Sir Ken Robinson's at TED (original)

I am sure many of you are familiar with the now famous talk given by Sir Ken Robinson in 2006 at a TED event. For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, here it is:

And there's a follow-up, from this year:

I think it is better you listen to them before continuing, it will make more sense...

Ok, so what is there to say about such brilliant talks? All I can blog about is why I consider them brilliant.

First, the style, not the content. Unbelievably funny, at least his first talk. I found him better than some stand-up comedians I've seen, maybe because the whole purpose of the talk was not to make you laugh. The funny content was there only to keep you interested and make the message pass through easily. In fact, a friend of mine told me this speech is sometimes given as an example in communication courses...

Sure, in theory it is easier to have a nice style if you have some charisma and you actually have some interesting content behind. After all, no matter how much style you'd put in a speech, if the content is null, it won't catch. But still, this guy knows how to tell a story. Add to this that the story in itself, stripped of all the jokes, is very interesting, and you can understand why I admire him that much.

I cannot pretend I agree 100% with what he wants, with what he is advocating for. Though of course, his ideas make sense, are justified and deserve a lot more attention. I think I will dedicate an entire blog post to this, to what I think about the classical education system and the need for creativity. Simply because there's a lot to say.

So, to conclude this post that, in the end, is not about much except an attempt to make these talks more well-known, what can I say. There are some people I who I admire, "I want to be like them when I grow up". Here is one of them.