Sir Ken Robinson’s Top Three Focus Areas for Teaching

Like all parents, Sarah and I desire to have our little ones thrive. We want them to learn how to make good decisions since all outcomes of life are the results of choices. We hope that our children learn to love their Catholic/Christian faith and become contributing citizens to their community. Every parent has dreams for their children. With this in mind, Sarah and I talk frequently about the guiding principles that we should be using to teach our children.

This past month, we reviewed an awesome talk by Sir Ken Robinson entitled “How to escape education’s death valley.” He offers three small and profound focus areas to help foster a whole minded child. In his very entertaining and funny talk, he challenges us to think deeply about the basic framework of our education system.

While the education system of the US is beyond our influence, I started asking myself “how can I foster these focus areas with my children?” Here’s a quick list of those focus areas:

Sir Ken Robinson’s Top Three Focus Areas

Personalized learning: Since every child is born different, how do Sarah and I find ways to adapt our teaching style to the child?
Creativity: I love seeing the creativity in my little guys. As a musician and computer geek who loves being creative with technology, I really want to pass along this gift. I think this might explain my passion for the Makers movement and teaching styles like project based learning.
Curiosity: Sarah and I want to keep our kids in a state of wonder. In our family, we love science and the craftsmanship of the world and biology. My wife is an expert in microbiology. It’s fun for us to talk about the machinery of the cell. Even with all of our understanding of the cell and the complex messaging processes that are involved, we are left in wonder. Who crafted our biology to be so profound and beautiful? Doing the math, life is not an accident. It was designed. This is a wonder we want to pass along to our children.

On another front, I’m very excited that our eldest loves all things related to NASA, space ships, and Mars rovers. At a very young age, it excites me that he can name the Mars rovers by name and wants to learn more about exploring space.

I do believe that “good decision making”, grit and character are skills that need to be fostered as well. I was kind of surprised that this did not make Sir Ken Robinson’s list. In any event, I wanted to share these focus areas with our readers hoping that it inspires you in your craft of teaching and learning. As a parent, I’ve been paying attention to my behavior and coaching style to see how I can use these ideas today. I also keep these ideas in mind as a team leader in my work place too.

I hope these ideas serve you as well.

What are some of the key focus areas that you use with your children?

Inspired To Educate

Inspiring Curiosity through Creative Projects and Exploration.

Sir Ken Robinson’s Top Three Focus Areas for Teaching