I recently finished reading Out of Our Minds, a great read about education, creativity, and technology written by Ken Robinson. He's best known (to me, at least) for giving this TED talk about why schools today are...well...terrible (my take).
The book is a new edition of one he originally published in 2001. A lot has happened in a decade, thus the updates.
Overall, the book is thick, full of analysis as to why our current view of and teaching of creativity isn't preparing people (children or adults) to succeed in our rapidly-changing world. I liked the book, especially when Robinson helps to imagine new models of learning, working, and community.
And, here are some of the best quotes from the book:
Creativity is about working in a highly focused way on ideas and projects, crafting them into their best forms and making critical judgments along the way about which work best and why.
When you follow your own true north you create new opportunities, meet different people, have different experiences and create a different life.
All organizations are organic and perishable. They are created by people and they need to be constantly re-created if they are to survive.
Creativity is part of what it is to be human.
Television was not squeezed into existing American culture: it changed the culture forever.
We don't grow into creativity; we grow out of it.
Technology, as was once said, is not technology if it happened before you were born.
Many people are diverted from their natural paths in life by the preoccupation in education with academic intelligence and the hierarchy of disciplines.
Human communities depend on a diversity of talents not on a singular conception of ability.
Creativity is applied imagination.
I define creativity as the process of having original ideas that have value.
I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative, but if you're not prepared to be wrong, it's unlikely that you'll ever come up with anything original.
By definition, creative ideas are often ahead of their times.
When people find their medium, they discover their real creative strengths and come into their own. Helping people to connect with their personal creative capacities is the surest way to release the best they have to offer.
It is through feelings as well as through reason that we find our real creative power. It is through both that we connect with each other and create the complex, shifting worlds of human culture.
Even the most sophisticated technologies only change the world when they connect with basic human instincts. When they do, their impact is unstoppable.
An organization is not the physical facilities within which it operates: it is the network of people in it.
The first role of the creative leader is to facilitate the creative abilities of every member of the organization.
The second role of the creative leader is to form and facilitate dynamic creative teams.
The third role of the creative leader is to promote a general culture of innovation.
Collaboration involves people working together in a shared process in which their interaction affects the nature of the work and its outcomes.
Organizations that make the most of their people find that their people make the most of them.
Education is not a linear proces of preparation for the future: it is about cultivating the talents and sensibilities through which we can live our best lives in the present and create the future for ourselves.
Transforming education is not easy but the price of failure is more than we can afford, while the benefits of success are more than we can imagine.
Education and training are the keys to the future. A key can be turned in two directions. Turn it one way and you lock resources away; turn it the other way and you release resources and give people back to themselves.
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