inspiring media – Page 4 – Exciting Curiosity

Being Human

I was looking for a podcast to listen to on a run last night. Being a fan of the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 I searched and found a series of podcasts by Jeremy Vine called Being Human. With contributions from leading thinkers and writers these podcasts explore just what makes us human. I listened to the episode featuring Lord David Puttnam, a British film producer and educator.

Being human is remaining curious about the world, and remaining ambitious for what your contribution can be. (Lord Puttnam)

He spoke of the 2012 Olympics and how people collectively worked to make a success of the Games – the Games brought out the best in us, but it was always there! If you smile at someone, they generally smile back. We are all capable of doing the very best we can. We should never lose sight of this. Lord Puttnam and Jeremy Vine end the episode discussing the importance of focussing on doing the right thing and building each other up. This reminded me of a quote I once read:

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. (Dalai Lama)

This episode was a great encouragement and reminder that … Read more...

Creativity – do schools kill it?

I’m reading Sir Ken Robinson’s book ‘The Element‘ just now. He was in the process of writing it when he did his first TED Talk – ‘Do schools kill creativity?‘ In this talk he speaks of the two things the hierarchy of our education system is based around: 1) most useful subjects for work and 2) academic ability.

The consequence is that 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 stigmatised.

Sadly, this has been the experience for far too many people. When I was thinking about what to do after high school I was told by my careers advisor not to bother studying music. I was told to choose options like science or engineering because they were accepting a lot of girls into these subjects at that time. I left that interview not knowing what to do, and so my first application to university included courses ranging from statistics to travel and tourism. Thank goodness I realised soon enough that my passion lay in music – I filled in another application form and got a late place to study music.… Read more...

The true role of the educator…

…to cultivate curiosity! We are all naturally curious. Our job as educators is to bring the natural curiosity back out in those (students and teachers) who may have been constantly told to hide it, and those who have for various reasons just forgotten it was there. In this TED Talk, chemistry teacher Ramsey Musallam (@ramusallam) does a great job speaking about this and reminding us that if we can see the world through the eyes of little children there is no limit to what we can learn.

It took a life-threatening condition to jolt chemistry teacher Ramsey Musallam out of ten years of “pseudo-teaching” to understand the true role of the educator: to cultivate curiosity. In a fun and personal talk, Musallam gives 3 rules to spark imagination and learning, and get students excited about how the world works.

Born to learn

Our capacity to create and learn knows no bounds.” Born to Learn, March 2011.

This inspiring piece of media reminds us that we need to let our kids play (and us too!) – because it’s not just play. Einstein said: “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education”. This video shows that this ‘education’ starts at all too young an age – our natural curiosity must be allowed to flourish. There is also an important message for high school educators.

Born to Learn is the first animation in a fascinating series aimed to provide easy-access to the exciting new discoveries constantly being made about how humans learn. Read more about the Born to Learn project here.

The surprising truth about what motivates us

This RSA Animate, adapted from Dan Pink‘s talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home, in the workplace, and in school.

Autonomy – if you want engagement, self-direction is best (personalised learning)
Mastery – our urge to get better at things (time to explore what we’re curious about, learn and create)
Purpose – creating an inspiring place to be (as opposed to being driven by profits, or test results, making learning relevant)

Most of us believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That’s a mistake, Daniel H. Pink says in his new book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. The secret to high performance and satisfaction—at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.