A weekly post featuring talks by innovative thinkers, sponsored by TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design). This is what the internet was made for – to allow challenging ideas to escape from their academic ghettoes and hang out in a place where they can talk to each other.

Sir Ken Robinson is passionate about creativity and education. He’s also a pretty good stand-up comic, which makes this talk a delight. Here he talks about the pernicious, means-to-an-end system of education, which pigeon-holes children into winners and losers, based purely on whether they are suited to the official curriculum. He is such an engaging and funny speaker that I’ve added another of his TED talks, sight unseen, where he elaborates on the need for creativity.