08
OBITUARY
Humanity, optimism and imagination
Sir Ken Robinson, who died in August at the age of 70, had a big influence on me. Around the time I joined the RSA my mother was keeping on at me to join millions of others in watching Ken’s famous TED talk “Do schools kill creativity?” When I did, I made two decisions on the spot: first that we would start filming RSA talks and getting them to mass audiences; and, second, that we would invite Ken to be one of our early keynote speakers. Since then, RSA livecasts, replays, the “Animate” series and shorts have been watched hundreds of millions of times all across the globe. And, of course, one of the most popular is Ken’s Animate, which has been viewed well over 20 million times.
Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Arts, pays tribute to the inspirational educational thinker and author Sir Ken Robinson.
Ken gave his 2008 RSA talk to mark receiving the Society’s Benjamin Franklin award. Afterwards he charmed my star-struck mum, reminiscing about Leeds in the late 1960s, when they had both been students. I only met Ken a few times, but I can confirm that he was just as warm and engaging face-to-face as in his famous talks. The facts of Ken’s life have been set out in several glowing obituaries. They talk about his childhood in Liverpool overcoming the barriers presented by poverty and disability; his fascination with arts in education; his powerful 1998 report on creativity and
