
different service levels well I mean we
know this I mean if the food industry
has you can have McDonald’s Panera etc
the hotel industry has this but
education uniquely we’re still in the
craftsman model you know and the
consequences are huge in terms of waste
I mean just think about it how old is
algebra hundreds of years old
but thousands of teacher today teachers
today the cross the United States will
get up develop a lecture deliver the
lecture do assessment correct the
assessments and then get on the hamster
wheel to do it over and over again now
every other industry would look at that
and say you know let’s optimize the heck
out of this and let’s take the most core
resource we have the teacher and the
one-on-one time that’s the most valuable
thing that’s there maximize that and
automate the rest of this stuff it can
be done let me tell you let’s talk about
these other two scarcities that drive
the whole economics of the system so one
is the classroom well we all know with
computer technology in the internet we
can have virtual classrooms and they’re
advantageous in many many ways but one
key way their advantages
advantageous is eminently scalable we’re
currently building physical buildings
all over the place enormous amounts of
money are being spent on physical
buildings as if buildings could teach
you no let’s talk about the teacher I’ve
talked about the productivity of the
teacher but realistically would sit with
the Internet technology one can actually
source a much wider variety of teachers
and quality of teachers geographically
so if you want to get an industrial arts
teacher living in Michigan to teach
something in Florida you can if you want
to get a you know Chinese speaking
teacher from San Francisco to teach in
Michigan you can we just have to think
broadly so what is this all net up to if
we just in education did the things
every other industry does focus on
process optimization focus on using
technology and innovation and do that as
a forward-looking process I think we can
fundamentally change how education works
so that leads the question so why hasn’t
already happened
obviously these are large bureaucracies
there and they don’t want to change
right by the way that’s true for every
bureaucracy not just education and I
think one could say there’s like kind of
this local versus global decision making
that happens a lot let me take that
algebra teacher if you’ve been teaching
algebra for nine years teaching it the
same way the 10th year really isn’t that
that much incremental effort but
teaching it a completely different way
with higher productivity well that’s a
lot of work so there’s a lot of inertia
in the system also the work what I’m
talking about here is pretty different
day to day so it’s kind of like you know
Sears trying to figure out ecommerce
it’s hard for them right but you know
all of us that I just said it’s true in
other industries so what what’s really
different here well what’s really
different here I think is
we tolerated let me give you an example
I know of IB programs where different
teachers use different software programs
and because they use different software
programs there are students that are
managing 20 20 to 25 different logins no
I don’t think managing logins is a huge
educational benefit but my point is just
notice what just happened here all the
aggregate complexity for that education
got pushed from the individual teachers
to the student and their parents we
would not tolerate this in any other
aspect of our life I mean if you went to
a bank and every single teller told you
there was a different way to interact to
them you wouldn’t tolerate it so what’s
different about education is we tolerate
it that’s one thing the second thing
that’s different is we have this kind of
social psychological straightjacket
around education that is if you want to
do something unconventional it’s kind of
a social stigma tied to it it’s
different oh you didn’t get quite the
degree that we thought you should have
gotten or you didn’t do it the way we
want it right and that itself creates
inertia in the whole system because
there’s only one way to do things I’m
here to tell you there’s actually a lot
of exciting stuff happening I mean if
you look around in the unconventional
world you have folks like Western
Governors University or the University
of Arizona offering self-paced
competency-based education at reasonable
cost you have Florida Virtual School
doing the same thing for K through 12
education you know just to realize what
that means is the student can move at
their own pace
they have 24/7 access to the materials
they can have a one-on-one relationship
with the teacher and we do this today
right it’s available all of you your
folks like Khan Academy which are
bypassing the
nation functions and talking directly to
to the employers and building a scale
system for building those skills and you
know the educational system is paying
attention when Purdue University a large
public university buys Kaplan learning
systems okay so if you add it all up
there’s very interesting things
happening in this unconventional world
now you might ask well if you think this
is all so great what did you do with
your kids and indeed what I’m going to
tell you is when I looked at this whole
space
I had a left-brain right-brain fight and
the left brain said yeah then analysis
part said I’m looking at this this is
obvious this is actually the best
education at independent of cost you can
get but my right brain said that’s
different
what will others say right but after two
years you know the subjects of my
scientific experiment my kids I can tell
you that they’re thriving now I’m not
saying everybody should do what I did in
fact kind of my point is you should all
do what’s right for you
but what I’m saying is whoever your
institutions of Education are you really
need to demand from them innovative
techniques and and innovation in terms
of what they do day to day and when they
don’t provide it be very open to the
unconventional methods because the
system won’t change until you do okay
and the second thing is let’s all
collectively get rid of this social
stigma around around doing different
ways of education so sort of finally I
think if we do all of this sort of stuff
there’s an opportunity to really change
the education system and I think we can
get to a point where the
big part of Education we don’t talk
about it as adults you know as well as
kids and college kids all of us I think
should have an ability to get access to
education literally as a utility and I
think we can get there okay I thought
this is an interesting idea and that’s
why I wanted to share with you thank you
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