The pandemic and following lockdown have had a profound impact on the way we and society function. This has taken many forms, but one of biggest has simply been the opportunity to pause and reflect in a way that we haven’t for generations. The lockdown and this moment of reflection are the backdrop for Sir Ken Robinson’s final public talk, ‘A Future For Us All’.

It was an honour to be asked Sir Ken to transform his words into a whiteboard animation. Although Sir Ken is no longer here, we hope we have done his insights and vision the service they deserve, and helped him to reach audiences far and wide. Nothing lives in isolation, and Sir Ken draws on several connected threads as he explains the scale of opportunity and reset this moment gives us. We’ve unpicked these threads in this blog as we think about the gantlet Sir Ken leaves us with, to seize the opportunity and create a new sort of normal.

Industrialisation

Industrialisation has been as such an important part of our development that this age of great advancement was hailed as a revolution. It transformed our farms and what they were able to achieve. The same mindset shaped the direction and future of education. In both settings, there was a focus on monocultures and output. In the context of farms, there is no doubt that this way of thinking improved productivity massively. It also causes problems, diversity helps systems (natural or otherwise) running in a smooth and healthy way. You have to step in and solve these problems, which usually causes more problems.

In education these problems are clears, a standardised monoculture approach has meant school doesn’t work for many. It has damaged the culture that should help students to flourish, removing the conditions that would truly help students to learn and achieve their potential.

The environment

In ‘A Future For Us All', Sir Ken puts a lot of focus on our environments - the natural and the social. We need these to live healthy lives, and industrialisation has impacted both. It has helped to change our relationship with nature and harm the diversity and soil that has allowed such a beautiful, complex planet to exist at all. Socially, by changing what out culture promotes and celebrates, we have suffered in education and in society. Individual talents have gone unnurtured, while collaboration and connection lost their priority.

Many of us feel their absence, our mental health suffering and then suffering some as industrialised, processed and fast food harms our health. Factors like this hold us all back as we learn, live and contribute to the world around us.

Creativity and our potential

This contribution is essential in the eyes of Sir Ken. As many of us faced isolation during the lockdowns, we turned to creativity. Not just a release for difficult times, creativity taps into part of what it is to be human. We can create works of art, philosophies, systems and solutions. For Sir Ken, creativity is how we unleash and use our potential to create a better world.

This creativity and potential is vital now, as we have been given an opportunity by the lockdowns. The pause in much of society’s usual functions gives us a chance to improve and develop education, our social environment and our relationship with the natural world. Sir Ken believed passionately in the potential of people, and our ability to creatively overcome the challenges we face, as we make a settlement with the earth from a climate perspective and create a better culture in our societies that creates the conditions for us all to flourish.

Sir Ken left us all with this gift, his final wisdom, insights and a question, what is the normal we want to get back to? It has been a privilege turning these into an animation that spreads Sir Ken’s final public talk even further than it’s first delivery! This is why we created whiteboard animation, and it is why we love what we do.

Whiteboard animation can share many messages and stories. If you think whiteboard animation could share yours, we’d love to talk to you. Contact us today.