1. TED.
In this section you will read a summary of a talk on education, from the organisation TED. Do you know what TED is? Read the description and then mark the statements true or false.
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an ever-increasing collection of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation and formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading".
TED began in 1984 as a one-off event, originating in California's Silicon Valley. By 1990 it had launched its own annual conference in Monterey, California. TED's initial emphasis was technology and design, consistent with its Silicon Valley origins. These TED events, or talks, are now held in two other California cities, Long Beach and Palm Springs, as well as in Europe and Asia. The talks address a wide range of topics within the realm of research and the practice of science and culture, and are often presented through storytelling. Live streaming of the talks is offered, along with access to an archive of past talks.
Part of the attraction of these talks is the format in which they are delivered: speakers are given a maximum of 18 minutes to present their ideas in the most innovative and engaging ways they can manage. Past presenters include Bill Clinton, Jane Goodall, Malcolm Gladwell, Al Gore, Gordon Brown, Richard Dawkins, Bill Gates, Salman Khan, and many Nobel Prize winners.
From 2005 to 2009, three US$100,000 TED Prizes were awarded annually to help its winners realise a chosen wish to change the world. From 2010 on, the selection process was changed and now a single winner is chosen to ensure that TED can maximise its efforts in achieving the winner's wish. Each winner unveils their wish at the main annual conference. Starting in 2013, the prize money will be raised to $1 million.
Since June 2006, the talks have been available online for free viewing, under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons license, through TED.com. By January 2009 TED talks had been viewed 50 million times. In June 2011, the viewing figure stood at more than 500 million, reflecting a still growing global audience. As of November 2011, over 1,050 talks were available free online.
From Wikipedia
2. A mission statement.
Now read three different mission statements. Which do you think is the authentic TED mission statement?
3. An article: A TED talk.
You are now going to read an article about a TED talk on education and creativity by Ken Robinson. Read the first two paragraphs and choose the best title for the talk.
[Choose best title below]
According to Sir Ken Robinson, English author, speaker and international expert on education, our school system is to blame for the systematic suppression of our creativity. "Children take risks," he says. "They improvise, they are not afraid to make mistakes." Robinson points out that making mistakes is not the same as creativity, but clearly we cannot innovate if we are not prepared to make mistakes. Making mistakes, he explains, is penalised in the adult world, and is stigmatised at school and all through education systems the world over. In this way children are systematically distanced from their creative abilities.
As it turns out, Robinson is by no means alone in this belief that education is out of step with today's demands and culture. The number of experts voicing the very same belief is growing, as is the concern that our education system, instead of nurturing creativity, is in fact killing it off. An increasing body of research coincides with findings that show how creativity decreases in proportion to the number of years spent in the school system, where curiosity and the quest for creativity give way to more rigid, convergent and inflexible behaviour and outcomes. To Robinson it is clear that schools prepare children to fit the system, not to have ideas of their own. Schools prepare children to pass exams.
Choose the best title for the talk.
4. An article: A TED talk.
Read the following paragraphs from the article and choose the best summarising phrase for each one.
5. The end of the article.
Read the end of the article and then choose the options that fit best, according to the text.
The question is, how did this situation come about? The answer is quite simple. In the past, a university degree practically guaranteed a place in the workforce; however, this is no longer the case, as more and more people have degrees. Where previously a job might have required a BA, now it requires an MA or even a PhD. Robinson calls this effect "academic inflation" and signals that we need to radically rethink our view of intelligence. To illustrate the point he tells the story of a friend of his who, when at school, was thought to have a learning disorder that would now probably be diagnosed as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She was uncontrollably restless and unable to concentrate in class. She was finally sent to a specialist who wisely suggested she be enrolled in a dance school, which she immediately loved, as it was full of people just like her, people who just couldn't sit still, people in constant motion. The friend in question went on to have a long and very successful career as a dancer and choreographer of West End musicals. What stories like this illustrate is the need to rethink the fundamental principles on which we are educating our children. But perhaps Robinson's own words sum up this challenge best, as he ends his TED talk:
"What TED celebrates is the gift of the human imagination. We have to be careful now that we use this gift wisely and that we avert some of the scenarios that we've talked about. And the only way we'll do it is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are and seeing our children for the hope that they are. And our task is to educate their whole being, so they can face this future. By the way, we may not see this future, but they will. And our job is to help them make something of it."
6. Reading in detail.
Read this first extract in detail and focus on sentence starters and cohesion in the article. Use the phrases to complete the extract. Drag the phrases to the gaps, or you can click the phrase and then click the gap. This exercise is in two parts. Scroll down to see the second part.
Part 1
Now complete Part 2.
Part 2
8. Meaning in context.
Read the next extract and choose the best definition for the underlined words and phrases.
Surprisingly, there is very little variation in education systems all over the world. They all have the same hierarchy of subjects, with mathematics and languages at the top, then the humanities, and finally, at the bottom, the arts. Obviously maths is important, but, as research is now discovering, so are music and dance. Our education system is driven by the idea of academic ability. It's a system that developed in the 19th century and was aimed to fit the needs of industrialism.
Perhaps this is why we were probably – consciously or unconsciously – steered away from things that we liked on the grounds that we would never get a job doing them. Academic ability has come to dominate our view of intelligence. Yet how many of today's most successful entrepreneurs, artists or public figures were not academically successful at school? The fact is, quite a few. During his talk, Robinson voices the opinion that "the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance" and that "many talented, brilliant, creative people think they're not because the thing they were good at at school wasn't valued or was stigmatised".