The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

270 Pages·2009·1.31 MB·English

by  Ken Robinson

Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction
CHAPTER ONE - The Element
CHAPTER TWO - Think Differently
CHAPTER THREE - Beyond Imagining
CHAPTER FOUR - In the Zone
CHAPTER FIVE - Finding Your Tribe
CHAPTER SIX - What Will They Think?
CHAPTER SEVEN - Do You Feel Lucky?
CHAPTER EIGHT - Somebody Help Me
CHAPTER NINE - Is It Too Late?
CHAPTER TEN - For Love or Money
CHAPTER ELEVEN - Making the Grade
Afterword
Notes
Index

VIKING
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First published in 2009 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright © Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica, 2009
All rights reserved

Artwork on page 65: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/ Hubble
Collaboration. Acknowledgment: D. Gouliermis (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg).
All other artwork: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Robinson, Ken, date.
The element: how finding your passion changes everything / Ken Robinson with Lou Aronica.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN : 978-1-440-65617-0
1. Self-actualization (Psychology) 2. Self-realization. 3. Creative ability
in children. 4. School failure. I. Aronica, Lou. II. Title
BF637.S4R592 2008
153.9—dc22 2008033974

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To my sister and brothers, Ethel Lena, Keith, Derek, Ian, John, and Neil; to our
extraordinary Mum and Dad, Ethel and Jim; to my son, James, and my daughter,
Kate, and to my soul mate, Terry. This book is for you. For all your many talents
and for the endless love and laughter we put into each other’s lives. It’s when
I’m with you and the ones you love that I really am in my Element.
Acknowledgments
They say it takes a village to raise a baby. Rearing a book like this takes a small
metropolis. I know I have to say I can’t thank everyone, and I really can’t. I do
have to single out a few people, though, for special service awards.

First and foremost, my wife and partner, Terry. This book simply wouldn’t be
in your hands but for her. Its origins were in an off-the-cuff remark I made at a
conference a few years ago. I had just told the Gillian Lynne story, which now
opens chapter 1 of the book. In passing, I said that one of these days I was going
to write a book about stories like that. I’ve since learned not to say these things
out loud in front of Terry. She asked me when did I have in mind. “Soon,” I said,
“definitely soon.” After a few months had passed, she started it herself, wrote the
proposal, worked on the ideas, did some of the initial interviews, and then found
the agent, Peter Miller, who was to help make it happen. With the foundations
laid so solidly, and the escape routes closed so firmly, I finally kept my word
and got on with the book.

I want to thank Peter Miller, our literary agent, for all his great work, not least
in bringing Lou Aronica and me together. I travel a lot—too much, really—and
producing a book like this needs time, energy, and collaboration. Lou was the
ideal partner. He is seriously professional: sage, judicious, creative, and patient.
He was the calm center of the project as I orbited the earth, sending notes, drafts,
and second thoughts from airports and hotel rooms. Between us, we also
managed to steer a successful course between the often comic conflicts of British
and American English. Thank you, Lou.

My son, James, gave up his precious, final student summer to pore over
archives, journals, and Internet sites, checking facts, dates, and ideas. Then he
debated virtually every idea in the book with me until I was worn out. Nancy
Allen worked for several months on research issues under increasingly tight
deadlines. My daughter, Kate, had a wonderfully creative collaboration with
Nick Egan to produce a unique Web site that shows all the other work we’re
now doing. Our assistant, Andrea Hanna, worked tirelessly to orchestrate the
myriad moving parts in a project like this. We wouldn’t still be standing up
without her.

As the book was taking shape, we were extremely fortunate to have the wise
and creative counsel of our publisher, Kathryn Court, at Viking Penguin. Her
benign form of intimidation also ensured that we got the book finished in decent
time.

Finally, I have to thank all of those whose stories illuminate this book. Many
of them spent precious hours, amid very busy lives, to talk freely and
passionately about the experiences and ideas that lie at the heart of The Element.
Many others sent me moving letters and e-mails. Their stories show that the
issues in this book reach into the core of our lives. I thank all of them.

It’s usual to say, of course, that whatever good things other people have
contributed, any faults that remain in the book are my responsibility alone. That
seems a bit harsh to me, but I suppose it’s true.
Introduction
A FEW YEARS AGO, I heard a wonderful story, which I’m very fond of
telling. An elementary school teacher was giving a drawing class to a group of
six-year-old children. At the back of the classroom sat a little girl who normally
didn’t pay much attention in school. In the drawing class she did. For more than
twenty minutes, the girl sat with her arms curled around her paper, totally
absorbed in what she was doing. The teacher found this fascinating. Eventually,
she asked the girl what she was drawing. Without looking up, the girl said, “I’m
drawing a picture of God.” Surprised, the teacher said, “But nobody knows what
God looks like.”

The girl said, “They will in a minute.”

I love this story because it reminds us that young children are wonderfully
confident in their own imaginations. Most of us lose this confidence as we grow
up. Ask a class of first graders which of them thinks they’re creative and they’ll
all put their hands up. Ask a group of college seniors this same question and
most of them won’t. I believe passionately that we are all born with tremendous
natural capacities, and that we lose touch with many of them as we spend more
time in the world. Ironically, one of the main reasons this happens is education.
The result is that too many people never connect with their true talents and
therefore don’t know what they’re really capable of achieving.

In that sense, they don’t know who they really are.

I travel a great deal and work with people all around the world. I work with
education systems, with corporations, and with not-for-profit organizations.
Everywhere, I meet students who are trying to figure out their futures and don’t
know where to start. I meet concerned parents who are trying to help them but
instead often steer them away from their true talents on the assumption that their
kids have to follow conventional routes to success. I meet employers who are
struggling to understand and make better use of the diverse talents of the people
in their companies. Along the way, I’ve lost track of the numbers of people I’ve
met who have no real sense of what their individual talents and passions are.
They don’t enjoy what they are doing now but they have no idea what actually
would fulfill them.

On the other hand, I also meet people who’ve been highly successful in all
kinds of fields who are passionate about what they do and couldn’t imagine
doing anything else. I believe that their stories have something important to
teach all of us about the nature of human capacity and fulfillment. As I’ve
spoken at events around the world, I’ve found it’s real stories like these, at least
as much as statistics and the opinions of experts, that persuade people that we all
need to think differently about ourselves and about what we’re doing with our
lives; about how we’re educating our children and how we’re running our
organizations.

This book contains a wide range of stories about the creative journeys of very
different people. Many of them were interviewed specifically for this book.
These people tell how they first came to recognize their unique talents and how
they make a highly successful living from doing what they love. What strikes me
is that often their journeys haven’t been conventional. They’ve been full of
twists, turns, and surprises. Often those I interviewed said that our conversations
for the book revealed ideas and experiences they hadn’t discussed in this way
before. The moment of recognition. The evolution of their talents. The
encouragement or discouragement of family, friends, and teachers. What made
them forge ahead in the face of numerous obstacles.

Their stories are not fairy tales, though. All of these people are leading
complicated and challenging lives. Their personal journeys have not been easy
and straightforward. They’ve all had their disasters as well as their triumphs.
None of them have “perfect” lives. But all of them regularly experience
moments that feel like perfection. Their stories are often fascinating.

But this book isn’t really about them. It’s about you.

My aim in writing it is to offer a richer vision of human ability and creativity
and of the benefits to us all of connecting properly with our individual talents
and passions. This book is about issues that are of fundamental importance in
our lives and in the lives of our children, our students, and the people we work
with. I use the term the Element to describe the place where the things we love to
do and the things we are good at come together. I believe it is essential that each
of us find his or her Element, not simply because it will make us more fulfilled
but because, as the world evolves, the very future of our communities and
institutions will depend on it.

The world is changing faster than ever in our history. Our best hope for the