In this talk, professional day-dreamer and most eloquent motivational speaker, Sir Ken Robinson, as usual, touches many valid points. Two key observations are:
1. The current system is rigid and based on uniformity and complaints
2. The issues are global in character
So - WWSKRD: What Would Sir Ken Robinson Do?
The answer is: We don't know! He presents us with all these problems in his talks, and yet, his solutions are never concrete, and often seem not much more than a fig of his imagination:
1. Building a Culture of Innovation (the topic of his latest talk)
2. The system should really be much more flexible and custom-tailored toward students' needs
3. And more...
Now this is all crazy talk - Right? First of all, we will never do it because: No one has time. We all are busy. And charity is (at this point) not much of a business model.
If you want to see big changes, you need A LOT OF PEOPLE with A LOT OF BRILLIANT IDEAS, dedicated, enthusiastic and, if possible young and naive enough to not realize that getting your hopes up is pointless, while at the same time, being equipped with the right set of skills to tackle these problems.
Now, where would you go about finding that kind of people? Well - Maybe university students? Impossible! Those are busy learning for exams or publishing papers. Besides, they are impotent: The industry has made it very clear that the average college graduate is not capable of tackling any of the problems that they need solving.
But... What if we have just one course, just one, that starts by teaching "solving real-world problems", and then (the crazy part) spawns an offspring that is an even better course which enables students to tackle the problems they themselves face (in research, in education and in their environment), while scaling up, at the same time?
Your college or university has hundreds, if not thousands of brilliant young minds, all walking their own little path toward the disappointing realization that, on average, there is not much more than "working for money" after having memorized the contents of all those books.
Have you ever tried handing them basic problem solving skills and tools, giving them some lousy credits toward their degree as incentive, and then put them in a room (physical or virtual), and just see what happens?
Do the math: Given 40 students in a class, if each student dedicates only 20 hours into understanding the problem and finding a solution, we get a total of 800 man hours that can produce a scalable version of the same model. In following runs, we can have 50, then hundreds, if not thousands of students (Those numbers are already a reality in MOOCs) each investing 20 hours. Does that not have the taste of scalability?
What if we take this thing a bit further, and change the roll of universities, especially in sciences and engineering, from "information feeders" to "problem solving organism" by enabling our students to be inventors and problem solvers?
If you are the least bit intrigued, stay tuned for a concrete implementation of that idea that will hopefully go live very soon.
Yes, I am idealistic and probably a little crazy - but I did not see things getting done when I was calm and silent.
So, please do point out all the walls that I am about to crash into. This idealist wants to brace himself for the impact.
