His books are wonderful. My favourites are:
You can read about Ken here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Robinson_(educationalist)
Ken knew about embodied learning and what Education was. He was highly critical of the process of schooling in how it killed creativity (https://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY?si=-fcw2yloxtZ4LiYm).
Many confuse training/schooling for Education and Learning which is common in the risk and safety industry. Rote learning is not learning, repeating data is not learning and regurgitating information is not learning. We discussed the nature of learning here: Tackling Risk, A Field Guide to Risk and Learning. For free download
Many of the lectures by Ken Robinson focus on creativity and divergent thinking. This video is particularly helpful: https://youtu.be/5QWm5uIbXtM?si=uhvWgpERpvsi8dKK
I find it so amusing to read in risk and safety about ‘thought leaders’ and ‘innovation’ when all that is proposed is a few slogans and more traditional safety. Most of the use of the word ‘learning’ in risk and safety, is not about Learning. It’s mostly about training and schooling. This is what Freire called ‘banking’ Putting content in and withdrawing content out, is NOT learning.
If you want to learn about Learning then don’t go to safety to learn anything. Similarly, if you want to learn about ethics, law, culture or anthropology. If you want to learn about human personhood don’t consult a safety engineer or a Human Factors. This is not the purpose of such disciplines.
One of the best books you could ever read on the nature of learning is by Donald Michael (1997) Learning to Plan and Planning to Learn. If you can get your hands on a copy, you are lucky.
But back to Ken Robinson.
Ken makes it clear that divergent thinking comes from non-compliance. Therefore, divergent thinking cannot come from Safety. In Safety what matters most is: compliance, regulation, policing, counting and slogans. The climate of safety is not oriented towards creativity, innovation of critical thinking. Afterall, if you criticise Safety, you are anti-safety.
Here are a few lectures by Ken worth watching:
- Bring on the learning revolution!
https://youtu.be/kFMZrEABdw4?si=P579j-D1x0i7PE0Y
- How to escape educations death valley
https://youtu.be/wX78iKhInsc?si=nm1BfT7zIogNlyGz
https://youtu.be/17fbxRQgMlU?si=QG8qEVAifoRWLktZ
- Educating the heart and mind
https://youtu.be/I1A4OGiVK30?si=bFb70ah5AKfIdQRe
BTW, when educators like Ken use the word ‘mind’ they don’t mean ‘brain’ they mean whole person as Mind.
Educators don’t educate brains on a body, they educate the whole person, we call this ‘Mind’. If you see any symbol of the brain associated with safety, you know it’s not about the education of Minds or persons.
The Divergent Thinker
The divergent thinker knows how to re-frame questions and think outside of boundaries and problems. Re-framing is a critical skill one learns in Historiography, Hermeneutics and Mythology. These skills help one see the world differently. This was discussed in our book Envisioning Risk: https://www.humandymensions.com/product/envisioning-risk-seeing-vision-and-meaning-in-risk/
The divergent thinker is not afraid of deconstruction of text (including person-a-text) and reconstruction of meaning.
The divergent thinker knows about Poetics and Semiotics and the way language works.
The divergent thinker knows how meaning is constructed through text and is able to decipher language as code.
The divergent thinker knows how to listen to metaphors and how these reveal meaning (https://safetyrisk.net/safetys-hidden-metaphors/).
Free Poetics Module With Dr Long Wed 10 December 9am
If you want to learn about divergent thinking and how Poetics can help you to think divergently, you can join us for a free 2-hour workshop on Poetics this Wednesday at 9 am (Canberra Time) 10 December. Register here: admin@spor.com.au
Places are limited to 50.
brhttps://safetyrisk.net/divergent-thinking-about-risk/
Prompt