from education to cultural competitive advantage, to the government's engagement in delivery of social services via the network.

Lunch with Prime Minister Tony Blair...

JS had lunch with Tony Blair he says

The Prime Minister wanted advice on advancing the United Kingdom's position in Europe for research and development. Nearly everyone in the room referenced Stanford and Berkeley's role in making the Valley attractive - as a source of graduates, to be sure, but more as a revolving door for research, partnership, education, dialog. I reminded the Prime Minister that the "SUN" in our ticker symbol, "SUNW" stands for Stanford University. John Hennessy made an interesting reference, quite serious I think, to Stanford's now looking toward the philanthropy of its graduates as a far more lucrative source of return on its intellectual property then traditional licenses or royalties.

And

So if you want to attract companies like Sun to your economy, focus on investing in education, in your students, and in your leaders. Focus on educating your policy makers as to why you're committed to education - not to build presitigious institutions, but to invest in progress, academic as well as economic. Focus on the value of broad based talent as a competitive weapon, don't be distracted by cost reducing labor.

And I applaud that we blogged about education a few times Sir Ken Robinson talks about creativity and education

Sir Ken, reminds us that education in its present form is becoming a devalued commodity, and that the current education system educates creativity out of us.

Education was created at a time when the need was to fuel the explosion of industrialisation, Sir Ken argues passionately that we need to educate the whole child holistically. Children he believes have extraordinary capacities for innovation and creativity. Picasso argued that we are all born artists, the struggle is to hang on to that creativity as you grow up.

The whole world is engulfed in a revolution, which requires us to think deeply how we prepare our children for the future.

You have to be prepared to be wrong to create new things, education and companies stigmatise failure, leading to hubris and stagnation.

Every education system around the world has the same hierarchy of education. Is this right? Yet intelligence is diverse and dynamic. Intelligence engages us totally and collectively.

Creativity can be defined as orginal ideas that have value, and it will combinations of interdisciplinary capabilites that allows us to reframe the world in a new way.

Sir Ken argues that today creativity is as important in education as literacy. It will be the leaps of the human imagination that will build tomorrows companies and economies. Our only hope for the future is to redefine human ecology and rethink how we educate our children

Which should be a worry for any British Government, when they are championing the growing indeed pressing, importance of the creative industries to our economy.

Also read At last a chance for every child

Comments

[steve dahlberg]

Those interested in creativity, education and educational change might also be interested in this new book, "Education is Everybody's Business: A Wake-Up Call to Advocates of Educational Change" (Rowman & Littlefield Education). It's by educator Berenice Bleedorn ( http://www.creativityforce.com ), who was the gifted consultant for the Minnesota State Department of Education, a professor of creativity in both the business and education schools at the University of St. Thomas, has taught creativity to inmates in the state prison, and writes and speaks about creativity throughout the world.

This book really makes the case for the deliberate teaching of thinking - creative and critical - in education. It also links the importance of education to a thriving democracy. A great idea in the book is that "democracy deserves the best thinking possible" - which offers a great place to begin one's thinking about any number of political issues in the world today. Some other good quotes from the book include:

* Children and youth are all much smarter than we think. They are smarter than the standardized test scores tell us. They have a longer tomorrow than adults, and most of them think about it more than we realize. Students have a right to understand what is happening to the world that they are inheriting.
* The hope is that educational programs will become better designed to make the best possible use of the natural power of the human mind to grow and develop and to be significantly active in service to a cause beyond oneself.
* There are no limits to the intellectual resource of the human mind when it is provided with an atmosphere for personal growth.
* The idea that `Creativity=Capital' is not a facetious one. The capacity of the human mind for creativity and innovation is unlimited. Harvesting the creativity in a business translates to money in the bank.
* Creative thinking can be taught if learners can practice the art of being serious and playful at the same time.
* The educational problem of a disparity between average achievement scores of white students and black students may have some of its origin in the nature of schooling that neglects programs that identify creative talent and fails to provide for its appropriate expression in problem solving and other creative thinking activities.
* Educators have not only an opportunity but an obligation to open the "doors of perception" for all students. The enduring purpose of education is to provide students with a perception of the outer reaches of their talents and possibilities and, ideally, to give them a reason to continue to learn and contribute to their society for all of their lives.
* The mandate is undeniable. The future of the environment can be guaranteed only with the determined effort of all the players in the world drama in every society, and there is no time to lose. It is a perfect project for the integration of schools and society, the community and the education profession. It is a time for personal action and resolve.
* Initiatives from concerned citizens and business interests have a vital place in developing educational outcomes that can be competitive with the rest of the developing world and can continue to contribute to a better life for all.
* Paradoxical thinking is a prerequisite for a society and world steeped in a diversity of cultures, religions and ideologies if we ever hope to achieve a more sane and peaceful world. If complex thinking were taught, practiced and modeled during the process of education everywhere, the people of the world would understand more and fight less.

[alan moore]

Dear Steve this is great - thank you for tsking the time to post.

Kind regards

Alan