Ken Robinson

Career and research From 1985 to 1988, Robinson was director of the Arts in Schools Project, an initiative to develop the arts education throughout England and Wales.

In 1998, he led a UK commission on creativity, education and the economy and his report, All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education, was influential. The Times said of it: "This report raises some of the most important issues facing business in the 21st century. It should have every CEO and human resources director thumping the table and demanding action". Robinson is credited with creating a strategy for creative and economic development as part of the Peace Process in Northern Ireland, publishing Unlocking Creativity, a plan implemented across the region and mentoring to the Oklahoma Creativity Project. In 1998, he chaired the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education.

In 2001, Robinson was appointed senior advisor for education and creativity at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, which lasted at least until 2005.

Robinson gave three TED talks on the importance of creativity in education, which together have been viewed over 100 million times (2023) on the TED website. In April 2013, he gave a talk titled "How to escape education's death valley", in which he outlines three principles crucial for the human mind to flourish – and how current American education culture works against them. At the time of his death in August 2020, his "Do schools kill creativity?" presentation was the most watched TED talk of all time, with 66.3 million views on the TED channel and millions more on YouTube. It has been translated into 62 languages. In 2010, the Royal Society of Arts animated one of Robinson's speeches about changing education paradigms, which has been viewed more than 17 million times on YouTube as of August 2023.

Ideas on education Robinson suggested that to engage and succeed, education has to develop on three fronts.

The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, was published in January 2009 by Penguin. "The element" refers to the experience of personal talent meeting personal passion. He argues that in this encounter, we feel most ourselves, most inspired, and achieve to our highest level. The book draws on the stories of creative artists such as Paul McCartney, The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, Meg Ryan, and physicist Richard Feynman to investigate this paradigm of success.

Publications 1977 Learning Through Drama: Report of The Schools Council Drama Teaching Project with Lynn McGregor and Maggie Tate. UCL. Heinemann. 1980 Exploring Theatre and Education Heinemann 1982 The Arts in Schools: Principles, Practice, and Provision, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. 1984 The Arts and Higher Education. (editor with Christopher Ball). Gulbenkian and the Leverhulme Trust 1986 The Arts in Further Education. Department of Education and Science. 1998 All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture, and Education (The Robinson Report). 2001 Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative. Capstone.

Robinson, Ken (2018). You, your child, and school : navigate your way to the best education Robinson, Ken (2022). Imagine If... Creating a Future for us All. Penguin.

Awards and honours 2003 Knighted for his life's work. 2008 Governor's Award for the Arts in Pennsylvania 2008 Gheens Foundation Creativity and Entrepreneurship Award 2008 George Peabody Medal 2008 Benjamin Franklin Medal from the Royal Society of Arts 2009 Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) 2011 Gordon Parks Award for Achievements in Education 2012 Arthur C. Clarke Imagination Award 2012 Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Oklahoma State University Honorary Fellow of the Central School of Speech and Drama

Personal life In 1977, Robinson met Marie-Therese "Terry" Watts, while delivering a course in Liverpool.