"I'd like you to lead me around everywhere!"

I nearly forgot this funny story from our Target event at the Library of Congress last week.

The keynote speaker for the event was a gentleman by the name of Sir Ken Robinson. I hadn't heard of him, but he is pretty well known and titles himself "Creativity Expert." We were mostly concerned with making sure we had Sir Ken's PowerPoint slides--it's a funny thing about events; usually it's pretty easy to get caught up with little details and sometimes lose sight of the really amazing big picture thing that is happening. Anyway, I ended up escorting Sir Ken from the ground floor of the Library of Congress up to the room where we were having the luncheon. Here's one important detail that was never communicated to us: Sir Ken uses a cane. Another important detail: the Library of Congress is a really old building, teeming with tourists and not so teeming with elevators.

Anyway, after waiting awhile for an elevator, Sir Ken said to me,
"Surely there are stairs?"
"Yes, there are stairs. It's about a flight of stairs--would you like to walk the stairs instead?" I replied.
"Yes, absolutely, let's do." Sir Ken replied.

As we approached the stairs, an entire Middle School started coming down the stairs we were about to go up. It was a split staircase with a handrail in the middle; in any school you'd expect one side to be used for going down and the other for coming up. You'd also expect that a few students would try to go down the up side. Without thinking, I went into teacher mode and directed the couple of students coming down, "Excuse me young ladies, would you please go down the other side? Thanks." They quickly apologized and moved to the other side of the staircase.

Sir Ken said, "I'd like you to lead me around everywhere. That was impressive!"
I replied, "Oh, thanks. Having worked for a Vice President, taught high school for eight years, and being a New Yorker, I'm used to that sort of thing."
Sir Ken said, "Well that explains it. I won't mess with you!"

I was able to stay and hear most of Sir Ken's remarks--he was witty and had some great thoughts to share about education; I need to look for his book about creativity.

Here is a photo of Sir Ken's keynote our photographer, Sam Kittner.