Children's Questions
A few years ago I was fortunate enough to participate in a Franklin seminar in Birmingham, UK. The purpose of the seminar was to try and inspire or re-energize corporate participants to initiate new ways in their businesses. The speakers were all successful public figures in the world of motivational or personal organizational methods and approaches, and included such well know names like Steven Covey, Olympic gold medallists, etc.
However one speaker particularly struck a resonance with me, and identified something I’ve long believed, but was not able to logically put together.
Sir Ken Robertson noted that our modern lives are actually structured according to what was required in the late 19th and 20th century: learning or gaining a skill that can find a job. This job would more than likely be something in manufacturing, i.e. to make something. This focus logically leads to minimizing all of the other natural abilities that children have, such as arts, dancing, music and other "soft skills". As a result we adults are systematically trained to think only in a very structured fashion, limiting risk and thereby minimizing creativity. There are some companies that are trying to counteract this phenomenon by encouraging their employees to do different things. For example, apparently at Google every employee is encouraged to take some training or a class on a subject that has nothing to do with their job. For 4 hours every week, i.e. 10% of their time!
This video shows Ken Robinson speaking to this point. What I now find very interesting is that Carl Sagan also spoke about this point more than 20 years ago!
However one speaker particularly struck a resonance with me, and identified something I’ve long believed, but was not able to logically put together.
Sir Ken Robertson noted that our modern lives are actually structured according to what was required in the late 19th and 20th century: learning or gaining a skill that can find a job. This job would more than likely be something in manufacturing, i.e. to make something. This focus logically leads to minimizing all of the other natural abilities that children have, such as arts, dancing, music and other "soft skills". As a result we adults are systematically trained to think only in a very structured fashion, limiting risk and thereby minimizing creativity. There are some companies that are trying to counteract this phenomenon by encouraging their employees to do different things. For example, apparently at Google every employee is encouraged to take some training or a class on a subject that has nothing to do with their job. For 4 hours every week, i.e. 10% of their time!
This video shows Ken Robinson speaking to this point. What I now find very interesting is that Carl Sagan also spoke about this point more than 20 years ago!
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