Do Schools Kill Creativity?

Video Overview

Sir Ken Robinson argues that modern education systems are designed to suppress creativity by placing academic subjects above the arts and treating mistakes as shameful failures. Through humor and vivid storytelling — including the true story of Gillian Lynne, who became a legendary choreographer after a doctor recognized she ’needed to move to think’ — he makes the case that creativity is as essential as literacy. He calls on educators worldwide to rethink intelligence and stop educating children out of their natural creative capacities.

Watch on YouTube ↗

💬 Idioms

“blown away”

completely amazed or overwhelmed by something impressive

• I was blown away by the range of talent on display at the school concert.
• She was absolutely blown away when the gallery offered to exhibit her paintings.

“have a go”

try something without worrying too much about failing; take a chance

• Even if you’ve never cooked Thai food before, just have a go — that’s how you learn.
• Young children will always have a go at something new; they don’t fear looking silly.

“pin someone to the wall”

hold someone’s complete attention in conversation; engage someone so intensely they can’t easily escape

• Mention your worst school memory at a dinner party and someone will pin you to the wall for the rest of the evening.
• The documentary was so gripping it pinned me to the wall for the full two hours.

“vested interest”

a personal stake or strong personal reason to care about something, often because you directly benefit from it

• Every parent has a vested interest in how the local school system is run.
• The pharmaceutical companies have a vested interest in keeping drug prices high.

📚 Vocabulary to Remember

• squander — to waste something valuable — talent, time, or money — carelessly or without good reason
  • We squander so much young talent by telling children their creative gifts aren’t worth pursuing.
• stigmatize — to treat something or someone as shameful, disgraceful, or less worthy
  • When schools stigmatize mistakes, students quickly learn to play it safe instead of taking creative risks.
• contention — a firmly held belief or argument that someone puts forward, especially in a debate
  • It is the speaker’s contention that creativity deserves the same status as literacy in education.
• predicated on — based on or built upon a particular idea, assumption, or condition
  • The entire grading system is predicated on the idea that one type of intelligence is more valuable than another.
• hierarchy — a ranking system where things or people are ordered from most to least important
  • Every education system in the world has a hierarchy of subjects, with mathematics and languages at the top.
• kinesthetically — relating to learning or thinking through physical movement and bodily sensation
  • Some children understand concepts far better kinesthetically — through movement and touch — than through reading alone.
• academic inflation — the gradual devaluation of academic degrees as more people earn them, pushing job requirements higher and higher
  • Because of academic inflation, a role that once required a bachelor’s degree now often demands a master’s.
• protracted — lasting longer than expected or necessary; drawn out over a long period
  • The whole system of public education has become a protracted process of preparing students for university entrance.

🔧 Say It Naturally

1. ❌ I was very surprised and impressed by everything. ✅ I’ve been blown away by the whole thing. 💡 ‘Blown away’ is vivid and natural in spoken English; ‘very surprised and impressed’ sounds stiff and flat by comparison.
2. ❌ If they don’t know the answer, they will try to do it. ✅ If they don’t know, they’ll have a go. 💡 ‘Have a go’ is relaxed and colloquial, perfectly capturing the casual fearlessness Robinson is describing; ’try to do it’ is correct but bland.
3. ❌ You can see that they are very afraid. ✅ You can see the blood run from their face. 💡 This vivid physical image instantly shows sudden dread; the learner version is accurate but loses all the drama and humor.
4. ❌ It’s something that people care very much about, isn’t it? ✅ It’s one of those things that goes deep with people, am I right? 💡 ‘Goes deep with people’ is an idiomatic way to say something touches someone at a personal or emotional level — ‘care very much about’ doesn’t capture that intimacy.
5. ❌ We waste their talents a lot. ✅ We squander them, pretty ruthlessly. 💡 ‘Squander’ is more precise than ‘waste’ (it implies careless misuse of something precious), and ‘pretty ruthlessly’ adds a surprising emotional punch to a very short sentence.
6. ❌ We don’t become more creative as we grow older; we become less creative. ✅ We don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. 💡 The mirror structure of ‘grow into / grow out of’ makes the idea sharp and memorable — a hallmark of effective public speaking.
7. ❌ Education is making people less creative. ✅ We are educating people out of their creative capacities. 💡 ‘Educating people out of’ is a precise, striking construction that puts the responsibility on the system, not on the people — the learner version loses that critical nuance.
8. ❌ She needed physical movement in order to be able to think properly. ✅ She had to move to think. 💡 Five words do the job of eleven; short, direct sentences land harder and sound more natural in storytelling.

✅ Check Yourself

Q1. She was completely ____ when she found out her short film had been selected for the international festival.

• blown away
• squander
• hierarchy

Q2. Even though he had never played chess before, he decided to just ____ and learn from his mistakes.

• have a go
• contention
• kinesthetically

Q3. The company’s entire hiring strategy is ____ the belief that university grades predict job performance.

• predicated on
• vested interest
• protracted

Q4. A good classroom culture should not ____ students who give the wrong answer — errors are how learning happens.

• stigmatize
• squander
• academic inflation

Q5. As a long-time employee, she had a clear ____ in the outcome of the merger — her pension depended on it.

• vested interest
• hierarchy
• contention

Q6. It is her ____ that children lose their natural curiosity not because they grow up, but because they are taught to fear being wrong.

• contention
• academic inflation
• protracted

✍️ Mini Diary

Today I finally signed up for a beginner’s ceramics class after putting it off for two years. I was completely blown away by how nervous I felt walking in — my hands were trembling before I even touched the clay. But then I thought about something I’d heard recently: that small children just have a go at new things without worrying about looking foolish, and that this fearlessness is exactly what most of us lose as we grow older. So I pressed my palms into the clay and started shaping something, even though I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. My bowl came out lopsided and a little comical, but I felt a quiet pride in it anyway. I think I’ve spent too many years letting the fear of mistakes stigmatize my own creative efforts — and sitting in that studio today, I decided I want to change that.