Out of Our Minds (2011) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters/People edit see section history

• Descartes: Add a description of this character.
• Darryl
• Derek
• Martha Graham
• Chris Wink
• Dave
• Shakespeare
• Matt Goldman
• Susanne Langer

Quotes edit see section history

• “Preface: I had called the book Out of Our Minds for three reason. First, human intelligence is profoundly and uniquely creative. We live in a world that's shaped by the ideas, beliefs and values of human imagination and culture. . . The great revolutions in human history have often been brought about by new ideas: by new ways of seeing that have shattered old certainties. . . Second, realizing our creative potential is partly a question of finding our medium, of being in our element. Education should help us to achieve this, but too often it does not and too many people are instead displaced from their own true talents. . . Finally, there is a kind of mania driving the present direction of educational policy. In place of a reasoned debate about the strategies that are needed to face these extraordinary changes, there is a tired mantra about raising traditional academic standards. These standards were designed for other times and for other purposes.”

  Ken Robinson

• “Chapter 1: If someone tells you they cannot read or write, you don't assume that they are not capable of reading and writing, but that they haven't been taught how. It is the same with creativity. When people say to me that they are not creative, I assume they just haven't yet learnt what is involved.”

  Ken Robinson

• “Chapter 1: Being creative does usually involve playing with ideas and having fun; enjoyment and imagination. But creativity is also 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. In every discipline, creativity also draws on skill, knowledge and control. It's not only about letting go, it's about holding on.”

  Ken Robinson

• “Chapter 1: Too many think they have no special talents at all. My premise is that we are all born with immense natural talents but that too few people discover what they are and even fewer develop them properly. Ironically one of the main reasons for this massive waste of talent is the very process that is meant to develop it: education. . . The waste of talent may not be deliberate but it is systemic. It is systemic, because public education is a system, and it is based on deep-seated assumptions that are no longer true.”

  Ken Robinson

• “Chapter 1: Mass systems of public education were developed primarily to meet the needs of the Industrial Revolution and, in many ways, they mirror the principles of industrial production. They emphasize linearity, conformity and standardization. One of the reasons they are not working now is that real life is organic, adaptable and diverse.”

  Ken Robinson

• “Chapter 1: All over the world, governments are pouring vast resources into education reform. In the process, policy makers typically narrow the curriculum to emphasize a small group of subjects, tie schools up in a culture of standardized testing and limit the discretion of educators to make professional judgments about how and what to teach. These reforms are typically stifling the very skills and qualities that are essential to meet the challenges we face: creativity, cultural understanding, communication, collaboration and problem solving.”

  Ken Robinson

• “Chapter 1: Many educators want to provide a more balanced and dynamic form of education that makes proper use of their own creative energies. Too often they feel they cannot do any of this because of political pressures of conformity and the disaffection of students who suffer under the same malaise.”

  Ken Robinson

• “Chapter 3: I believe profoundly that we don't grow into creativity; we grow out of it. Often we are educated out of it. Creativity is a multi-faceted process. It involves many ordinary abilities and some specialized skills and techniques; it can be fostered by many different ways of thinking, and it draws on critical judgement as well as imagination, intuition and often gut feelings. The dominant forms of education actively stifle the conditions that are essential to creative development. Young children enter pre-school alive with creative confidence; by the time they leave high school many have lost that confidence entirely. It is important to understand why and how this happens. There are ways in which adult can rekindle creativity in themselves and other.”

  Ken Robinson

• “Chapter 3: But if creativity is to become central to our futures, it first has to move to the heart of education.”

  Ken Robinson

• “Chapter 5: There may be no agreed definition of intelligence, but we might agree here that intelligence includes the ability to formulate and express our thoughts in coherent ways. We can do this using words and in numbers. We can also visualize, we can think in sound, in movement and in all the many ways in which these different modes interact. Musicians are not trying to express in sound ideas that would be better put into words. They are having musical ideas: ideas for which they may be not words. Visual artists think visually and have visual ideas.”

  Ken Robinson

• “Chapter 5:Human intelligence includes and goes well beyond conventional conceptions of academic ability and IQ. This is why the world is full of music, technology, art, dance, architecture, business, practical science, feelings, relationships and inventions that actually work.”

  Ken Robinson

• “Chapter 5: There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.”

  Martha Graham

• “Chapter 6: In the early stages, being creative may involve playing with an idea, doodling or improvising around a theme.”

  Ken Robinson

• “Chapter 6: Creativity does not always require freedom from constraints or a blank page. A lot of creative work has to work to specific briefs or conventions and great work often comes from working within formal constraints. Some of the finest poetry is in the from of the sonnet, which has a fixed form to which the writer must submit. . . . These do not inhibit the writer's creativity; they set a framework for it.”

  Ken Robinson

• “Chapter 6: They (people) need to understand that creativity moves through different phases, and to have some sense of where they are in the process. In most situations, trying to produce a finished version in one move is impossible. Not understanding this can make people think that they are not creative at all.”

  Ken Robinson

• “Chapter 6: Technical control is necessary for creative work but it is not enough. Being creative is about speculating, exploring new horizons and using imagination. Many highly trained people, musicians, dancers, engineers, scientists, are very skilled but not especially original.”

  Ken Robinson

• “Chapter 6: Some of the most interesting breakthroughs in science, technology and the arts come from reframing the question, just as Copernicus and Galileo chose to question whether the earth was at the center of the universe. The questions we ask are often more important than the answers we search for. Every question leads to particular lines of inquire. Change the question and whole new horizons may open up to is (sic).”

  Ken Robinson

• “Chapter 7: Being creative is not only about thinking: it is about feeling.”

  Ken Robinson

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• Life is not linear. When you follow your own true north you create new opportunities, meet different people, have different experiences and create a different life.

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• Education is not a linear process 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 best futures for us all.

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• Employers say they want people who can think creatively, who can innovate, who can communicate well, work in teams and are adaptable and self-confident.

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• There are three related ideas, which I will elaborate as we go on. They are imagination, which is the process of bringing to mind things that are not present to our senses; creativity, which is the process of developing original ideas that have value, and innovation, which is the process of putting new ideas into practice.

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• But creativity is also 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.

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• Education is not only a preparation for what may come later; it is also about helping people engage with the present.

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• “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country.”

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• Our schools have a doubly hard task, not just improving reading, writing and arithmetic but entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity.

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• These reforms are typically stifling the very skills and qualities that are essential to meet the challenges we face: creativity, cultural understanding, communication, collaboration and problem solving.

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• We will not succeed in navigating the complex environment of the future by peering relentlessly into a rear-view mirror.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Europe
• United States
• England
• China
• London
• Us
• New York City
• Uk
• America
• Asia
• United Kingdom
• Britain
• Los Angeles
• South America
• India
• Ilo

Organizations edit see section history

• International Labor Organization (ILO): Add a description of this organization.
• Institute for Global Futures

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Creativity: Describe this theme.
• Education

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Ken Robinson (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 658

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Health, Mind & Body › Psychology & Counseling › By Topic › Creativity
• Books › Business & Investing › Management & Leadership › Management Science
• Books › Business & Investing › Small Business & Entrepreneurship

More Books Like This edit see section history