Creativity TED Talks

The argument of if schools foster or kill creativity is one for the ages. View these TedTalks from
both sides of the spectrum and answer the questions below. Expand thoughtfully in all of your
answers!

Before Watching

1. How do you define creativity?

Creativity is the use of your imagination/own ideas and applying it to certain, everyday
tasks/situations.

2. Do you consider yourself a creative person? What has your experience been in school
with creativity?
I don’t consider myself a creative person. The only experiences that I have had in school
with creativity is when I have projects or when I took certain art classes such as Jewelry
and Photography. Other than that, I have had little to no experience with creativity in
school as I have focused more on academics.

3. Do you think schools kill creativity or do they foster creativity? Explain.

I think that schools kill and foster creativity because, although they have classes that
allow students to be creative, they don’t really try to get students to take these classes.
They push students, through requirements, to take more academic courses as they are
seen as more important. Especially if you are taking rigorous classes, the courses you are
taking don’t have much leeway for creativity; everything has to be done a certain way in
order to get a good grade.

While Watching

Take lots of notes for each video and identify the claim, purpose, and evidence of each!
Do Schools Kill Creativity?
- Believes everybody has an interesting, unique education
- The conference had been about creativity (TED 2006)
- We are educating children about things even though we don’t know what is going to
happen in the future
- All children have talents, and we squander them
- Creativity is as important as literacy, and we should treat it as such
- Kids aren’t frightened of being wrong
- If you aren’t prepared to be wrong, you will never be original
- Most kids have become frightened of being wrong when they grow up because mistakes
are considered wrong
 - We are educating people out of their creative capacities
- Each school has the same hierarchy of classes: 1. Math and Language/Literature 2.
Humanities 3. Arts
- He believes arts are as important as math
- Purpose of public education is to produce university professors
- Professors live in their heads
- Public systems of education are based on academics
- People were were creative believed they weren’t valuable because their creativity was
undervalued
- We need to rethink our view on intelligence
- We think visually, abstractly, kinesthetically, and with sound
- Learning is interactive; intelligence is dynamic
- Creativity: the process of having original ideas that have value
- Comes through different disciplinary ways of seeing things
- Intelligence is distinct
- Some people have to move to think
- Must rethink about the richness of human capacity and the fundamental principles of
which we teach
- Human imagination is a gift, and we need to use it wisely
- We must see children as the hope they are and creativity the way it should be seen
Why Real Creativity is Based on Knowledge
- September 2016; Ted x Whitehall
- Associate Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics
- Chief Analyst & Advisor at the English Department of Education
- Isn’t allowed to criticize the government
- Graduate class: seems useless, but it teaches skills that helps people develop creativity
- To make money, people must keep inventing stuff and being creative
- Both reference the Industrial Revolution
- Creative thinking is based on knowledge
- He agrees with Ken Robinson when he says that creativity is important, but he doesn’t
believe that schools are killing creativity
- Real, successful, world-changing creativity is based on knowledge
- The schools give us the knowledge/foundation to be creative
- Example: Pauline Williams, trained as a doctor and working in a drug country, saw an
article about how many babies died from infected, open wounds from the umbilical
cord. She recognized that the antiseptic repenting these infections was in the
mouthwash her company was creating. She was able to make the mouthwash into a gel,
which could potentially help save children’s lives (in 2016).
- Believes the dance story doesn’t compare to saving many people’s lives
- Britain’s leader klezmer violinist, Sophie Solomon: was her former student of Leunig; her
knowledge allows her to be such a good violinist because she was able to understand
the history of the art form
- Literacy is the foundation of knowledge
- Knowledge is important to be a good citizen
 - Real creativity is putting different ideas together and making something better/new
Do Schools Kill Creativity? Why Real Creativity is Based on Knowledge
Sir Ken Robinson Tim Leunig

Claim:
Schools are killing creativity as they are
undermining the importance of creativity by
basing their education on creativity and
accuracy, leading to us losing our creativity as
we get older.
Claim:
Schools help people to become creative as
knowledge is the basis of creative knowledge,
allowing us to make revolutionary things that
are able to help several people.

Purpose: Purpose:
The purpose is to convince people that we The purpose is to qualify Ken Robinson’s TED
need to reform school curriculum to value talk because, according to Leuning, schools
creativity as much as subjects like math, foster creativity, not kill it.
leading to a change in the importance of
creativity in people’s minds and a change in
school education.

Evidence:
Sir Ken Robinson used the example of how
young children weren’t afraid of making
mistakes (kid mispronouncing frankincense),
yet adults are afraid of making mistakes. He
also uses the example of Jenny, who was, at
first, thought to have a learning disability.
However, she actually learned through
movement, and, since her creativity was
enabled by her mother, she became a multi-
millionaire because her creativity wasn’t
killed by schooling.
Evidence:
He uses evidence of Pauline Williams, who,
from her knowledge, was able to come up
with a gel that could potentially save many
infant’s lives that would have previously died
to an infected umbilical cord wound. He also
uses Ken Robinson’s evidence and shows how
Jenny had to have knowledge to be creative,
which was given through schools. He also
says that the reason why Sophie Solomon is
successful is because she had knowledge to
help her understand the violin better.

After Watching

1. Does how we define “creativity” matter? Do Robinson and Leunig have the same
definition? Explain.
The way we define “creativity” does matter. Although the general definition is similar,
like it is for Robinson and Leuning, the specifics change the value we put on creativity,
and what we consider creativity. For example, although both Leunig and Robinson
believe creativity to be new, original ideas, Leunig believes one must have knowledge to
be creative, which is given through schools. Although Robinson doesn’t explicitly say
that we need knowledge for creativity, he implies that schools don’t help people
 develop creativity in any way. Based on these definitions, Robinson and Leunig believe
that different measures must be taken to foster creativity in people.

2. Do schools kill or foster creativity? With which speaker do you agree/disagree? Explain.
I do believe that creativity has to have a basis in knowledge, but I believe more in the
evidence and reasoning that Sir Ken Robinson used. This is because, for me specifically, I
feel that I have become less creative growing up. I never know when to experiment with
what I know because I am worried about my grades. I want to experiment, but I also
want to get the grade. Especially in rigorous, academic subjects such as IB and AP, we
are expected to follow a certain syllabus without any room for creativity. Although many
classes do try to incorporate creativity into the curriculum, it is still very difficult to
expose students to enough creativity to make them value it. Additionally, the clubs or
programs that will look good on college applications are mostly academic-based; few of
them really allow for creativity due to their requirements. Even if there could be
creativity, due to the workload and requirements, students tend to sacrifice their
creativity as it isn’t valued as high as the workload and requirements.

3. Can creativity be taught? If so, how? What responsibility do schools have in the
endeavor?
I think that the idea of what creativity is and what it looks like can be taught, but the act
of creativity itself cannot be taught. In order to be creative, you must take the
knowledge you have acquired and use it in a way where you can create something that
is unlike anything else that exists. Truthfully, I believe that it is hard to be fully creative,
but even in small tasks, you can experiment with what is required/needed, all of which
helps people develop creativity. Schools need to teach the importance of creativity and
help students take more creative routes in school instead of just sticking to the
academics. I, honestly, am not sure how it would look like, but I do believe that all
classes could and should implement at least some creativity on the student’s &
teacher’s part.