About book The Element - How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything (2000)
Large parts of this book cover areas most of us are familiar with: the idea that schools aren't creatively and personally satisfying, that many great people have gone on to achieve wonderful things without the aid of public education etc. We know. But there are also stories about people who found their 'Element', the area of practice in which our aptitudes for what we're good at and the things we enjoy come together, long after school, or while they were working towards a different career. The chapters I found particularly interesting were the ones I hadn't considered much before: the idea of finding your Element in later life (something to think about more and more with life expectancies growing the way they are), and enjoying your Element as an amateur, rather than feeling the need to make a career out of it. Were I unfamiliar with the ideas laid out in the first half of the book, I would have probably found this book far more enjoyable, and I'm trying to bear that in mind. I also probably would have taken a lot more out of it if I hadn't already seen Sir Robinson's three excellent TED talks. Twice. (In case it wasn't clear I highly recommend them.) It is consistently funny, written with a very casual, very British sense of humour, and light and enjoyable to read. It's highly inspirational with the anecdotes of individuals who rose above the rest by discovering their element. It's almost all anecdotes though, with a sprinkling of criticisms targeted at the status quo for education. I felt invigorated and inspired, but eventually started to skip ahead, hoping to find something novel other than how great famous people are having found their respective elements. If his goal was to convey that talent and passion are good things and are limitless in diversity, he’s beating a dead horse. It is interesting how he describes how our current education system is actually suppressing peoples passions. I was hoping for something to provoke a more active personal reflection. Perhaps I’ll get just that with his other book “finding your element’.
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Everyone with the slightest interest in education should read it.
—jhane
