Individuals Matter

Individuals Matter

Consider the impact...

...of creatives like Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, Gandhi and the Wrights.

Consider the impact of indirect and direct leaders like Mead, Oppenheimer, Hutchins, Sloan, Marshall, John XXIII, E. Roosevelt, King, Thatcher, Monnet.

Consider how the character of leaders like Stalin, Tse-tung, Mussolini, Churchhill, de Gaulle, Kai-shek, Hideki, Hitler, and Lenin affected the course of world history and the realities we all live with today.

Those people were all outstanding individuals whose character resonated, for better or worse, with something in the characters of a significant number of other human beings.

The nature of those individuals mattered tremendously and so did the nature of each individual in their audiences. No one can lead without followers - not Gandhi, not Hitler. Masses are made up of individuals no matter how undistinguished and masses are powerful.

The kind of individuals shaped in part by institutions like schools matters.

Consider what Patrick Awuah discovered about humanities and the education of leaders:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/patrick_awuah_on_educating_leaders.html

The way individuals think about charity, for example, matters:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/andrew_mwenda_takes_a_new_look_at_africa.html

The knowledge, conceptualizations, experiences, beliefs and assumptions that an individual holds --- matters. These things shape futures. We need to take them seriously.

Taking them seriously doesn’t mean we can’t laugh though. Sir Ken Robinson contends that creativity is, now, as important as literacy and that it should be treated with the same status:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/chris_jordan_pictures_some_shocking_stats.html

Consider the impact:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dave_eggers_makes_his_ted_prize_wish_once_upon_a_school.html

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