Learning is critical to human existence. As water and food nourish our bodies, so too do information and knowledge fuel our minds. Everyone is capable of learning—anyone and everyone—is influencing a person’s learning journey. People have different learning styles and preferences, which take on various forms instead of fitting into one specific pattern. It is essential to be aware and adaptive within the learning process to minimize exclusion and optimize for the best learning experience and outcome.
Many people who evolved into creative pioneers did so off their backs, not because their education system enabled them along that journey. It discouraged and ignored their difference and potential. Creativity is the core of humanity. Breaking rules is what creativity involves, and the rebellious nature of the mind is a catalyst to create. That does not mean breaking the law; it means questioning the status quo and treating what you do as a blank canvas to self-express and provide an alternative.
Roy Sharples and Gary Burt discuss their manifesto for educators to drive a learning without frontiers sensibility and approach for instilling creativity and innovation within what they teach and how.
Accompanying blog post.
Creativity Without Frontiers is available at all relevant book retailers
Stay in touch with Unknown Origins
Music by Iain Mutch
Learning is critical to human existence. As water and food nourish our bodies, so too do information and knowledge fuel our minds. Everyone is capable of learning—anyone and everyone—is influencing a person’s learning journey. People have different learning styles and preferences, which take on various forms instead of fitting into one specific pattern. It is essential to be aware and adaptive within the learning process to minimize exclusion and optimize for the best learning experience and outcome.
Many people who evolved into creative pioneers did so off their backs, not because their education system enabled them along that journey. It discouraged and ignored their difference and potential. Creativity is the core of humanity. Breaking rules is what creativity involves, and the rebellious nature of the mind is a catalyst to create. That does not mean breaking the law; it means questioning the status quo and treating what you do as a blank canvas to self-express and provide an alternative.
Roy Sharples and Gary Burt discuss their manifesto for educators to drive a learning without frontiers sensibility and approach for instilling creativity and innovation within what they teach and how.
Accompanying blog post.
Creativity Without Frontiers is available at all relevant book retailers
Stay in touch with Unknown Origins
Music by Iain Mutch
Hello, I'm Roy Sharples, and welcome to the unknown origins podcast. Why are you listening to this podcast? Are you an industry expert looking for insights? are you growing your career? Or are you a dear friend, helping to spur your old power on? I created the unknown origins podcast, to have the most inspiring conversations with creative industry personalities and experts about entrepreneurship, pop culture, art, music, film and fashion. Learning is critical to human existence, as water and food nourish our bodies. So to those information and knowledge, fuel our minds acquainting critical and creative thinking skills, communication skills, and the ability to collaborate is key to our self growth, and leading a fulfilling life. Learning is a social process. We grow in confidence by observing how others perform, and Excel. People have different learning styles and preferences, which take on various forms. Instead of fitting into one specific pattern. It is essential to be aware and adaptive within the learning process to minimize exclusion and optimize for the best learning experience and outcome. The point is that everyone is capable of learning and that parents, brothers, sisters, friends, teachers, coaches, managers, and leaders, in fact, anyone and everyone is influencing a person's learning journey. The key is to understand and adapt to different learning styles, especially in the early years of learning, which can have an enormous impact on an individual's ability to learn and empower themselves for the future, to live a happy and fulfilled life by gaining positive experiences along the way. Education expert, Sir Ken Robinson once spearheaded a radical rethink of our education systems to instill creativity as a core discipline of the grassroots and nurture it through the educational system, and still in creative confidence, because people are educated out of their creative capacity. This is because our education systems are designed to meet the bygone needs of the Industrial Revolution, and value recall over imagination. We benevolently steer children away from the subjects that they like, because they would never get meaningful, lucrative jobs doing those things. Or you are not going to be an artist. You're not going to be an actress, and you're not going to be a musician. None of these are likely to add you money. This is because the education system has mined our mains for a specific commodity. Sadly, this is soul destroying advice, and is fundamentally wrong. Many people who evolved into creative pioneers did so off their own backs, not because their education system enabled them along that journey had discouraged and ignored the difference and potential. For example, Edgar Allan Poe, Marlon Brando, Salvador Dali, and john lennon, were expelled from school because of their indifference. And because they challenged the system. Creativity is the core of humanity. breaking rules is what creativity involves, and the rebellious nature of the mind is a catalyst to create. That does not mean breaking the law. It means questioning the status quo, and treating what you do as a blank canvas to self Express and provide an alternative. upbringing and genetics are obviously key to shaping our outlook. Parents need to allow children to be themselves being over protected by parents drives risk adversity, difficulty making decisions, dealing with hardship and other frustrations of life and ultimately, threatening success in life. Early specialization, Tiger parenting micromanaging children's lives over teaching and testing instead of giving time and space for creativity and an unstructured way are the enemies of free thought and innovation. People like Mohammed Ali bjarke Coco Chanel, George Lucas, Leonardo da Vinci, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Walt Disney were classic outliers, who had no attachment to fix definitions of any form of life or reality, which is why they became truly great and their chosen fields. They were self defined, self educated, magical artists, they surprised and excited us. We are attracted to that originality and magnetic genius, encouraging us to expect the unexpected, and ultimately, to be entertained by them, and to learn more about ourselves, and the world we live in. today's podcast is about a manifesto for education by driving a learning without frontiers, sensibility and approach where Gary Burke and I will detail the 10 principles for educators to instill creativity and innovation within what they teach and how these are, one, instill creative confidence, build a set of beliefs and moral habits to prepare and qualified people for work and social integration with a shared purpose and collaborative culture. Embracing creativity, flexible on structured learning, free thought, and innovation, drives fearless leadership, entrepreneurship, critical thinking and applied practical problem solving, instead of early specialization, teaching to test and micro management.
Gary Burt:Number two, deliver experiences that stick make the learning experience memorable by creating experiences, challenge yourself to make learning and enjoyable and specially then your measure of success is to leave ideas and thoughts buzzing in students heads after the class finishes. How do you inspire the student to continue the discussion with their friends to seek out more information to continue learning after the class has ended? How do you bring this to life? Can you bring in props? Can you change the room layout the lighting the mood? Can you bring in guest speakers? Can you bring in those who can tell stories and bring this learning to life. Instead of having the local fire brigade talk about home safety and smoke alarms, bring them on to talk about fitness, teamwork, stress, maintaining readiness. Your goal is to move past telling to active experiential learning with the class your local community or jumped at the opportunity to support you. So ask them.
Roy Sharples:Number three, multidisciplinary collaboration and blended learning and still creativity as a core discipline at the grassroots and nurture throughout the educational system. Recognizing intelligence as multifaceted by embracing emotional and social intelligence, critical thinking, and practical problem solving, and integrate science, arts and humanities as equal parts of the learning jigsaw. Blended learning programs and zigzags across disciplines and domains with continuous learning pathways that are open to anyone willing to invest effort and time to advance the knowledge values and skills.
Gary Burt:Number four, be a performer. If the class is not engaged by you, the minds are going to close down to your teaching and you'll fail. develop your skills as a storyteller, an actor and an improv artist, take classes and improve. You have an audience that's looking at the stage and asking the comedian to make them laugh, and don't overstay your time on stage. Encourage discussion and active participation in the class of group work presentations and discussions. Learn from TV for more magazines. Your style should not be to aim to replicate the reading of a book or a presentation on slides. Think of yourself as a director. Make it akin to a film the theater and use media to bring your class to life.
Roy Sharples:Number five, do it yourself sensibility and growth mindset, rejecting conventions and originating new ideals through natural rebellious impetuosity of non conformity with direct action and not selling out. Doing it in your own style and pace. Embrace challenge, accept failure, persist in the face of setbacks, and learn by doing as the path to mastery.
Gary Burt:Number six, embrace emotion. Humans are social and emotional creatures. The best adverts don't sell the features of the product. They make a human connection. Your teaching needs to do the same. To understand how education can be can be connected to people and human stories. Even with chemistry, physics, and maths. Go beyond the formula to give insight into why this matters. who discovered it, link to their story. show what is essential? show what's relevant In the future. This builds on the last point about being a performer. Embrace emotion in your performance.
Roy Sharples:Number seven, continuous pursuit of peak performance. continuously improve your craft through constant skills honing, acquiring new experiences to remain relevant and innovative and maintaining quality focus to the last detail, ensure technical depth and breadth, and our domain to stay relevant and innovative. progressively improve creative outputs by working across multiple disciplines to ensure longevity and optimal impact. Commit to creative advancement, inspiring and guiding others to deliver innovative outcomes, anticipate the future and adapt to change throughout time.
Gary Burt:Number eight, kill the ego. Your students are the stars of the class, not you. It isn't about you. Nobody cares how good you believe you are. You're being judged now security go. Nobody cares about you. Not yet. They care about what you're doing for them here. And now. They care how much engages them how interested he is. And whether you're worth listening to. Your competition isn't their phones. It's the world outside of the classroom that they could connect to. You're competing with videos, social media, music chat, but you have something that none of this has your physical presence. So make this matter and use this.
Roy Sharples:Number nine, mentorship. stand on the shoulders of giants, by seeking counsel from people you trust, respect and admire. Find positive role models who can share their skills, insights and expertise to help nurture your ideas, understand and respect history and infuse best practices into finding the future to truly innovate and not reinvent the wheel.
Gary Burt:Number 10. Be authentic, be human, and be flawed. image manipulation is the norm in a world where we seek perfection and a 20 year old TV star can become a billionaire. In this will become a failure. manipulated images get rich TV schemes, TV fame, their illusions, their confidence killers, they destroy more dreams and they inspire. Be human and bring your experiences of the world to the class. embrace this zigzag of learning embrace travel, embrace diversity, embrace the challenge and call out the BS the most important innovator in technology and in our lifetime, credited much of his insight to learning about art and learning about fonts. This was Steve Jobs. Life is a journey to be lived, your failures, your unexpected trials, your unexpected experiences are what is going to make you valuable as an artist, a business owner, or an employee that others want to work with. be human, be authentic, and embrace the floor. And now the harsh reality. If you want to be truly excellent, then your workload is going to increase a lot. The way your time is allocated to learning, developing, teaching and marking will change. The time of preparation will increase with the time you actually spend delivering this being a smaller piece of the pie. Your time for personal development, storytelling, improv acting skills is going to reduce the time you have to teach. So if this is going to be sustainable, you need to reduce your current workload of teaching time or marking time. And you're going to need to have this conversation. If this is going to be sustainable and work. If you don't do this, then you're going to need to make some changes. You're either going to revert back to what you did before, or you're going to leave. That's the reality of this. If you change, deliver results, and it's not recognized, you will leave or you'll stop doing it. But if you believe in this, then you leave. This is precisely the same with personal development outside of work. When people commit to change outside of work, such as taking on a part time degree they change. They become a different person. If this isn't recognized and embraced in the workplace that expect them to leave at best. Don't disengage, not at first. At first I'll look to put in additional effort to look to share the insight and help only if this is not recognized when they start to look out. So if you're a teacher or someone responsible for the development of teaching them recognize this dynamic, be prepared for it. But most of all, support it. support the development, recognize it, and resources as much as you can. And with that, you will truly transform your education.
Roy Sharples:You have been listening to the unknown origins podcast. Please follow subscribe, rate and review us. For more information go to unknown origins.com Thank you for listening