1
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Good morning. How are you?

2
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(Audience) Good.

3
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It's been great, hasn't it?

4
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I've been blown away by the whole thing.

5
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In fact, I'm leaving.

6
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(Laughter)

7
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There have been three themes
running through the conference,

8
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which are relevant
to what I want to talk about.

9
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One is the extraordinary
evidence of human creativity

10
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in all of the presentations that we've had

11
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and in all of the people here;

12
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just the variety of it
and the range of it.

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The second is that it's put us in a place

14
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where we have no idea
what's going to happen

15
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in terms of the future.

16
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No idea how this may play out.

17
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I have an interest in education.

18
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Actually, what I find is,
everybody has an interest in education.

19
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Don't you?

20
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I find this very interesting.

21
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If you're at a dinner party,
and you say you work in education --

22
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actually, you're not often
at dinner parties, frankly.

23
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(Laughter)

24
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If you work in education,
you're not asked.

25
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(Laughter)

26
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And you're never asked back, curiously.
That's strange to me.

27
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But if you are, and you say to somebody,

28
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you know, they say, "What do you do?"

29
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and you say you work in education,

30
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you can see the blood run from their face.

31
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They're like, "Oh my God. Why me?"

32
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(Laughter)

33
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"My one night out all week."

34
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(Laughter)

35
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But if you ask about their education,
they pin you to the wall,

36
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because it's one of those things
that goes deep with people, am I right?

37
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Like religion and money and other things.

38
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So I have a big interest in education,
and I think we all do.

39
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We have a huge vested interest in it,

40
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partly because it's education
that's meant to take us into this future

41
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that we can't grasp.

42
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If you think of it,

43
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children starting school this year
will be retiring in 2065.

44
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Nobody has a clue,

45
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despite all the expertise that's been
on parade for the past four days,

46
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what the world will look like
in five years' time.

47
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And yet, we're meant
to be educating them for it.

48
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So the unpredictability,
I think, is extraordinary.

49
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And the third part of this
is that we've all agreed, nonetheless,

50
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on the really extraordinary
capacities that children have --

51
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their capacities for innovation.

52
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I mean, Sirena last night
was a marvel, wasn't she?

53
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Just seeing what she could do.

54
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And she's exceptional, but I think
she's not, so to speak,

55
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exceptional in the whole of childhood.

56
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What you have there is a person
of extraordinary dedication

57
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who found a talent.

58
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And my contention is,
all kids have tremendous talents,

59
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and we squander them, pretty ruthlessly.

60
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So I want to talk about education,

61
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and I want to talk about creativity.

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My contention is that creativity now
is as important in education as literacy,

63
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and we should treat it
with the same status.

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(Applause)

65
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Thank you.

66
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(Applause)

67
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That was it, by the way.
Thank you very much.

68
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(Laughter)

69
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So, 15 minutes left.

70
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(Laughter)

71
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"Well, I was born ... "

72
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(Laughter)

73
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I heard a great story recently --
I love telling it --

74
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of a little girl
who was in a drawing lesson.

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She was six, and she was
at the back, drawing,

76
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and the teacher said this girl
hardly ever paid attention,

77
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and in this drawing lesson, she did.

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The teacher was fascinated.

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She went over to her,
and she said, "What are you drawing?"

80
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And the girl said,
"I'm drawing a picture of God."

81
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And the teacher said, "But nobody
knows what God looks like."

82
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And the girl said,
"They will in a minute."

83
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(Laughter)

84
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When my son was four in England --

85
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actually, he was four
everywhere, to be honest.

86
00:04:01,628 --> 00:04:03,380
(Laughter)

87
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If we're being strict about it,
wherever he went, he was four that year.

88
00:04:06,815 --> 00:04:09,453
He was in the Nativity play.
Do you remember the story?

89
00:04:09,477 --> 00:04:10,696
(Laughter)

90
00:04:10,720 --> 00:04:12,547
No, it was big, it was a big story.

91
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Mel Gibson did the sequel,
you may have seen it.

92
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(Laughter)

93
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"Nativity II."

94
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But James got the part of Joseph,
which we were thrilled about.

95
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We considered this to be
one of the lead parts.

96
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We had the place crammed
full of agents in T-shirts:

97
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"James Robinson IS Joseph!"

98
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(Laughter)

99
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He didn't have to speak, but you know
the bit where the three kings come in?

100
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They come in bearing gifts,
gold, frankincense and myrrh.

101
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This really happened.

102
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We were sitting there, and I think
they just went out of sequence,

103
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because we talked to the little boy
afterward and said,

104
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"You OK with that?" They said,
"Yeah, why? Was that wrong?"

105
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They just switched.

106
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The three boys came in, four-year-olds
with tea towels on their heads.

107
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They put these boxes down, and the first
boy said, "I bring you gold."

108
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And the second boy said,
"I bring you myrrh."

109
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And the third boy said, "Frank sent this."

110
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(Laughter)

111
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What these things have in common
is that kids will take a chance.

112
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If they don't know, they'll have a go.

113
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Am I right? They're not
frightened of being wrong.

114
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I don't mean to say that being wrong
is the same thing as being creative.

115
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What we do know is,
if you're not prepared to be wrong,

116
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you'll never come up
with anything original --

117
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if you're not prepared to be wrong.

118
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And by the time they get to be adults,
most kids have lost that capacity.

119
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They have become
frightened of being wrong.

120
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And we run our companies like this.

121
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We stigmatize mistakes.

122
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And we're now running
national education systems

123
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where mistakes are the worst
thing you can make.

124
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And the result is that
we are educating people

125
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out of their creative capacities.

126
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Picasso once said this, he said
that all children are born artists.

127
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The problem is to remain
an artist as we grow up.

128
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I believe this passionately,
that we don't grow into creativity,

129
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we grow out of it.

130
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Or rather, we get educated out of it.

131
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So why is this?

132
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I lived in Stratford-on-Avon
until about five years ago.

133
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In fact, we moved from Stratford
to Los Angeles.

134
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So you can imagine
what a seamless transition this was.

135
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(Laughter)

136
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Actually, we lived in a place
called Snitterfield,

137
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just outside Stratford,

138
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which is where
Shakespeare's father was born.

139
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Are you struck by a new thought? I was.

140
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You don't think of Shakespeare
having a father, do you?

141
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Do you?

142
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Because you don't think
of Shakespeare being a child, do you?

143
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Shakespeare being seven?

144
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I never thought of it.

145
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I mean, he was seven at some point.

146
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He was in somebody's
English class, wasn't he?

147
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(Laughter)

148
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How annoying would that be?

149
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(Laughter)

150
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"Must try harder."

151
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(Laughter)

152
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Being sent to bed by his dad,
to Shakespeare, "Go to bed, now!"

153
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To William Shakespeare.

154
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"And put the pencil down!"

155
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(Laughter)

156
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"And stop speaking like that."

157
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(Laughter)

158
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"It's confusing everybody."

159
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(Laughter)

160
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Anyway, we moved
from Stratford to Los Angeles,

161
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and I just want to say a word
about the transition.

162
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Actually, my son didn't want to come.

163
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I've got two kids;
he's 21 now, my daughter's 16.

164
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He didn't want to come to Los Angeles.

165
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He loved it, but he had
a girlfriend in England.

166
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This was the love of his life, Sarah.

167
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He'd known her for a month.

168
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(Laughter)

169
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Mind you, they'd had
their fourth anniversary,

170
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because it's a long time when you're 16.

171
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He was really upset on the plane.

172
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He said, "I'll never find
another girl like Sarah."

173
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And we were rather pleased
about that, frankly --

174
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(Laughter)

175
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because she was the main reason
we were leaving the country.

176
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(Laughter)

177
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But something strikes you
when you move to America

178
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and travel around the world:

179
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every education system on earth
has the same hierarchy of subjects.

180
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Every one. Doesn't matter where you go.

181
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You'd think it would be
otherwise, but it isn't.

182
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At the top are mathematics and languages,
then the humanities.

183
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At the bottom are the arts.
Everywhere on earth.

184
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And in pretty much every system, too,
there's a hierarchy within the arts.

185
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Art and music are normally given
a higher status in schools

186
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than drama and dance.

187
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There isn't an education
system on the planet

188
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that teaches dance every day to children

189
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the way we teach them mathematics.

190
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Why?

191
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Why not?

192
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I think this is rather important.

193
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I think math is very important,
but so is dance.

194
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Children dance all the time
if they're allowed to, we all do.

195
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We all have bodies, don't we?
Did I miss a meeting?

196
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(Laughter)

197
00:09:02,645 --> 00:09:04,966
Truthfully, what happens is,
as children grow up,

198
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we start to educate them progressively
from the waist up.

199
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And then we focus on their heads.

200
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And slightly to one side.

201
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If you were to visit education as an alien

202
00:09:14,139 --> 00:09:17,120
and say "What's it for, public education?"

203
00:09:17,144 --> 00:09:19,871
I think you'd have to conclude,
if you look at the output,

204
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who really succeeds by this,

205
00:09:21,276 --> 00:09:22,976
who does everything they should,

206
00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:25,731
who gets all the brownie points,
who are the winners --

207
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I think you'd have to conclude
the whole purpose of public education

208
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throughout the world

209
00:09:30,239 --> 00:09:32,218
is to produce university professors.

210
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Isn't it?

211
00:09:33,910 --> 00:09:35,894
They're the people who come out the top.

212
00:09:35,918 --> 00:09:37,737
And I used to be one, so there.

213
00:09:37,761 --> 00:09:41,458
(Laughter)

214
00:09:41,482 --> 00:09:43,082
And I like university professors,

215
00:09:43,106 --> 00:09:45,021
but, you know, we shouldn't hold them up

216
00:09:45,045 --> 00:09:47,976
as the high-water mark
of all human achievement.

217
00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:50,113
They're just a form of life.

218
00:09:50,137 --> 00:09:51,560
Another form of life.

219
00:09:51,584 --> 00:09:52,981
But they're rather curious.

220
00:09:53,005 --> 00:09:54,969
And I say this out of affection for them:

221
00:09:54,993 --> 00:09:57,068
there's something curious
about professors.

222
00:09:57,092 --> 00:10:00,838
In my experience -- not all of them,
but typically -- they live in their heads.

223
00:10:00,862 --> 00:10:03,005
They live up there
and slightly to one side.

224
00:10:03,495 --> 00:10:06,931
They're disembodied, you know,
in a kind of literal way.

225
00:10:06,955 --> 00:10:10,105
They look upon their body as a form
of transport for their heads.

226
00:10:10,129 --> 00:10:16,176
(Laughter)

227
00:10:16,200 --> 00:10:17,577
Don't they?

228
00:10:17,601 --> 00:10:19,746
It's a way of getting
their head to meetings.

229
00:10:19,770 --> 00:10:24,998
(Laughter)

230
00:10:25,022 --> 00:10:28,944
If you want real evidence
of out-of-body experiences, by the way,

231
00:10:28,968 --> 00:10:32,443
get yourself along to a residential
conference of senior academics

232
00:10:32,467 --> 00:10:34,818
and pop into the discotheque
on the final night.

233
00:10:34,842 --> 00:10:37,454
(Laughter)

234
00:10:37,478 --> 00:10:38,834
And there, you will see it.

235
00:10:38,858 --> 00:10:43,351
Grown men and women
writhing uncontrollably, off the beat.

236
00:10:43,375 --> 00:10:45,867
(Laughter)

237
00:10:45,891 --> 00:10:49,216
Waiting until it ends, so they can
go home and write a paper about it.

238
00:10:49,240 --> 00:10:51,221
(Laughter)

239
00:10:51,245 --> 00:10:55,106
Our education system is predicated
on the idea of academic ability.

240
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And there's a reason.

241
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Around the world, there were
no public systems of education,

242
00:10:59,978 --> 00:11:02,085
really, before the 19th century.

243
00:11:02,109 --> 00:11:05,356
They all came into being
to meet the needs of industrialism.

244
00:11:05,380 --> 00:11:07,432
So the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas.

245
00:11:07,456 --> 00:11:12,018
Number one, that the most useful
subjects for work are at the top.

246
00:11:12,042 --> 00:11:15,075
So you were probably steered benignly away
from things at school

247
00:11:15,099 --> 00:11:16,251
when you were a kid,

248
00:11:16,275 --> 00:11:17,428
things you liked,

249
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on the grounds you would never
get a job doing that.

250
00:11:19,918 --> 00:11:21,069
Is that right?

251
00:11:21,093 --> 00:11:23,505
"Don't do music, you're not
going to be a musician;

252
00:11:23,529 --> 00:11:25,380
don't do art, you won't be an artist."

253
00:11:25,404 --> 00:11:28,150
Benign advice -- now, profoundly mistaken.

254
00:11:28,174 --> 00:11:30,319
The whole world
is engulfed in a revolution.

255
00:11:30,343 --> 00:11:32,440
And the second is academic ability,

256
00:11:32,464 --> 00:11:35,283
which has really come to dominate
our view of intelligence,

257
00:11:35,307 --> 00:11:38,046
because the universities design
the system in their image.

258
00:11:38,070 --> 00:11:39,221
If you think of it,

259
00:11:39,245 --> 00:11:42,909
the whole system of public education
around the world is a protracted process

260
00:11:42,933 --> 00:11:44,084
of university entrance.

261
00:11:44,108 --> 00:11:46,401
And the consequence is
that many highly talented,

262
00:11:46,425 --> 00:11:48,943
brilliant, creative people
think they're not,

263
00:11:48,967 --> 00:11:51,100
because the thing
they were good at at school

264
00:11:51,124 --> 00:11:53,426
wasn't valued,
or was actually stigmatized.

265
00:11:53,450 --> 00:11:55,679
And I think we can't afford
to go on that way.

266
00:11:55,703 --> 00:11:57,990
In the next 30 years, according to UNESCO,

267
00:11:58,014 --> 00:12:01,420
more people worldwide will be
graduating through education

268
00:12:01,444 --> 00:12:03,639
than since the beginning of history.

269
00:12:03,663 --> 00:12:04,820
More people.

270
00:12:04,844 --> 00:12:07,765
And it's the combination
of all the things we've talked about:

271
00:12:07,789 --> 00:12:10,182
technology and its
transformational effect on work,

272
00:12:10,206 --> 00:12:12,684
and demography and the huge
explosion in population.

273
00:12:12,708 --> 00:12:15,145
Suddenly, degrees aren't worth anything.

274
00:12:15,169 --> 00:12:16,846
Isn't that true?

275
00:12:16,870 --> 00:12:19,851
When I was a student,
if you had a degree, you had a job.

276
00:12:19,875 --> 00:12:22,673
If you didn't have a job,
it's because you didn't want one.

277
00:12:22,697 --> 00:12:25,031
And I didn't want one, frankly.

278
00:12:25,055 --> 00:12:26,646
(Laughter)

279
00:12:26,670 --> 00:12:30,475
But now kids with degrees
are often heading home

280
00:12:30,499 --> 00:12:32,293
to carry on playing video games,

281
00:12:32,317 --> 00:12:35,365
because you need an MA
where the previous job required a BA,

282
00:12:35,389 --> 00:12:37,176
and now you need a PhD for the other.

283
00:12:37,200 --> 00:12:38,976
It's a process of academic inflation.

284
00:12:39,000 --> 00:12:42,756
And it indicates the whole structure
of education is shifting beneath our feet.

285
00:12:42,780 --> 00:12:45,322
We need to radically rethink
our view of intelligence.

286
00:12:45,346 --> 00:12:47,270
We know three things about intelligence.

287
00:12:47,294 --> 00:12:48,445
One, it's diverse.

288
00:12:48,469 --> 00:12:51,450
We think about the world in all the ways
that we experience it.

289
00:12:51,474 --> 00:12:54,451
We think visually, we think in sound,
we think kinesthetically.

290
00:12:54,475 --> 00:12:56,796
We think in abstract terms,
we think in movement.

291
00:12:56,820 --> 00:12:58,816
Secondly, intelligence is dynamic.

292
00:12:59,673 --> 00:13:01,976
If you look at the interactions
of a human brain,

293
00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:05,023
as we heard yesterday
from a number of presentations,

294
00:13:05,047 --> 00:13:07,205
intelligence is wonderfully interactive.

295
00:13:07,229 --> 00:13:09,467
The brain isn't divided into compartments.

296
00:13:09,872 --> 00:13:11,446
In fact, creativity --

297
00:13:11,470 --> 00:13:15,490
which I define as the process of having
original ideas that have value --

298
00:13:15,514 --> 00:13:17,444
more often than not comes about

299
00:13:17,468 --> 00:13:21,025
through the interaction of different
disciplinary ways of seeing things.

300
00:13:22,472 --> 00:13:26,103
By the way, there's a shaft of nerves
that joins the two halves of the brain,

301
00:13:26,127 --> 00:13:27,425
called the corpus callosum.

302
00:13:27,449 --> 00:13:28,670
It's thicker in women.

303
00:13:29,471 --> 00:13:31,194
Following off from Helen yesterday,

304
00:13:31,218 --> 00:13:34,229
this is probably why women
are better at multitasking.

305
00:13:34,253 --> 00:13:36,078
Because you are, aren't you?

306
00:13:36,102 --> 00:13:39,436
There's a raft of research,
but I know it from my personal life.

307
00:13:39,865 --> 00:13:42,800
If my wife is cooking a meal
at home, which is not often ...

308
00:13:44,224 --> 00:13:45,390
thankfully.

309
00:13:45,414 --> 00:13:48,104
(Laughter)

310
00:13:48,128 --> 00:13:49,580
No, she's good at some things.

311
00:13:49,604 --> 00:13:52,499
But if she's cooking,
she's dealing with people on the phone,

312
00:13:52,523 --> 00:13:55,170
she's talking to the kids,
she's painting the ceiling --

313
00:13:55,194 --> 00:13:56,209
(Laughter)

314
00:13:56,233 --> 00:13:58,258
she's doing open-heart surgery over here.

315
00:13:58,282 --> 00:14:01,280
If I'm cooking, the door
is shut, the kids are out,

316
00:14:01,304 --> 00:14:02,543
the phone's on the hook,

317
00:14:02,567 --> 00:14:04,257
if she comes in, I get annoyed.

318
00:14:04,281 --> 00:14:07,071
I say, "Terry, please,
I'm trying to fry an egg in here."

319
00:14:07,095 --> 00:14:13,825
(Laughter)

320
00:14:14,254 --> 00:14:15,454
"Give me a break."

321
00:14:15,478 --> 00:14:17,198
(Laughter)

322
00:14:17,222 --> 00:14:19,721
Actually, do you know
that old philosophical thing,

323
00:14:19,745 --> 00:14:23,228
"If a tree falls in a forest,
and nobody hears it, did it happen?"

324
00:14:23,252 --> 00:14:24,581
Remember that old chestnut?

325
00:14:24,605 --> 00:14:27,515
I saw a great T-shirt
recently, which said,

326
00:14:27,539 --> 00:14:30,976
"If a man speaks his mind in a forest,
and no woman hears him,

327
00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:32,396
is he still wrong?"

328
00:14:32,420 --> 00:14:38,026
(Laughter)

329
00:14:40,089 --> 00:14:42,128
And the third thing about intelligence is,

330
00:14:42,152 --> 00:14:43,521
it's distinct.

331
00:14:44,114 --> 00:14:46,618
I'm doing a new book at the moment
called "Epiphany,"

332
00:14:46,642 --> 00:14:49,083
which is based on a series
of interviews with people

333
00:14:49,107 --> 00:14:50,971
about how they discovered their talent.

334
00:14:50,995 --> 00:14:53,116
I'm fascinated by
how people got to be there.

335
00:14:53,140 --> 00:14:56,331
It's really prompted by a conversation
I had with a wonderful woman

336
00:14:56,355 --> 00:14:59,032
who maybe most people
have never heard of, Gillian Lynne.

337
00:14:59,056 --> 00:15:00,652
Have you heard of her? Some have.

338
00:15:00,676 --> 00:15:03,128
She's a choreographer,
and everybody knows her work.

339
00:15:03,152 --> 00:15:05,168
She did "Cats" and "Phantom of the Opera."

340
00:15:05,192 --> 00:15:06,343
She's wonderful.

341
00:15:06,367 --> 00:15:09,314
I used to be on the board
of The Royal Ballet, as you can see.

342
00:15:09,338 --> 00:15:11,267
(Laughter)

343
00:15:11,291 --> 00:15:14,816
Gillian and I had lunch one day.
I said, "How did you get to be a dancer?"

344
00:15:14,840 --> 00:15:15,991
It was interesting.

345
00:15:16,015 --> 00:15:18,262
When she was at school,
she was really hopeless.

346
00:15:18,286 --> 00:15:21,075
And the school, in the '30s,
wrote to her parents and said,

347
00:15:21,099 --> 00:15:23,134
"We think Gillian
has a learning disorder."

348
00:15:23,158 --> 00:15:25,256
She couldn't concentrate;
she was fidgeting.

349
00:15:25,280 --> 00:15:27,157
I think now they'd say she had ADHD.

350
00:15:27,181 --> 00:15:28,480
Wouldn't you?

351
00:15:28,504 --> 00:15:32,681
But this was the 1930s, and ADHD
hadn't been invented at this point.

352
00:15:32,705 --> 00:15:34,745
It wasn't an available condition.

353
00:15:34,769 --> 00:15:37,984
(Laughter)

354
00:15:38,008 --> 00:15:40,050
People weren't aware they could have that.

355
00:15:40,074 --> 00:15:42,499
(Laughter)

356
00:15:42,523 --> 00:15:46,699
Anyway, she went to see this specialist.

357
00:15:46,723 --> 00:15:50,430
So, this oak-paneled room,
and she was there with her mother,

358
00:15:50,454 --> 00:15:52,781
and she was led and sat
on this chair at the end,

359
00:15:52,805 --> 00:15:54,750
and she sat on her hands for 20 minutes,

360
00:15:54,774 --> 00:15:56,455
while this man talked to her mother

361
00:15:56,479 --> 00:15:58,943
about all the problems
Gillian was having at school,

362
00:15:58,967 --> 00:16:02,516
because she was disturbing people,
her homework was always late, and so on.

363
00:16:02,540 --> 00:16:03,691
Little kid of eight.

364
00:16:03,715 --> 00:16:06,626
In the end, the doctor went
and sat next to Gillian and said,

365
00:16:06,650 --> 00:16:09,363
"I've listened to all these
things your mother's told me.

366
00:16:09,387 --> 00:16:10,981
I need to speak to her privately.

367
00:16:11,005 --> 00:16:13,321
Wait here. We'll be back.
We won't be very long,"

368
00:16:13,345 --> 00:16:15,995
and they went and left her.

369
00:16:16,019 --> 00:16:17,659
But as they went out of the room,

370
00:16:17,683 --> 00:16:20,539
he turned on the radio
that was sitting on his desk.

371
00:16:20,563 --> 00:16:22,201
And when they got out of the room,

372
00:16:22,225 --> 00:16:24,603
he said to her mother,
"Just stand and watch her."

373
00:16:24,627 --> 00:16:27,139
And the minute they left the room,

374
00:16:27,163 --> 00:16:29,758
she was on her feet, moving to the music.

375
00:16:29,782 --> 00:16:33,285
And they watched for a few minutes,
and he turned to her mother and said,

376
00:16:33,309 --> 00:16:35,288
"Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn't sick.

377
00:16:35,312 --> 00:16:36,976
She's a dancer.

378
00:16:38,338 --> 00:16:39,724
Take her to a dance school."

379
00:16:39,748 --> 00:16:40,976
I said, "What happened?"

380
00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:43,976
She said, "She did. I can't tell you
how wonderful it was.

381
00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:46,829
We walked in this room,
and it was full of people like me --

382
00:16:46,853 --> 00:16:49,075
people who couldn't sit still,

383
00:16:49,099 --> 00:16:52,006
people who had to move to think."

384
00:16:52,030 --> 00:16:53,862
Who had to move to think.

385
00:16:53,886 --> 00:16:57,496
They did ballet, they did tap, jazz;
they did modern; they did contemporary.

386
00:16:57,520 --> 00:17:00,266
She was eventually auditioned
for the Royal Ballet School.

387
00:17:00,290 --> 00:17:03,543
She became a soloist; she had
a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet.

388
00:17:03,567 --> 00:17:06,122
She eventually graduated
from the Royal Ballet School,

389
00:17:06,146 --> 00:17:08,074
founded the Gillian Lynne Dance Company,

390
00:17:08,098 --> 00:17:09,335
met Andrew Lloyd Webber.

391
00:17:09,359 --> 00:17:10,655
She's been responsible for

392
00:17:10,679 --> 00:17:13,827
some of the most successful
musical theater productions in history,

393
00:17:13,851 --> 00:17:15,447
she's given pleasure to millions,

394
00:17:15,471 --> 00:17:16,878
and she's a multimillionaire.

395
00:17:16,902 --> 00:17:20,612
Somebody else might have put her
on medication and told her to calm down.

396
00:17:20,636 --> 00:17:27,418
(Applause)

397
00:17:28,603 --> 00:17:30,176
What I think it comes to is this:

398
00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:31,976
Al Gore spoke the other night

399
00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:36,519
about ecology and the revolution
that was triggered by Rachel Carson.

400
00:17:37,257 --> 00:17:39,369
I believe our only hope for the future

401
00:17:39,393 --> 00:17:43,268
is to adopt a new conception
of human ecology,

402
00:17:43,292 --> 00:17:45,819
one in which we start
to reconstitute our conception

403
00:17:45,843 --> 00:17:48,104
of the richness of human capacity.

404
00:17:48,128 --> 00:17:51,499
Our education system has mined our minds

405
00:17:51,523 --> 00:17:54,964
in the way that we strip-mine the earth
for a particular commodity.

406
00:17:55,377 --> 00:17:57,799
And for the future, it won't serve us.

407
00:17:57,823 --> 00:17:59,976
We have to rethink
the fundamental principles

408
00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:02,063
on which we're educating our children.

409
00:18:02,087 --> 00:18:04,761
There was a wonderful quote
by Jonas Salk, who said,

410
00:18:04,785 --> 00:18:09,882
"If all the insects
were to disappear from the Earth,

411
00:18:09,906 --> 00:18:12,689
within 50 years,
all life on Earth would end.

412
00:18:13,770 --> 00:18:16,807
If all human beings
disappeared from the Earth,

413
00:18:16,831 --> 00:18:19,465
within 50 years,
all forms of life would flourish."

414
00:18:20,378 --> 00:18:21,663
And he's right.

415
00:18:22,390 --> 00:18:26,121
What TED celebrates is the gift
of the human imagination.

416
00:18:26,533 --> 00:18:30,767
We have to be careful now
that we use this gift wisely,

417
00:18:30,791 --> 00:18:34,020
and that we avert some of the scenarios
that we've talked about.

418
00:18:34,044 --> 00:18:37,799
And the only way we'll do it
is by seeing our creative capacities

419
00:18:37,823 --> 00:18:39,610
for the richness they are

420
00:18:39,634 --> 00:18:42,816
and seeing our children
for the hope that they are.

421
00:18:42,840 --> 00:18:45,238
And our task is to educate
their whole being,

422
00:18:45,262 --> 00:18:46,675
so they can face this future.

423
00:18:46,699 --> 00:18:49,204
By the way -- we may not see this future,

424
00:18:49,228 --> 00:18:50,791
but they will.

425
00:18:50,815 --> 00:18:53,533
And our job is to help them
make something of it.

426
00:18:53,557 --> 00:18:54,742
Thank you very much.

427
00:18:54,766 --> 00:19:00,213
(Applause)