If it helps just one person, then it will have been worth it.

3 minute read

I thought of an old friend recently.

My son had to build a school physics experiment the other day and asked me if I could help. My 50-something self immediately time-travelled back to the crazy stuff I carried out in my highschool science labs of the 70s and 80s. I couldn’t contain my excitement!

We shopped for wood, steel, hinges, bolts, nuts, weights (actually, I did this on my own). I was in my element!  My son would supply the laptop, tech gear and brains needed to analyze, decode and measure his project and final results.

Building then simulating the effects of earthquakes and their forces on an office tower to understand the ways engineering and design saves lives was an awesome school exercise and it really made me appreciate the student and teacher relationship again.

While I know my children will eventually look back on it, I wish they could experience the pleasure right now of being able to fully appreciate the people (not their parents!) who shaped and informed their outlook and eventually their lives.  

For me, one of those people was Ken Robinson who passed 18 months ago. I felt then and still feel today like a close friend has gone.

A teacher, a voice of reason and a voice for change, I never met him, never exchanged voice or email, never tweeted him in the hope he’d reply, but I knew him.

This person will live on through his tireless passion to change the way the world looks at human performance, in particular how the world recognizes children’s potential.

In one telling story, he speaks of a young child who was seen as struggling at school, in class, failing to engage, lost in her own world, and whose value was deemed to be less than others. One day the teacher notices her drawing and asks the child, “who is that?” and the child replies, “it’s god” and the teacher says “no one knows what god looks like” and the child responds, “they do now.”

Lifting all children instead of letting them down wasn’t just a throw-away thought for Robinson.

The only way I know how to honour his efforts, to keep him and his viewpoint visible is to respectfully borrow from his, the most viewed presentation in the world of technology, education and design.

While we did not meet I’m pleased to be able to say I am one person he helped, along with a son who imagined he could build!

In some way, I think you knew him too.

Watch: Ken Robinson, difference-maker on  https://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY