IMAGINE IF...

Much-needed systemic change starts in schools.

After acclaimed British educator Ken Robinson died in 2020, his daughter, Kate, resolved to honor his legacy by creating this volume, a distillation of his core ideas about how to reimagine education and schooling so that young people could flourish. “Dad’s work,” she writes, “was a love letter to human potential.” Education reform is central to Robinson’s exhortation for a wide-reaching revolution that “calls for a global reset of our social systems” and a “new, wider conception of human ability, and an embrace of the richness of our diversity of talents.” This revolution is urgently needed in order to face a rapidly changing world and an increasingly vulnerable planet. “As a species,” he writes, “we have progressed to the point where many of our systems are now outdated or entirely obsolete. The good news is that it is within our powers to do something about it.” Comparing current schooling to industrial farming, Robinson critiques education that is focused on disciplinary distinctions, a narrow definition of intelligence, and learning that is assessed through testing. He believes “there is no such thing as an academic subject, only academic ways of looking at things. It is not what is being studied, but how it is being studied.” Education should promote young people’s engagement with the world around them as well as the world within them; improve their understanding of their own cultures and respect for the diversity of others; and give them resources to become economically responsible and independent and “active and compassionate citizens.” To achieve these goals, Robinson identifies eight core competencies: curiosity, creativity, criticism, communication, collaboration, compassion, composure (“a sense of personal harmony and balance”), and citizenship. Rather than offer a blueprint for reform, Robinson urges teachers, parents, policymakers, and students themselves to imagine a school ecosystem that empowers, encourages, and nurtures all of its participants.

An impassioned plea for inspiring education. It’s up to educators to act.