Have You Met TED?

The Video is long(ish) but it is more than worth the watch. Funny, inspiring and informative!

Quoted straight from the TED website...

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.

On TED.com, we make the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. More than 450 TEDTalks are now available, with more added each week. All of the talks feature closed captions in English, and many feature subtitles in various languages. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.

Our mission: Spreading ideas.

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.

The video above is just one of the many fascinating videos of a fascinating person sharing a fascinating idea... :)

I particularly loved this video because the point Sir Robinson makes is something I strongly believe in and have been "complaining" about for many years. Starting back when I was in high school and unfortunately into university as well. I was not so lucky to have a professor such as Sir Ken Robinson, sadly, many of my prof's were more closed minded to creative thinking than any of the teacher's prior. One in particular announced to the room that he was "Sick of (my) Kindergarten ideas that poetry could be interpreted in more than one way"...I was baffled and embarrassed and never went back...I wouldn't be so susceptible to such treatment now I assure you.

Perhaps as these ideas spread our children will be better equipped to reach their potential as workers, and humans, because they (we) will know that there is value in every aptitude. Not just those that have been touted as the "money makers"...I am really good at organizing and cleaning, when I do it I feel "Flow". Perhaps I could have started a housekeeping company without feeling it was beneath my intelligence level. Perhaps I would be a millionaire-ss right now if I had been taught in school to believe that any profession done well is a worthy one. Would you want to live in a world with only Engineers? No janitors? Not me!

How many of us "artists" have stuffed our desires and attempted to follow the conventional path just to leave it years later to pursue what we should have from Kindergarten? I was always known throughout grade school as the "artist" but when I moved into high school my value as a student was solely based upon my math score (abysmal) and I also based my worth on that inability to, not only pass, but excel at math. Math was not where my talent lay and I wasn't confident enough to realize that as a young teen.

"I wish for no other young person to be stuffed into the unhappiness of a life made for another's gift."
xo