It’s a real pleasure to be here and to listen to the speeches from Florida and Utah about their extraordinary achievements. It’s also a privilege to be a member of Governor Mike Huckabee’s Commission on the Arts in Education. It’s very significant that the ECS has taken this theme for Governor Huckabee’s chairmanship and an honor to be invited to speak about it today. I ought to start with a confession. I’m not actually from America. I’m from the UK and I moved out here four years ago at the invitation of the Getty Center in California. There are many similarities between the UK and America, so in moving from Europe to America you do feel instantly at home in a lot of respects. There are many challenges we have in common and high among them are the challenges that face education. Every country in the world is currently reforming its education system. So in the few minutes that we have, I want to put an international frame on what’s happening here in the States and especially on the ECS initiative – the arts in education and Governor Huckabee’s commitment to it. Education Commission of the States2005 National Forum of Education PolicyChairman’s BreakfastJuly 14, 2005, Denver, ColoradoPresentation by Sir Ken RobinsonSenior Advisor for Education to the J. Paul Getty Trust2One thing that strikes me as I travel about is that there is almost everywhere the same hierarchy of subjects in the school system. It doesn’t really matter where you go. It’s true in America, throughout most of Europe, in Asia, and in Australia. I ran a project for the Council of Europe called Culture, Creativity and the Young. It involved surveying curriculum provision in 22 European countries – nort...
