One of the real challenges is to innovate fundamentally in education.Innovation is hard because it means doing something that people don't find very easy, for the most part.It means challenging what we take for granted, things that we think are obvious.And the great problem for reform or transformation is the tyranny of common sense.Things that people think, "Well, it can't be done any other way because that's the way it's done."I came across a great quote recently from Abraham Lincoln, who I thought you'd be pleased to have quoted at this point.He said this in December 1862 to the Second Annual Meeting of Congress.I ought to explain that I have no idea what was happening at the time.
We don't teach American history in Britain.We suppress it.You know, this is our policy.So, no doubt, something fascinating was happening in December 1862 which the Americans among us will be aware of.But he said this, "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present."The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion.I love that.Not rise to it, rise with it."As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country.""" I love that word, "disenthrall."Do you know what it means?
That there are ideas that all of us are in thrall to, which we simply take for granted as the natural order of things, the way things are.And many of our ideas have been formed, not to meet the circumstances of this century, but to cope with the circumstances of previous centuries.But our minds are still hypnotized by them and we have to disenthrall ourselves of some of them.Now, doing this is easier said than done.It's very hard to know, by the way, what it is you take for granted.And the reason is that you take it for granted.So let me ask you something you may take for granted.How many of you here are over the age of 25?
That's not what I think you take for granted, I'm sure you're familiar with that already.Are there any people here under the age of 25?Great.Now, those over 25, could you put your hands up if you're wearing a wristwatch?Now that's a great deal of us, isn't it?Ask a roomful of teenagers the same thing.Teenagers do not wear wristwatches.I don't mean they can't or they're not allowed to, they just often choose not to.And the reason is, you see, that we were brought up in a pre-digital culture, those of us over 25.And so for us, if you want to know the time, you have to wear something to tell it.Kids now live in a world which is digitized and the time for them is everywhere.They see no reason to do this.
And by the way, you don't need to do it either.It's just that you've always done it and you carry on doing it.My daughter never wears a watch, my daughter Kate, who's 20.She doesn't see the point.As she says, "It's a single function device.Like, how lame is that?"And I say, "No, no, it tells the date as well.It has multiple functions."
