Do schools kill creativity? | Sir Ken Robinson | TED

Summary

The speaker emphasizes the importance of creativity in education, arguing it should be as valued as literacy. He highlights the unpredictability of the future and the need for an education system that nurtures children's innate talents and innovative capacities. The talk also critiques the current educational hierarchy, which prioritizes academic subjects and undervalues the arts, and calls for a reevaluation of our approach to intelligence and learning.

Takeaways

• 🌟 Human creativity is a central theme of the conference, highlighting the diverse range of talents and ideas present.
• 🔮 The future is unpredictable, and education should prepare individuals for a world that is hard to foresee, especially considering the rapid pace of change.
• 🏫 Education is a shared interest and a vested concern for everyone, as it shapes the future and our ability to navigate through life.
• 🎓 The current education system is geared towards academic achievement and traditional subjects, often neglecting the importance of creativity and the arts.
• 🧠 Intelligence is diverse, encompassing various ways of thinking and experiencing the world, not just academic ability.
• 💃 Creativity should be valued as highly as literacy in education, as it fosters innovation and original thought.
• 🎭 The hierarchy of subjects in education systems worldwide reflects a bias towards certain disciplines, with arts often undervalued.
• 🚀 The rapid changes in technology and demography are rendering traditional educational achievements less valuable, necessitating a reevaluation of what education should prioritize.
• 🌍 A new conception of human ecology is needed, one that recognizes and nurtures the richness of human potential beyond just academic prowess.
• 🌱 The task of education is to develop the whole person, preparing children to face an uncertain future with the creativity and adaptability they will need to thrive.

Q & A

What are the three themes the speaker identifies running through the conference?

The three themes identified are the extraordinary evidence of human creativity, the unpredictability of the future, and the extraordinary capacities that children have for innovation.

Why does the speaker express an interest in education?

The speaker expresses an interest in education because it is the means by which we prepare children for a future that is uncertain and unpredictable.

What is the speaker's contention regarding the importance of creativity in education?

The speaker contends that creativity is as important in education as literacy and should be treated with the same status.

How does the speaker describe the common reaction to someone mentioning they work in education at a dinner party?

The speaker humorously describes that when someone mentions they work in education, the blood runs from other people's faces as if they are afraid or uncomfortable, indicating that education is a deeply personal and important topic.

What is the significance of the story about the little girl drawing a picture of God?

The story signifies the fearlessness and imagination of children. Despite being told that no one knows what God looks like, the girl is confident that she can create an image of God, showing that children are not afraid to take chances and be creative.

What is the speaker's view on the current education system's hierarchy of subjects?

The speaker criticizes the education system's hierarchy, which places mathematics and languages at the top and arts at the bottom, arguing that this structure is universal and does not adequately value creative subjects like dance and drama.

How does the speaker connect the history of public education to its current structure?

The speaker explains that public education systems were established to meet the needs of industrialism, which is why practical and academic subjects are prioritized over creative ones.

What does the speaker suggest about the future value of degrees?

The speaker suggests that degrees will lose their value due to academic inflation and an increase in graduates, indicating a need to rethink the structure and purpose of education.

What are the three things the speaker says we know about intelligence?

The speaker states that intelligence is diverse, dynamic, and distinct. It is experienced in various ways, interactive across different disciplines, and unique to each individual.

How does the story of Gillian Lynne illustrate the importance of recognizing and nurturing individual talents?

The story of Gillian Lynne shows that recognizing and nurturing individual talents, rather than suppressing them with medication or negative labels, can lead to great success and fulfillment. Her talent for dance was identified and encouraged, leading to a successful career in choreography.

What is the speaker's call to action for the future of education?

The speaker calls for a radical rethinking of our view of intelligence and the principles of education, emphasizing the need to educate the whole being of children to prepare them for an unpredictable future.

Outlines

00:00

🌟 The Importance of Creativity and Education

The speaker begins by highlighting the three prominent themes of the conference: human creativity, the unpredictable future, and the universal interest in education. He emphasizes the challenge of educating for an unknown future, noting that children starting school now will retire in 2065. The speaker argues that creativity is as essential in education as literacy and should be treated with同等重要性. He shares anecdotes to illustrate the innate creativity and innovative capacities of children, advocating for an educational system that nurtures rather than stifles these qualities.

05:01

🎭 Kids, Creativity, and the Fear of Being Wrong

In this paragraph, the speaker discusses the inherent creativity and willingness to take chances in children, which often diminishes as they grow older due to the fear of being wrong. He points out that making mistakes is crucial for fostering original thought and innovation. The speaker criticizes the current educational systems and companies that stigmatize mistakes, arguing that this approach educates people out of their creative capacities. He quotes Picasso to emphasize the importance of retaining one's artistic nature as they grow up.

10:03

🏫 The Hierarchy of Subjects and the Limitations of Academic Ability

The speaker critiques the global education systems for their hierarchy of subjects, with math and languages at the top and arts at the bottom. He questions why dance, for example, is not taught as frequently as math. The speaker suggests that the current educational priorities are a result of industrialism and an outdated view that academic ability is the ultimate measure of intelligence. He calls for a radical rethinking of our view of intelligence, emphasizing the diversity and dynamism of human thought processes.

15:05

🌐 Rethinking Intelligence and the Educational System

The speaker concludes by sharing a story about Gillian Lynne, a successful choreographer, to illustrate the dangers of misidentifying a child's creativity as a learning disorder. He emphasizes the need to reconstitute our understanding of human capacity and the richness of intelligence, which includes various forms of thinking and experiencing the world. The speaker calls for a new educational system that educates the whole being of a child, preparing them for an unpredictable future. He ends with a powerful message about the importance of nurturing our creative capacities and the hope that our children represent for the future.

Keywords

💡Creativity

Creativity refers to the ability to generate original ideas that have value. In the context of the video, it is emphasized as being as important as literacy in education and is seen as a crucial capacity that children possess, which should be nurtured rather than suppressed. The speaker argues that our education system should treat creativity with the same status as academic subjects to prepare children for an unpredictable future.

💡Education

Education is the process of acquiring knowledge, skills, values, and habits. The video discusses the current state of education, which is seen as overly focused on academic achievement and not valuing creative capacities enough. The speaker suggests that education should be rethought to include the development of the whole person, with a focus on nurturing creativity and diverse forms of intelligence.

💡Human Creativity

Human creativity is the innate ability of individuals to come up with innovative ideas and solutions. The video highlights the extraordinary range of human creativity, as evidenced by the presentations at the conference and the potential it holds for the future. The speaker contends that recognizing and fostering this creativity in education is vital for children to thrive in a world that is constantly changing.

💡Unpredictability

Unpredictability refers to the inability to foresee or determine what will happen in the future. In the video, it is used to describe the challenges of educating children for a future that is uncertain. The speaker points out that with rapid technological advancements and societal changes, it is impossible to know what the world will look like in five or more years, making the task of educators to prepare students for the future even more complex.

💡Childhood

Childhood is the period of life between birth and adolescence. The video emphasizes the importance of recognizing the talents and innovative capacities of children, suggesting that these qualities should be cultivated through education. The speaker argues against the common practice of educating children out of their creative capacities and instead advocates for an educational approach that embraces and develops the innate creativity of all children.

💡Mistakes

Mistakes are errors or faults made due to carelessness or lack of knowledge. In the context of the video, mistakes are portrayed as an essential part of the learning and creative process, especially for children. The speaker criticizes the stigmatization of mistakes in education and the workplace, arguing that the fear of being wrong stifles original thinking and creativity.

💡Intelligence

Intelligence is the ability to learn, understand, and apply knowledge; to reason and solve problems. The video discusses the diversity of intelligence, suggesting that it is not limited to academic ability but includes various forms such as artistic, musical, and kinesthetic intelligence. The speaker calls for a broader understanding of intelligence that values creativity and acknowledges the dynamic and distinct nature of human cognitive abilities.

💡Hierarchy of Subjects

Hierarchy of Subjects refers to the ranking of different academic disciplines based on perceived importance or value. In education systems worldwide, the video points out a common hierarchy that places math and languages at the top, while arts and creative subjects are often undervalued and ranked lower. The speaker challenges this hierarchy by advocating for the equal status of creative subjects like dance and drama, arguing that they are just as important as traditional academic subjects.

💡Industrialism

Industrialism is a social and economic system characterized by the development of industry and the mechanization of production processes. The video discusses how modern education systems were established to meet the needs of industrialism, leading to a focus on academic subjects that were seen as more useful for work. The speaker suggests that this approach is outdated and that education should evolve to embrace a wider range of human capacities and prepare students for a rapidly changing world.

💡Academic Inflation

Academic inflation refers to the devaluation of academic degrees due to their increasing prevalence and the raising of educational requirements for jobs. In the video, the speaker uses this term to describe the current state of higher education, where advanced degrees are increasingly required for jobs that previously only required a bachelor's degree. This trend highlights the need for a reevaluation of the education system and its focus on academic achievement as the primary measure of intelligence and success.

💡Human Ecology

Human ecology is the study of the relationship between humans and their environment, focusing on how human activities affect the natural world. In the video, the concept is reimagined by the speaker to advocate for a new approach to education that reconstitutes our understanding of human capacity. This new human ecology would emphasize the richness of human potential, including creativity and diverse forms of intelligence, and aim to educate the whole person for a sustainable future.

Highlights

The extraordinary evidence of human creativity was a central theme of the conference.

The unpredictability of the future and its impact on education was a key point of discussion.

The importance of education was emphasized, as everyone has a vested interest in it.

Children starting school now will be retiring in 2065, highlighting the challenge of preparing them for an unknown future.

The speaker's contention that creativity is as important in education as literacy.

The story of a little girl drawing a picture of God illustrates children's fearlessness in creativity.

The anecdote about the speaker's son in the Nativity play showcases children's willingness to take chances.

The importance of being willing to be wrong in order to foster creativity was emphasized.

The speaker's belief that we grow out of creativity, rather than into it, was highlighted.

The hierarchy of subjects in education systems worldwide was critiqued for its focus on academic ability.

The historical context of education systems being designed for industrialism was discussed.

The need for a radical rethinking of our view of intelligence was proposed.

Intelligence is described as diverse, interactive, and distinct.

The story of Gillian Lynne, a successful choreographer, was shared to illustrate the importance of recognizing and nurturing different forms of intelligence.

A call for a new conception of human ecology in education was made, emphasizing the richness of human capacity.

The TED community's role in using the gift of human imagination wisely for the future was highlighted.

The speaker's final message focused on the responsibility to educate children for a future we won't see, but they will.

Transcripts

Good morning. How are you?

(Audience) Good.

It's been great, hasn't it?

I've been blown away by the whole thing.

In fact, I'm leaving.

(Laughter)

There have been three themes running through the conference,

which are relevant to what I want to talk about.

One is the extraordinary evidence of human creativity

in all of the presentations that we've had

and in all of the people here;

just the variety of it and the range of it.

The second is that it's put us in a place

where we have no idea what's going to happen

in terms of the future.

No idea how this may play out.

I have an interest in education.

Actually, what I find is, everybody has an interest in education.

Don't you?

I find this very interesting.

If you're at a dinner party, and you say you work in education --

actually, you're not often at dinner parties, frankly.

(Laughter)

If you work in education, you're not asked.

(Laughter)

And you're never asked back, curiously. That's strange to me.

But if you are, and you say to somebody,

you know, they say, "What do you do?"

and you say you work in education,

you can see the blood run from their face.

They're like, "Oh my God. Why me?"

(Laughter)

"My one night out all week."

(Laughter)

But if you ask about their education, they pin you to the wall,

because it's one of those things that goes deep with people, am I right?

Like religion and money and other things.

So I have a big interest in education, and I think we all do.

We have a huge vested interest in it,

partly because it's education that's meant to take us into this future

that we can't grasp.

If you think of it,

children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065.

Nobody has a clue,

despite all the expertise that's been on parade for the past four days,

what the world will look like in five years' time.

And yet, we're meant to be educating them for it.

So the unpredictability, I think, is extraordinary.

And the third part of this is that we've all agreed, nonetheless,

on the really extraordinary capacities that children have --

their capacities for innovation.

I mean, Sirena last night was a marvel, wasn't she?

Just seeing what she could do.

And she's exceptional, but I think she's not, so to speak,

exceptional in the whole of childhood.

What you have there is a person of extraordinary dedication

who found a talent.

And my contention is, all kids have tremendous talents,

and we squander them, pretty ruthlessly.

So I want to talk about education,

and I want to talk about creativity.

My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy,

and we should treat it with the same status.

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)

That was it, by the way. Thank you very much.

(Laughter)

So, 15 minutes left.

(Laughter)

"Well, I was born ... "

(Laughter)

I heard a great story recently -- I love telling it --

of a little girl who was in a drawing lesson.

She was six, and she was at the back, drawing,

and the teacher said this girl hardly ever paid attention,

and in this drawing lesson, she did.

The teacher was fascinated.

She went over to her, and she said, "What are you drawing?"

And the girl said, "I'm drawing a picture of God."

And the teacher said, "But nobody knows what God looks like."

And the girl said, "They will in a minute."

(Laughter)

When my son was four in England --

actually, he was four everywhere, to be honest.

(Laughter)

If we're being strict about it, wherever he went, he was four that year.

He was in the Nativity play. Do you remember the story?

(Laughter)

No, it was big, it was a big story.

Mel Gibson did the sequel, you may have seen it.

(Laughter)

"Nativity II."

But James got the part of Joseph, which we were thrilled about.

We considered this to be one of the lead parts.

We had the place crammed full of agents in T-shirts:

"James Robinson IS Joseph!"

(Laughter)

He didn't have to speak, but you know the bit where the three kings come in?

They come in bearing gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh.

This really happened.

We were sitting there, and I think they just went out of sequence,

because we talked to the little boy afterward and said,

"You OK with that?" They said, "Yeah, why? Was that wrong?"

They just switched.

The three boys came in, four-year-olds with tea towels on their heads.

They put these boxes down, and the first boy said, "I bring you gold."

And the second boy said, "I bring you myrrh."

And the third boy said, "Frank sent this."

(Laughter)

What these things have in common is that kids will take a chance.

If they don't know, they'll have a go.

Am I right? They're not frightened of being wrong.

I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative.

What we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong,

you'll never come up with anything original --

if you're not prepared to be wrong.

And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity.

They have become frightened of being wrong.

And we run our companies like this.

We stigmatize mistakes.

And we're now running national education systems

where mistakes are the worst thing you can make.

And the result is that we are educating people

out of their creative capacities.

Picasso once said this, he said that all children are born artists.

The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.

I believe this passionately, that we don't grow into creativity,

we grow out of it.

Or rather, we get educated out of it.

So why is this?

I lived in Stratford-on-Avon until about five years ago.

In fact, we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles.

So you can imagine what a seamless transition this was.

(Laughter)

Actually, we lived in a place called Snitterfield,

just outside Stratford,

which is where Shakespeare's father was born.

Are you struck by a new thought? I was.

You don't think of Shakespeare having a father, do you?

Do you?

Because you don't think of Shakespeare being a child, do you?

Shakespeare being seven?

I never thought of it.

I mean, he was seven at some point.

He was in somebody's English class, wasn't he?

(Laughter)

How annoying would that be?

(Laughter)

"Must try harder."

(Laughter)

Being sent to bed by his dad, to Shakespeare, "Go to bed, now!"

To William Shakespeare.

"And put the pencil down!"

(Laughter)

"And stop speaking like that."

(Laughter)

"It's confusing everybody."

(Laughter)

Anyway, we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles,

and I just want to say a word about the transition.

Actually, my son didn't want to come.

I've got two kids; he's 21 now, my daughter's 16.

He didn't want to come to Los Angeles.

He loved it, but he had a girlfriend in England.

This was the love of his life, Sarah.

He'd known her for a month.

(Laughter)

Mind you, they'd had their fourth anniversary,

because it's a long time when you're 16.

He was really upset on the plane.

He said, "I'll never find another girl like Sarah."

And we were rather pleased about that, frankly --

(Laughter)

because she was the main reason we were leaving the country.

(Laughter)

But something strikes you when you move to America

and travel around the world:

every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects.

Every one. Doesn't matter where you go.

You'd think it would be otherwise, but it isn't.

At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities.

At the bottom are the arts. Everywhere on earth.

And in pretty much every system, too, there's a hierarchy within the arts.

Art and music are normally given a higher status in schools

than drama and dance.

There isn't an education system on the planet

that teaches dance every day to children

the way we teach them mathematics.

Why?

Why not?

I think this is rather important.

I think math is very important, but so is dance.

Children dance all the time if they're allowed to, we all do.

We all have bodies, don't we? Did I miss a meeting?

(Laughter)

Truthfully, what happens is, as children grow up,

we start to educate them progressively from the waist up.

And then we focus on their heads.

And slightly to one side.

If you were to visit education as an alien

and say "What's it for, public education?"

I think you'd have to conclude, if you look at the output,

who really succeeds by this,

who does everything they should,

who gets all the brownie points, who are the winners --

I think you'd have to conclude the whole purpose of public education

throughout the world

is to produce university professors.

Isn't it?

They're the people who come out the top.

And I used to be one, so there.

(Laughter)

And I like university professors,

but, you know, we shouldn't hold them up

as the high-water mark of all human achievement.

They're just a form of life.

Another form of life.

But they're rather curious.

And I say this out of affection for them:

there's something curious about professors.

In my experience -- not all of them, but typically -- they live in their heads.

They live up there and slightly to one side.

They're disembodied, you know, in a kind of literal way.

They look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads.

(Laughter)

Don't they?

It's a way of getting their head to meetings.

(Laughter)

If you want real evidence of out-of-body experiences, by the way,

get yourself along to a residential conference of senior academics

and pop into the discotheque on the final night.

(Laughter)

And there, you will see it.

Grown men and women writhing uncontrollably, off the beat.

(Laughter)

Waiting until it ends, so they can go home and write a paper about it.

(Laughter)

Our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability.

And there's a reason.

Around the world, there were no public systems of education,

really, before the 19th century.

They all came into being to meet the needs of industrialism.

So the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas.

Number one, that the most useful subjects for work are at the top.

So you were probably steered benignly away from things at school

when you were a kid,

things you liked,

on the grounds you would never get a job doing that.

Is that right?

"Don't do music, you're not going to be a musician;

don't do art, you won't be an artist."

Benign advice -- now, profoundly mistaken.

The whole world is engulfed in a revolution.

And the second is academic ability,

which has really come to dominate our view of intelligence,

because the universities design the system in their image.

If you think of it,

the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process

of university entrance.

And the consequence is that many highly talented,

brilliant, creative people think they're not,

because the thing they were good at at school

wasn't valued, or was actually stigmatized.

And I think we can't afford to go on that way.

In the next 30 years, according to UNESCO,

more people worldwide will be graduating through education

than since the beginning of history.

More people.

And it's the combination of all the things we've talked about:

technology and its transformational effect on work,

and demography and the huge explosion in population.

Suddenly, degrees aren't worth anything.

Isn't that true?

When I was a student, if you had a degree, you had a job.

If you didn't have a job, it's because you didn't want one.

And I didn't want one, frankly.

(Laughter)

But now kids with degrees are often heading home

to carry on playing video games,

because you need an MA where the previous job required a BA,

and now you need a PhD for the other.

It's a process of academic inflation.

And it indicates the whole structure of education is shifting beneath our feet.

We need to radically rethink our view of intelligence.

We know three things about intelligence.

One, it's diverse.

We think about the world in all the ways that we experience it.

We think visually, we think in sound, we think kinesthetically.

We think in abstract terms, we think in movement.

Secondly, intelligence is dynamic.

If you look at the interactions of a human brain,

as we heard yesterday from a number of presentations,

intelligence is wonderfully interactive.

The brain isn't divided into compartments.

In fact, creativity --

which I define as the process of having original ideas that have value --

more often than not comes about

through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.

By the way, there's a shaft of nerves that joins the two halves of the brain,

called the corpus callosum.

It's thicker in women.

Following off from Helen yesterday,

this is probably why women are better at multitasking.

Because you are, aren't you?

There's a raft of research, but I know it from my personal life.

If my wife is cooking a meal at home, which is not often ...

thankfully.

(Laughter)

No, she's good at some things.

But if she's cooking, she's dealing with people on the phone,

she's talking to the kids, she's painting the ceiling --

(Laughter)

she's doing open-heart surgery over here.

If I'm cooking, the door is shut, the kids are out,

the phone's on the hook,

if she comes in, I get annoyed.

I say, "Terry, please, I'm trying to fry an egg in here."

(Laughter)

"Give me a break."

(Laughter)

Actually, do you know that old philosophical thing,

"If a tree falls in a forest, and nobody hears it, did it happen?"

Remember that old chestnut?

I saw a great T-shirt recently, which said,

"If a man speaks his mind in a forest, and no woman hears him,

is he still wrong?"

(Laughter)

And the third thing about intelligence is,

it's distinct.

I'm doing a new book at the moment called "Epiphany,"

which is based on a series of interviews with people

about how they discovered their talent.

I'm fascinated by how people got to be there.

It's really prompted by a conversation I had with a wonderful woman

who maybe most people have never heard of, Gillian Lynne.

Have you heard of her? Some have.

She's a choreographer, and everybody knows her work.

She did "Cats" and "Phantom of the Opera."

She's wonderful.

I used to be on the board of The Royal Ballet, as you can see.

(Laughter)

Gillian and I had lunch one day. I said, "How did you get to be a dancer?"

It was interesting.

When she was at school, she was really hopeless.

And the school, in the '30s, wrote to her parents and said,

"We think Gillian has a learning disorder."

She couldn't concentrate; she was fidgeting.

I think now they'd say she had ADHD.

Wouldn't you?

But this was the 1930s, and ADHD hadn't been invented at this point.

It wasn't an available condition.

(Laughter)

People weren't aware they could have that.

(Laughter)

Anyway, she went to see this specialist.

So, this oak-paneled room, and she was there with her mother,

and she was led and sat on this chair at the end,

and she sat on her hands for 20 minutes,

while this man talked to her mother

about all the problems Gillian was having at school,

because she was disturbing people, her homework was always late, and so on.

Little kid of eight.

In the end, the doctor went and sat next to Gillian and said,

"I've listened to all these things your mother's told me.

I need to speak to her privately.

Wait here. We'll be back. We won't be very long,"

and they went and left her.

But as they went out of the room,

he turned on the radio that was sitting on his desk.

And when they got out of the room,

he said to her mother, "Just stand and watch her."

And the minute they left the room,

she was on her feet, moving to the music.

And they watched for a few minutes, and he turned to her mother and said,

"Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn't sick.

She's a dancer.

Take her to a dance school."

I said, "What happened?"

She said, "She did. I can't tell you how wonderful it was.

We walked in this room, and it was full of people like me --

people who couldn't sit still,

people who had to move to think."

Who had to move to think.

They did ballet, they did tap, jazz; they did modern; they did contemporary.

She was eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet School.

She became a soloist; she had a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet.

She eventually graduated from the Royal Ballet School,

founded the Gillian Lynne Dance Company,

met Andrew Lloyd Webber.

She's been responsible for

some of the most successful musical theater productions in history,

she's given pleasure to millions,

and she's a multimillionaire.

Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down.

(Applause)

What I think it comes to is this:

Al Gore spoke the other night

about ecology and the revolution that was triggered by Rachel Carson.

I believe our only hope for the future

is to adopt a new conception of human ecology,

one in which we start to reconstitute our conception

of the richness of human capacity.

Our education system has mined our minds

in the way that we strip-mine the earth for a particular commodity.

And for the future, it won't serve us.

We have to rethink the fundamental principles

on which we're educating our children.

There was a wonderful quote by Jonas Salk, who said,

"If all the insects were to disappear from the Earth,

within 50 years, all life on Earth would end.

If all human beings disappeared from the Earth,

within 50 years, all forms of life would flourish."

And he's right.

What TED celebrates is the gift of the human imagination.

We have to be careful now that we use this gift wisely,

and that we avert some of the scenarios that we've talked about.

And the only way we'll do it is by seeing our creative capacities

for the richness they are

and seeing our children for the hope that they are.

And our task is to educate their whole being,

so they can face this future.

By the way -- we may not see this future,

but they will.

And our job is to help them make something of it.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)