Additional Resources

• Ken Robinson's Website - http://www.sirkenrobinson.com/

• The Element Podcast - http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts/232-dishymix/episodes/3066-sir-ken-robinson-creativity-innovation/play

• Fertile minds need feeding -

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/feb/10/teaching-sats

• Ken Robinson's The Element: reincarnating creativity: Blog by Ewan McIntosh - http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2009/02/ken-robinsons-the-element-reincarnating-creativity.html

• Creativity is Dead, Ken. . . in The Tempered Radical by BIll Ferriter

  http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/the_tempered_radical/2009/02/creativity-is-dead-ken-.html
• Review Angela Maiers' Blog post, Celebrating Books with The Element by Sir Ken Robinson - http://www.angelamaiers.com/2009/04/celebrating-books-with-the-element-by-ken-robinson.html

 Discussion Questions 

• Creativity in the workplace: do we have any? where is it? what’s lost?
• Kids take chances - can we? What are the barriers to taking a chance? Are we prepared to be wrong? What have our biggest ‘wrongs’ been?
• We squander tremendous talents; what are the tremendous talents in LTS? how can we stop this happening?
• We have no idea what is going to happen in the future; how do we teach kids (and guide their teachers) when we don’t know how?
• Hierarchies and their role in decision-making, workflows, coverage, time, attention
• University professors: How can we make sure that what we do is more ‘real’? Is the ‘real’ the same in the minds of teachers, learners, Government? What is ‘real’?

(http://ltsblogs.org.uk/connected/2008/08/09/lts-inspiration-sessions-run-your-own)

Links:  http://delicious.com/ewan.mcintosh/ltsinspirations1

Activities

• Discuss Tom Chapin's Flowers Are Red

• Creativity and Butterflies Lesson Plan - http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons/Science/Entomology/ENT0008.html - designed for elementary students but anyone could benefit.  I did it with my pre-service teachers who became fully engaged in the lesson.

• Discuss Alvin Toffler's Perspective on Education

Future School: Reshaping School From the Ground Up - http://www.edutopia.org/future-school

A Working Model for Bringing Creativity Into the Schools: The Blue Man's Group-The Blue School 

• The Blue School Website: http://www.theblueschool.org/
• NPR Recording: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98683278