Recently I came across a very interesting and entertaining talk by Sir Ken Robinson on the subject ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity?’ You will find the YouTube video embedded below. It is 20 minutes long and well worth the watch.
Here are some of my favourite quotes from his speech to whet your appetite:
- “My contention is creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.”
- “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.”
- “Many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not [talented, brilliant and creative] because the thing they were good at at school wasn’t valued or was actually stigmatized.”
He also uses the intriguing term “academic inflation,” but I’ll let him explain the meaning.
Please watch and enjoy. 🙂
Creativity's Workshop 
February 25, 2010 at 6:31 am
This seems like very leading edge thinking, aligned with Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind (which talks about how the new economies will value right brain skills, including creativity, over linear thinking, analytics, numbers, etc.). I hope these guys have it right – I think a world that values creativity would be a great world to live in.
February 28, 2010 at 7:37 pm
It would indeed be a great world to live in, and there’s no reason we can’t start creating that world now. 😉
I think the world does value creativity to a degree. People get excited about creative inventions, artwork, solutions etc. They even admire these things. But often creativity is painted as a commodity of an elite few, rather than a potential we all have.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if creative training was as normal as learning to read?