Sandra Müürisepp Tallinn 2012 S IR K EN R OBINSON

E ARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION  born 4 March 1950  originally from a working-class Liverpool family  contracted polio at age four.  He studied English and drama (B.Ed.) at University of Leeds (1968–1972) and completed a PhD in 1981 at the University of London, researching drama and theatre in education.

W HO ?  internationally recognized leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation  an author, speaker, and international advisor on education in the arts to government, non-profits, education, and arts bodies  works with governments in Europe, Asia and the USA, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies and some of the world’s leading cultural organizations

 Director of The Arts in Schools Project (1985–89), Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick (1989–2001)  knighted in 2003 for services to education  Robinson now lives in Los Angeles with his wife Marie-Therese and children James and Kate

Q UOTES BY K EN R OBINSON  “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”  “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.”  “I believe this passionately: that we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it.”

 “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.”  “There isn’t an education system on the planet that teaches dance everyday to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why?”  “Typically [professors] live in their heads. … They look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads. It’s a way of getting their head to meetings.”

 “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: ‘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.”  “Very many people go through their whole lives having no real sense of what their talents may be, or if they have any to speak of.”

V IDEOS  hools_kill_creativity.html hools_kill_creativity.html  U U  ng_on_the_revolution.html ng_on_the_revolution.html

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