My Thoughts on Sir Ken Robinson’s talk, “Changing Education From the Ground Up” (2013)

Written By Abena Sey

July 10, 2022

The quote that most resonates with me from Sir Ken Robinson’s talk, “Changing Education From the Ground Up”, is that “at the heart of education is a teacher and a learner” (Robinson 2013).  From this, I learned that to improve education, we must focus on teaching and learning, with a specific concentration on the process of teaching and learning in order to enhance it (Robinson 2013).  He also suggested that we can begin right away, in our own classrooms, and that we do not have to wait for policy to change before we transform what we do in our own “microclimate.”  Changing our own microclimate will eventually affect the whole.  These assertions reminded me of the pedagogical decisions I made in my classroom one school year after attending an inspiring literacy professional development workshop based on the book Read, Write, Lead: Breakthrough Strategies for Schoolwide Literacy Success by Regie Routman (2014).  From this workshop, I learned that I can begin implementing changes within my classroom by first changing my mindset about literacy and learning, and changing my expectations for all my learners.  This was truly empowering, and it relates to Robinson’s contention that we make changes for teaching and learning “from the ground up,” within our own classrooms.  With this, I returned to school the next week and began implementing what I had learned, and shared what had developed in my classroom with my teammates and other colleagues. I am learning more and more that implementing small changes within my classroom and sharing with colleagues what is working is so helpful in changing the culture of a school. I contend that the practice of teachers learning and sharing with other teachers creates a positive school culture that promotes learning and growth for teachers and students.   Students win when we share and support one another!

Question: what changes have you or are you considering implementing in your context?  What inspired these decisions?  Do you have supports in place to pursue these changes?