TED Community » Rob Appleby

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Drawing, Teaching, Thinking

An idea worth spreading

Pupils should be content, not just qualified.

Talk to me about

Education and creativity. Child drawing development. Idea generation.

People don't know that I'm good at

I'm one of the best idea factories in the world.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +1.90 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A reply on Conversation: Does Education teach us to memorize information, instead of understanding it, or is memorizing important for future use?

  Apr 19 2012: Perhaps Philosophy or Metaphysics are areas where understanding has priority over application, or indeed require no application at all.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Does Education teach us to memorize information, instead of understanding it, or is memorizing important for future use?

  Apr 18 2012: I'm not sure understanding necessarily needs application to be called 'understanding' . Perhaps there are concepts that are understood but have no way of being physically applied.
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: Does Education teach us to memorize information, instead of understanding it, or is memorizing important for future use?

  Apr 17 2012: Memorising a fact is easy to quantify, easy to write on a report, easy to evidence. Schools and governments like this, because it 'proves' that education is happening.... 'look, see... It's here on this paper'
  
  Understanding something is difficult to quantify, difficult to put down on a spreadsheet.
• +6

  A comment on Conversation: Do introverts make better leaders?

  Apr 12 2012: A definition of extrovert and introvert...
  An extrovert leans towards needing external stimuli to occupy their minds.
  An introvert can occupy their mind with very little external input.
  
  I'm not sure about the idea that all introverts are shy and all extroverts are social studs!
• +2

  A reply on Conversation: What's one thing you wish you had learned in school?

  Nov 7 2011: As a teacher of Sex Ed. i consider it one of the most (if not the most) important things i teach.
  
  Its not about teaching how its done or the biology of it, its talking about the social side of it. How to be safe. Why we should talk more about it. Why its not some sordid thing to be giggled about or covered up. How its not dirty and rude. How to understand how other people feel.....
  
  ... just the real life stuff.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: What's with the fear of darkness anyways?

  Nov 4 2011: It just illustrates what 'Visual creatures' we are and how much we rely on visual input. Even though many of our other senses are far more sensitive.
• +4

  A comment on Conversation: Why is visual literacy discouraged in most cultures & WHAT CAN WE DO to change that?

  Nov 4 2011: Before you can walk, you can draw. Before you can talk, you can draw. Before you can read, you can draw. Before you can write...... YOU CAN DRAW
  So with all that experience behind us, why do so many people say 'I can't draw"
  
  35,000 years since we started painting on cave walls and carving figures out of Mammoth ivory.
  What have we done to ourselves that we educate our children to think of art and visual thinking as being a secondary, lesser subject.
  Policy makers sitting ostentatious offices with art hanging on their walls, nicely designed suits, desks and chairs, driving to work in their beautifully designed cars, telling us that Art isn't as important as other subjects.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: What came first? Dancing or music?

  Sep 30 2011: If i rock my baby in my arms, am i dancing with her? or just emulating the motion inside the womb, to comfort her.
  
  If i hum and rock her in my arms, am i singing and dancing?

• A comment on Conversation: What came first? Dancing or music?

  Sep 30 2011: If i tap my foot, am i dancing or am i sounding out a beat?
  
  If i tap both feet, is that dancing?.... or just sounding out a rhythm.
  
  Get up and stamp my feet?... Dancing?

• A comment on Conversation: If raising children is one of the most important things we do in society, shouldn't the subject be directly taught in schools?

  Apr 28 2011: Does anyone actually know how to raise a child?
  I have two.... and I'm not entirely sure I'm doing it 'right' anyway.
  
  If we could find someone who knows exactly how to raise children, we could ask them to write the curriculum.