Do Schools Kill Creativity?

Ken Robinson’s iconic talk is the most-viewed TED presentation in history, and for good reason. With warmth, humor, and devastating insight, Robinson dismantles the industrial-age education system that still dominates most schools. His central argument—that schools systematically undermine creativity by hierarchically privileging certain subjects and stigmatizing mistakes—resonates with anyone who has felt the system’s pressure to conform. Robinson’s stories, from the Shakespeare quote about being born creative to the dancer Gillian Lynne discovering her gift only after leaving a traditional classroom, illustrate how many talents go unrecognized or actively suppressed.

The talk’s timing was prophetic. Robinson delivered it in 2006, just as the internet was beginning to democratize learning and the knowledge economy was making creativity economically valuable in ways industrial education never anticipated. His observation that we’re educating children for a future we can’t imagine, yet doing so with a system designed for the past, captures a fundamental disconnect. He argues that academic ability, while important, is not the only form of intelligence and that our obsession with it is leaving many brilliant people feeling inadequate.

Robinson’s vision of an education system that values diverse forms of intelligence and encourages creative risk-taking remains urgently relevant. As AI and automation reshape the job market, the very capacities Robinson champions—imagination, divergent thinking, and creative problem-solving—are becoming the most distinctly human and economically valuable skills. This talk is essential viewing for educators, parents, and anyone interested in how we prepare the next generation for a fundamentally uncertain future.