1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,678
Good morning. How are you?

2
00:00:04,702 --> 00:00:05,912
(Laughter)

3
00:00:05,936 --> 00:00:08,249
It's been great, hasn't it?

4
00:00:08,273 --> 00:00:10,729
I've been blown away by the whole thing.

5
00:00:10,753 --> 00:00:12,245
In fact, I'm leaving.

6
00:00:12,269 --> 00:00:17,836
(Laughter)

7
00:00:18,015 --> 00:00:21,222
There have been three themes
running through the conference

8
00:00:21,246 --> 00:00:23,753
which are relevant
to what I want to talk about.

9
00:00:23,777 --> 00:00:28,467
One is the extraordinary
evidence of human creativity

10
00:00:28,491 --> 00:00:30,904
in all of the presentations that we've had

11
00:00:30,928 --> 00:00:32,729
and in all of the people here.

12
00:00:32,753 --> 00:00:35,404
Just the variety of it
and the range of it.

13
00:00:36,158 --> 00:00:38,301
The second is
that it's put us in a place

14
00:00:38,325 --> 00:00:40,822
where we have no idea
what's going to happen,

15
00:00:40,846 --> 00:00:42,237
in terms of the future.

16
00:00:42,261 --> 00:00:44,976
No idea how this may play out.

17
00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:46,892
I have an interest in education.

18
00:00:46,916 --> 00:00:51,048
Actually, what I find is everybody
has an interest in education.

19
00:00:51,072 --> 00:00:52,210
Don't you?

20
00:00:52,234 --> 00:00:53,715
I find this very interesting.

21
00:00:53,739 --> 00:00:55,496
If you're at a dinner party,

22
00:00:55,596 --> 00:00:57,858
and you say you work in education --

23
00:00:57,882 --> 00:01:00,846
Actually, you're not often
at dinner parties, frankly.

24
00:01:00,870 --> 00:01:04,666
(Laughter)

25
00:01:04,690 --> 00:01:07,118
If you work in education,
you're not asked.

26
00:01:07,142 --> 00:01:10,233
(Laughter)

27
00:01:10,257 --> 00:01:13,976
And you're never asked back, curiously.
That's strange to me.

28
00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:16,475
But if you are, and you say to somebody,

29
00:01:16,499 --> 00:01:18,276
you know, they say, "What do you do?"

30
00:01:18,300 --> 00:01:19,976
and you say you work in education,

31
00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:22,076
you can see the blood run from their face.

32
00:01:22,100 --> 00:01:24,380
They're like, "Oh my God,"
you know, "Why me?"

33
00:01:24,404 --> 00:01:26,041
(Laughter)

34
00:01:26,065 --> 00:01:27,688
"My one night out all week."

35
00:01:27,712 --> 00:01:30,322
(Laughter)

36
00:01:30,346 --> 00:01:33,587
But if you ask about their education,
they pin you to the wall.

37
00:01:33,611 --> 00:01:37,078
Because it's one of those things
that goes deep with people, am I right?

38
00:01:37,194 --> 00:01:40,535
Like religion, and money and other things.

39
00:01:40,559 --> 00:01:44,911
So I have a big interest in education,
and I think we all do.

40
00:01:44,935 --> 00:01:46,827
We have a huge vested interest in it,

41
00:01:46,851 --> 00:01:50,171
partly because it's education
that's meant to take us into this future

42
00:01:50,195 --> 00:01:51,714
that we can't grasp.

43
00:01:51,873 --> 00:01:55,372
If you think of it,
children starting school this year

44
00:01:55,396 --> 00:01:58,920
will be retiring in 2065.

45
00:02:00,209 --> 00:02:01,843
Nobody has a clue,

46
00:02:01,867 --> 00:02:05,311
despite all the expertise that's been
on parade for the past four days,

47
00:02:05,450 --> 00:02:07,976
what the world will look like
in five years' time.

48
00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:10,294
And yet we're meant
to be educating them for it.

49
00:02:10,318 --> 00:02:12,868
So the unpredictability,
I think, is extraordinary.

50
00:02:12,892 --> 00:02:14,259
And the third part of this

51
00:02:14,283 --> 00:02:16,320
is that we've all agreed, nonetheless,

52
00:02:16,344 --> 00:02:21,649
on the really extraordinary
capacities that children have --

53
00:02:21,673 --> 00:02:24,007
their capacities for innovation.

54
00:02:24,031 --> 00:02:26,542
I mean, Sirena last night
was a marvel, wasn't she?

55
00:02:26,566 --> 00:02:28,176
Just seeing what she could do.

56
00:02:28,200 --> 00:02:32,976
And she's exceptional, but I think
she's not, so to speak,

57
00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:36,956
exceptional in the whole of childhood.

58
00:02:36,980 --> 00:02:39,776
What you have there is a person
of extraordinary dedication

59
00:02:39,800 --> 00:02:41,067
who found a talent.

60
00:02:41,091 --> 00:02:43,700
And my contention is,
all kids have tremendous talents.

61
00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:45,776
And we squander them, pretty ruthlessly.

62
00:02:45,800 --> 00:02:47,976
So I want to talk about education

63
00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:49,872
and I want to talk about creativity.

64
00:02:49,896 --> 00:02:55,915
My contention is that creativity now
is as important in education as literacy,

65
00:02:55,939 --> 00:02:58,803
and we should treat it
with the same status.

66
00:02:58,827 --> 00:03:00,798
(Applause) Thank you.

67
00:03:00,822 --> 00:03:05,167
(Applause)

68
00:03:05,485 --> 00:03:06,744
That was it, by the way.

69
00:03:06,768 --> 00:03:07,771
Thank you very much.

70
00:03:07,795 --> 00:03:09,910
(Laughter)

71
00:03:09,934 --> 00:03:11,611
So, 15 minutes left.

72
00:03:11,635 --> 00:03:14,571
(Laughter)

73
00:03:14,595 --> 00:03:16,487
Well, I was born... no.

74
00:03:16,511 --> 00:03:19,543
(Laughter)

75
00:03:19,567 --> 00:03:22,312
I heard a great story recently
-- I love telling it --

76
00:03:22,336 --> 00:03:25,051
of a little girl
who was in a drawing lesson.

77
00:03:25,075 --> 00:03:27,210
She was six, and she was
at the back, drawing,

78
00:03:27,234 --> 00:03:30,034
and the teacher said this girl
hardly ever paid attention,

79
00:03:30,058 --> 00:03:31,844
and in this drawing lesson, she did.

80
00:03:31,868 --> 00:03:33,208
The teacher was fascinated.

81
00:03:33,232 --> 00:03:35,994
She went over to her,
and she said, "What are you drawing?"

82
00:03:36,018 --> 00:03:38,509
And the girl said, "I'm
drawing a picture of God."

83
00:03:39,642 --> 00:03:42,960
And the teacher said, "But nobody
knows what God looks like."

84
00:03:42,984 --> 00:03:45,072
And the girl said,
"They will, in a minute."

85
00:03:45,096 --> 00:03:51,878
(Laughter)

86
00:03:56,662 --> 00:03:58,929
When my son was four in England --

87
00:03:59,413 --> 00:04:01,604
Actually, he was four
everywhere, to be honest.

88
00:04:01,628 --> 00:04:03,295
(Laughter)

89
00:04:03,404 --> 00:04:06,791
If we're being strict about it,
wherever he went, he was four that year.

90
00:04:06,815 --> 00:04:09,453
He was in the Nativity play.
Do you remember the story?

91
00:04:09,477 --> 00:04:10,696
(Laughter)

92
00:04:10,720 --> 00:04:12,547
No, it was big, it was a big story.

93
00:04:12,571 --> 00:04:14,876
Mel Gibson did the sequel,
you may have seen it.

94
00:04:14,900 --> 00:04:16,161
(Laughter)

95
00:04:16,185 --> 00:04:17,495
"Nativity II."

96
00:04:17,519 --> 00:04:21,654
But James got the part of Joseph,
which we were thrilled about.

97
00:04:21,678 --> 00:04:24,215
We considered this to be
one of the lead parts.

98
00:04:24,239 --> 00:04:26,716
We had the place crammed
full of agents in T-shirts:

99
00:04:26,740 --> 00:04:28,976
"James Robinson IS Joseph!" (Laughter)

100
00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:30,607
He didn't have to speak,

101
00:04:30,631 --> 00:04:33,069
but you know the bit
where the three kings come in?

102
00:04:33,093 --> 00:04:35,824
They come in bearing gifts,
gold, frankincense and myrrh.

103
00:04:35,848 --> 00:04:36,962
This really happened.

104
00:04:36,986 --> 00:04:40,076
We were sitting there and I think
they just went out of sequence,

105
00:04:40,100 --> 00:04:42,876
because we talked to the little boy
afterward and we said,

106
00:04:42,900 --> 00:04:45,776
"You OK with that?" And he said,
"Yeah, why? Was that wrong?"

107
00:04:45,800 --> 00:04:46,876
They just switched.

108
00:04:46,900 --> 00:04:48,076
The three boys came in,

109
00:04:48,100 --> 00:04:50,287
four-year-olds with tea towels
on their heads,

110
00:04:50,311 --> 00:04:51,802
and they put these boxes down,

111
00:04:51,826 --> 00:04:53,875
and the first boy said,
"I bring you gold."

112
00:04:53,899 --> 00:04:56,037
And the second boy said,
"I bring you myrrh."

113
00:04:56,061 --> 00:04:58,065
And the third boy said, "Frank sent this."

114
00:04:58,089 --> 00:05:00,989
(Laughter)

115
00:05:10,711 --> 00:05:13,801
What these things have in common
is that kids will take a chance.

116
00:05:13,825 --> 00:05:16,433
If they don't know, they'll have a go.

117
00:05:16,457 --> 00:05:19,994
Am I right? They're not
frightened of being wrong.

118
00:05:20,893 --> 00:05:24,400
I don't mean to say that being wrong
is the same thing as being creative.

119
00:05:24,886 --> 00:05:27,976
What we do know is,
if you're not prepared to be wrong,

120
00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:30,367
you'll never come up
with anything original --

121
00:05:30,391 --> 00:05:32,476
if you're not prepared to be wrong.

122
00:05:32,877 --> 00:05:37,010
And by the time they get to be adults,
most kids have lost that capacity.

123
00:05:37,406 --> 00:05:39,926
They have become
frightened of being wrong.

124
00:05:39,950 --> 00:05:41,640
And we run our companies like this.

125
00:05:41,664 --> 00:05:43,316
We stigmatize mistakes.

126
00:05:43,340 --> 00:05:45,642
And we're now running
national education systems

127
00:05:45,666 --> 00:05:48,012
where mistakes are the worst
thing you can make.

128
00:05:48,700 --> 00:05:51,908
And the result is that
we are educating people

129
00:05:51,932 --> 00:05:54,223
out of their creative capacities.

130
00:05:54,247 --> 00:05:58,725
Picasso once said this, he said
that all children are born artists.

131
00:05:58,749 --> 00:06:01,971
The problem is to remain an artist
as we grow up.

132
00:06:01,995 --> 00:06:05,076
I believe this passionately,
that we don't grow into creativity,

133
00:06:05,100 --> 00:06:06,956
we grow out of it.

134
00:06:06,980 --> 00:06:08,863
Or rather, we get educated out if it.

135
00:06:09,247 --> 00:06:10,720
So why is this?

136
00:06:10,826 --> 00:06:14,907
I lived in Stratford-on-Avon
until about five years ago.

137
00:06:14,931 --> 00:06:17,184
In fact, we moved
from Stratford to Los Angeles.

138
00:06:17,872 --> 00:06:20,536
So you can imagine
what a seamless transition that was.

139
00:06:20,560 --> 00:06:21,976
(Laughter)

140
00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:24,376
Actually, we lived in a place
called Snitterfield,

141
00:06:24,400 --> 00:06:25,651
just outside Stratford,

142
00:06:25,675 --> 00:06:27,836
which is where
Shakespeare's father was born.

143
00:06:28,082 --> 00:06:30,457
Are you struck by a new thought? I was.

144
00:06:30,481 --> 00:06:33,076
You don't think of Shakespeare
having a father, do you?

145
00:06:33,100 --> 00:06:36,976
Do you? Because you don't think
of Shakespeare being a child, do you?

146
00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:38,567
Shakespeare being seven?

147
00:06:38,591 --> 00:06:39,840
I never thought of it.

148
00:06:39,864 --> 00:06:41,548
I mean, he was seven at some point.

149
00:06:41,572 --> 00:06:43,882
He was in somebody's
English class, wasn't he?

150
00:06:43,906 --> 00:06:50,693
(Laughter)

151
00:06:50,717 --> 00:06:52,046
How annoying would that be?

152
00:06:52,070 --> 00:06:55,070
(Laughter)

153
00:06:59,729 --> 00:07:00,764
"Must try harder."

154
00:07:00,788 --> 00:07:04,688
(Laughter)

155
00:07:04,712 --> 00:07:08,176
Being sent to bed by his dad, you know,
to Shakespeare, "Go to bed, now!

156
00:07:08,200 --> 00:07:10,628
And put the pencil down."

157
00:07:10,652 --> 00:07:11,726
(Laughter)

158
00:07:11,750 --> 00:07:13,305
"And stop speaking like that."

159
00:07:13,329 --> 00:07:17,220
(Laughter)

160
00:07:17,244 --> 00:07:18,568
"It's confusing everybody."

161
00:07:18,592 --> 00:07:23,715
(Laughter)

162
00:07:23,739 --> 00:07:29,077
Anyway, we moved
from Stratford to Los Angeles,

163
00:07:29,101 --> 00:07:31,542
and I just want to say a word
about the transition.

164
00:07:31,566 --> 00:07:32,976
My son didn't want to come.

165
00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:35,976
I've got two kids;
he's 21 now, my daughter's 16.

166
00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:38,044
He didn't want to come to Los Angeles.

167
00:07:38,068 --> 00:07:41,024
He loved it, but he had
a girlfriend in England.

168
00:07:41,048 --> 00:07:44,651
This was the love of his life, Sarah.

169
00:07:44,761 --> 00:07:46,136
He'd known her for a month.

170
00:07:46,160 --> 00:07:47,510
(Laughter)

171
00:07:47,534 --> 00:07:49,790
Mind you, they'd had
their fourth anniversary,

172
00:07:49,814 --> 00:07:52,753
because it's a long time when you're 16.

173
00:07:52,777 --> 00:07:54,438
He was really upset on the plane,

174
00:07:54,462 --> 00:07:56,923
he said, "I'll never find
another girl like Sarah."

175
00:07:56,947 --> 00:07:59,325
And we were rather pleased
about that, frankly --

176
00:07:59,349 --> 00:08:02,249
(Laughter)

177
00:08:07,395 --> 00:08:10,276
Because she was the main reason
we were leaving the country.

178
00:08:10,300 --> 00:08:13,300
(Laughter)

179
00:08:16,059 --> 00:08:18,401
But something strikes you
when you move to America

180
00:08:18,425 --> 00:08:19,791
and travel around the world:

181
00:08:19,815 --> 00:08:23,193
Every education system on Earth
has the same hierarchy of subjects.

182
00:08:23,537 --> 00:08:25,492
Every one. Doesn't matter where you go.

183
00:08:25,516 --> 00:08:27,786
You'd think it would be
otherwise, but it isn't.

184
00:08:27,810 --> 00:08:29,776
At the top are mathematics and languages,

185
00:08:29,800 --> 00:08:32,234
then the humanities,
and at the bottom are the arts.

186
00:08:32,258 --> 00:08:33,376
Everywhere on Earth.

187
00:08:33,400 --> 00:08:37,495
And in pretty much every system too,
there's a hierarchy within the arts.

188
00:08:37,519 --> 00:08:40,376
Art and music are normally
given a higher status in schools

189
00:08:40,400 --> 00:08:41,567
than drama and dance.

190
00:08:41,591 --> 00:08:43,847
There isn't an education
system on the planet

191
00:08:43,871 --> 00:08:45,929
that teaches dance everyday to children

192
00:08:45,953 --> 00:08:48,000
the way we teach them mathematics. Why?

193
00:08:48,524 --> 00:08:51,225
Why not? I think this is rather important.

194
00:08:51,249 --> 00:08:53,552
I think math is very
important, but so is dance.

195
00:08:53,576 --> 00:08:56,476
Children dance all the time
if they're allowed to, we all do.

196
00:08:56,500 --> 00:08:58,976
We all have bodies, don't we?
Did I miss a meeting?

197
00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:02,338
(Laughter)

198
00:09:02,510 --> 00:09:04,845
Truthfully, what happens is,
as children grow up,

199
00:09:04,869 --> 00:09:07,637
we start to educate them progressively
from the waist up.

200
00:09:07,661 --> 00:09:09,286
And then we focus on their heads.

201
00:09:09,310 --> 00:09:10,800
And slightly to one side.

202
00:09:11,319 --> 00:09:13,976
If you were to visit
education, as an alien,

203
00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:16,976
and say "What's it for, public education?"

204
00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:19,776
I think you'd have to conclude,
if you look at the output,

205
00:09:19,800 --> 00:09:21,176
who really succeeds by this,

206
00:09:21,200 --> 00:09:22,976
who does everything that they should,

207
00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:25,731
who gets all the brownie
points, who are the winners --

208
00:09:25,755 --> 00:09:29,094
I think you'd have to conclude
the whole purpose of public education

209
00:09:29,118 --> 00:09:30,215
throughout the world

210
00:09:30,239 --> 00:09:32,192
is to produce university professors.

211
00:09:32,216 --> 00:09:33,527
Isn't it?

212
00:09:33,551 --> 00:09:35,534
They're the people who come out the top.

213
00:09:35,558 --> 00:09:37,737
And I used to be one, so there.

214
00:09:37,761 --> 00:09:40,397
(Laughter)

215
00:09:40,421 --> 00:09:43,522
And I like university
professors, but you know,

216
00:09:43,546 --> 00:09:45,021
we shouldn't hold them up

217
00:09:45,045 --> 00:09:47,976
as the high-water mark
of all human achievement.

218
00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:49,976
They're just a form of life,

219
00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:51,560
another form of life.

220
00:09:51,584 --> 00:09:54,882
But they're rather curious, and I say this
out of affection for them.

221
00:09:54,906 --> 00:09:57,876
There's something curious
about professors in my experience --

222
00:09:57,900 --> 00:10:00,576
not all of them, but typically,
they live in their heads.

223
00:10:00,600 --> 00:10:02,743
They live up there,
and slightly to one side.

224
00:10:03,495 --> 00:10:06,869
They're disembodied, you know,
in a kind of literal way.

225
00:10:06,893 --> 00:10:09,986
They look upon their body as a form
of transport for their heads.

226
00:10:10,010 --> 00:10:16,176
(Laughter)

227
00:10:16,200 --> 00:10:17,216
Don't they?

228
00:10:17,240 --> 00:10:19,462
It's a way of getting
their head to meetings.

229
00:10:19,486 --> 00:10:24,998
(Laughter)

230
00:10:25,022 --> 00:10:28,852
If you want real evidence
of out-of-body experiences,

231
00:10:28,876 --> 00:10:32,362
get yourself along to a residential
conference of senior academics,

232
00:10:32,386 --> 00:10:34,629
and pop into the discotheque
on the final night.

233
00:10:34,653 --> 00:10:37,454
(Laughter)

234
00:10:37,478 --> 00:10:38,834
And there, you will see it.

235
00:10:38,858 --> 00:10:42,976
Grown men and women
writhing uncontrollably, off the beat.

236
00:10:43,000 --> 00:10:45,867
(Laughter)

237
00:10:45,891 --> 00:10:49,216
Waiting until it ends so they can
go home and write a paper about it.

238
00:10:49,240 --> 00:10:51,144
(Laughter)

239
00:10:51,168 --> 00:10:55,011
Our education system is predicated
on the idea of academic ability.

240
00:10:55,035 --> 00:10:56,276
And there's a reason.

241
00:10:56,300 --> 00:10:59,856
Around the world, there were
no public systems of education,

242
00:10:59,880 --> 00:11:01,986
really, before the 19th century.

243
00:11:02,010 --> 00:11:04,967
They all came into being
to meet the needs of industrialism.

244
00:11:05,269 --> 00:11:07,432
So the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas.

245
00:11:07,456 --> 00:11:12,053
Number one, that the most useful
subjects for work are at the top.

246
00:11:12,077 --> 00:11:14,108
So you were
probably steered benignly away

247
00:11:14,132 --> 00:11:17,066
from things at school when you
were a kid, things you liked,

248
00:11:17,090 --> 00:11:20,476
on the grounds that you would
never get a job doing that. Is that right?

249
00:11:20,500 --> 00:11:22,881
Don't do music, you're not
going to be a musician;

250
00:11:22,905 --> 00:11:24,706
don't do art, you won't be an artist.

251
00:11:24,730 --> 00:11:28,150
Benign advice -- now, profoundly mistaken.

252
00:11:28,174 --> 00:11:30,319
The whole world
is engulfed in a revolution.

253
00:11:30,343 --> 00:11:32,440
And the second is academic ability,

254
00:11:32,464 --> 00:11:35,349
which has really come to dominate
our view of intelligence,

255
00:11:35,373 --> 00:11:38,276
because the universities designed
the system in their image.

256
00:11:38,300 --> 00:11:41,794
If you think of it, the whole system
of public education around the world

257
00:11:41,818 --> 00:11:44,044
is a protracted process
of university entrance.

258
00:11:44,068 --> 00:11:46,401
And the consequence
is that many highly-talented,

259
00:11:46,425 --> 00:11:48,860
brilliant, creative
people think they're not,

260
00:11:48,884 --> 00:11:51,022
because the thing
they were good at at school

261
00:11:51,046 --> 00:11:53,154
wasn't valued,
or was actually stigmatized.

262
00:11:53,383 --> 00:11:55,679
And I think we can't afford
to go on that way.

263
00:11:55,703 --> 00:11:58,167
In the next 30 years, according to UNESCO,

264
00:11:58,191 --> 00:12:01,001
more people worldwide will be graduating

265
00:12:01,025 --> 00:12:03,571
through education
than since the beginning of history.

266
00:12:03,595 --> 00:12:07,276
More people, and it's the combination
of all the things we've talked about --

267
00:12:07,300 --> 00:12:10,348
technology and its transformation
effect on work, and demography

268
00:12:10,372 --> 00:12:12,176
and the huge explosion in population.

269
00:12:12,200 --> 00:12:15,065
Suddenly, degrees aren't worth anything.

270
00:12:15,089 --> 00:12:16,469
Isn't that true?

271
00:12:16,723 --> 00:12:19,476
When I was a student,
if you had a degree, you had a job.

272
00:12:19,500 --> 00:12:22,276
If you didn't have a job,
it's because you didn't want one.

273
00:12:22,300 --> 00:12:24,976
And I didn't want one, frankly. (Laughter)

274
00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:29,074
But now kids with degrees

275
00:12:29,098 --> 00:12:32,143
are often heading home
to carry on playing video games,

276
00:12:32,167 --> 00:12:35,365
because you need an MA where
the previous job required a BA,

277
00:12:35,389 --> 00:12:37,176
and now you need a PhD for the other.

278
00:12:37,200 --> 00:12:38,976
It's a process of academic inflation.

279
00:12:39,000 --> 00:12:41,376
And it indicates the whole
structure of education

280
00:12:41,400 --> 00:12:42,833
is shifting beneath our feet.

281
00:12:42,857 --> 00:12:45,477
We need to radically rethink
our view of intelligence.

282
00:12:45,501 --> 00:12:47,496
We know three things about intelligence.

283
00:12:47,520 --> 00:12:48,747
One, it's diverse.

284
00:12:48,771 --> 00:12:51,776
We think about the world in all the ways
that we experience it.

285
00:12:51,800 --> 00:12:54,776
We think visually, we think in sound,
we think kinesthetically.

286
00:12:54,800 --> 00:12:57,101
We think in abstract terms,
we think in movement.

287
00:12:57,246 --> 00:12:59,000
Secondly, intelligence is dynamic.

288
00:12:59,587 --> 00:13:01,976
If you look at the interactions
of a human brain,

289
00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:04,976
as we heard yesterday
from a number of presentations,

290
00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:06,976
intelligence is wonderfully interactive.

291
00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:09,238
The brain isn't divided into compartments.

292
00:13:09,873 --> 00:13:12,976
In fact, creativity --
which I define as the process

293
00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:15,325
of having original ideas
that have value --

294
00:13:15,349 --> 00:13:18,001
more often than not comes about
through the interaction

295
00:13:18,025 --> 00:13:21,025
of different disciplinary
ways of seeing things.

296
00:13:22,310 --> 00:13:25,976
By the way, there's a shaft of nerves
that joins the two halves of the brain

297
00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:27,491
called the corpus callosum.

298
00:13:27,515 --> 00:13:28,781
It's thicker in women.

299
00:13:29,088 --> 00:13:30,829
Following off from Helen yesterday,

300
00:13:30,853 --> 00:13:33,976
this is probably why women
are better at multi-tasking.

301
00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:35,817
Because you are, aren't you?

302
00:13:35,841 --> 00:13:39,048
There's a raft of research,
but I know it from my personal life.

303
00:13:39,738 --> 00:13:44,976
If my wife is cooking a meal at home --
which is not often, thankfully.

304
00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:47,854
(Laughter)

305
00:13:47,878 --> 00:13:50,376
No, she's good at some things,
but if she's cooking,

306
00:13:50,400 --> 00:13:52,276
she's dealing with people on the phone,

307
00:13:52,300 --> 00:13:54,856
she's talking to the kids,
she's painting the ceiling,

308
00:13:54,880 --> 00:13:57,976
she's doing open-heart surgery over here.

309
00:13:58,000 --> 00:14:00,976
If I'm cooking, the door
is shut, the kids are out,

310
00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:03,976
the phone's on the hook,
if she comes in I get annoyed.

311
00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:07,071
I say, "Terry, please,
I'm trying to fry an egg in here."

312
00:14:07,095 --> 00:14:13,825
(Laughter)

313
00:14:14,254 --> 00:14:15,454
"Give me a break."

314
00:14:15,478 --> 00:14:17,198
(Laughter)

315
00:14:17,222 --> 00:14:19,721
Actually, do you know
that old philosophical thing,

316
00:14:19,745 --> 00:14:22,998
if a tree falls in a forest
and nobody hears it, did it happen?

317
00:14:23,252 --> 00:14:24,581
Remember that old chestnut?

318
00:14:24,605 --> 00:14:27,014
I saw a great t-shirt
recently, which said,

319
00:14:27,038 --> 00:14:30,976
"If a man speaks his mind
in a forest, and no woman hears him,

320
00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:32,396
is he still wrong?"

321
00:14:32,420 --> 00:14:38,026
(Laughter)

322
00:14:39,976 --> 00:14:41,976
And the third thing about intelligence is,

323
00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:43,369
it's distinct.

324
00:14:43,754 --> 00:14:46,327
I'm doing a new book at the moment
called "Epiphany,"

325
00:14:46,351 --> 00:14:48,825
which is based on a series
of interviews with people

326
00:14:48,849 --> 00:14:50,769
about how they discovered their talent.

327
00:14:50,793 --> 00:14:52,962
I'm fascinated
by how people got to be there.

328
00:14:52,986 --> 00:14:56,176
It's really prompted by a conversation
I had with a wonderful woman

329
00:14:56,200 --> 00:14:58,876
who maybe most people
have never heard of, Gillian Lynne.

330
00:14:58,900 --> 00:15:00,530
Have you heard of her? Some have.

331
00:15:00,554 --> 00:15:03,076
She's a choreographer,
and everybody knows her work.

332
00:15:03,100 --> 00:15:05,101
She did "Cats" and "Phantom of the Opera."

333
00:15:05,125 --> 00:15:06,103
She's wonderful.

334
00:15:06,127 --> 00:15:08,273
I used to be on the board
of The Royal Ballet,

335
00:15:08,297 --> 00:15:09,498
as you can see.

336
00:15:09,522 --> 00:15:11,922
Anyway, Gillian and I had
lunch one day and I said,

337
00:15:12,047 --> 00:15:13,847
"How did you get to be a dancer?"

338
00:15:13,976 --> 00:15:14,976
It was interesting.

339
00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:17,350
When she was at school,
she was really hopeless.

340
00:15:17,374 --> 00:15:20,976
And the school, in the '30s,
wrote to her parents and said,

341
00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:23,000
"We think Gillian
has a learning disorder."

342
00:15:23,024 --> 00:15:25,166
She couldn't concentrate;
she was fidgeting.

343
00:15:25,190 --> 00:15:28,480
I think now they'd say she had ADHD.
Wouldn't you?

344
00:15:28,504 --> 00:15:32,563
But this was the 1930s, and ADHD
hadn't been invented at this point.

345
00:15:32,587 --> 00:15:34,976
It wasn't an available condition.

346
00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:37,737
(Laughter)

347
00:15:37,761 --> 00:15:39,821
People weren't aware they could have that.

348
00:15:39,845 --> 00:15:41,979
(Laughter)

349
00:15:42,003 --> 00:15:46,281
Anyway, she went to see this specialist.

350
00:15:46,305 --> 00:15:50,027
So, this oak-paneled room,
and she was there with her mother,

351
00:15:50,051 --> 00:15:52,528
and she was led and sat
on this chair at the end,

352
00:15:52,552 --> 00:15:56,191
and she sat on her hands for 20 minutes
while this man talked to her mother

353
00:15:56,215 --> 00:15:58,543
about the problems
Gillian was having at school.

354
00:15:58,567 --> 00:16:02,244
Because she was disturbing people;
her homework was always late; and so on,

355
00:16:02,268 --> 00:16:03,364
little kid of eight.

356
00:16:03,388 --> 00:16:06,443
In the end, the doctor
went and sat next to Gillian, and said,

357
00:16:06,467 --> 00:16:09,172
"I've listened to all these
things your mother's told me,

358
00:16:09,196 --> 00:16:10,815
I need to speak to her privately.

359
00:16:10,839 --> 00:16:13,215
Wait here. We'll be back;
we won't be very long,"

360
00:16:13,239 --> 00:16:15,564
and they went and left her.

361
00:16:15,588 --> 00:16:17,224
But as they went out of the room,

362
00:16:17,248 --> 00:16:19,748
he turned on the radio
that was sitting on his desk.

363
00:16:20,342 --> 00:16:23,772
And when they got out, he said to her
mother, "Just stand and watch her."

364
00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:26,991
And the minute they left the room,

365
00:16:27,015 --> 00:16:29,499
she was on her feet, moving to the music.

366
00:16:29,523 --> 00:16:32,976
And they watched for a few minutes
and he turned to her mother and said,

367
00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:36,976
"Mrs. Lynne, Gillian
isn't sick; she's a dancer.

368
00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:38,976
Take her to a dance school."

369
00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:40,976
I said, "What happened?"

370
00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:43,976
She said, "She did. I can't tell you
how wonderful it was.

371
00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:46,753
We walked in this room
and it was full of people like me.

372
00:16:46,777 --> 00:16:48,976
People who couldn't sit still.

373
00:16:49,000 --> 00:16:53,587
People who had to move to think."
Who had to move to think.

374
00:16:53,746 --> 00:16:57,376
They did ballet, they did tap, jazz;
they did modern; they did contemporary.

375
00:16:57,400 --> 00:17:00,220
She was eventually auditioned
for the Royal Ballet School;

376
00:17:00,244 --> 00:17:03,543
she became a soloist; she had
a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet.

377
00:17:03,567 --> 00:17:06,175
She eventually graduated
from the Royal Ballet School,

378
00:17:06,200 --> 00:17:08,175
founded the Gillian Lynne Dance Company,

379
00:17:08,200 --> 00:17:09,443
met Andrew Lloyd Webber.

380
00:17:09,568 --> 00:17:10,977
She's been responsible for

381
00:17:11,001 --> 00:17:14,147
some of the most successful
musical theater productions in history,

382
00:17:14,172 --> 00:17:17,244
she's given pleasure to millions,
and she's a multi-millionaire.

383
00:17:17,269 --> 00:17:21,339
Somebody else might have put her
on medication and told her to calm down.

384
00:17:21,364 --> 00:17:28,146
(Applause)

385
00:17:28,575 --> 00:17:30,176
What I think it comes to is this:

386
00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:31,976
Al Gore spoke the other night

387
00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:36,269
about ecology and the revolution
that was triggered by Rachel Carson.

388
00:17:37,111 --> 00:17:39,277
I believe our only hope for the future

389
00:17:39,301 --> 00:17:43,134
is to adopt a new conception
of human ecology,

390
00:17:43,158 --> 00:17:45,976
one in which we start
to reconstitute our conception

391
00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:47,976
of the richness of human capacity.

392
00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:51,499
Our education system has mined our minds

393
00:17:51,523 --> 00:17:54,799
in the way that we strip-mine the earth:
for a particular commodity.

394
00:17:55,188 --> 00:17:57,672
And for the future, it won't serve us.

395
00:17:57,696 --> 00:17:59,976
We have to rethink
the fundamental principles

396
00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:01,968
on which we're educating our children.

397
00:18:02,087 --> 00:18:04,761
There was a wonderful quote
by Jonas Salk, who said,

398
00:18:04,785 --> 00:18:09,824
"If all the insects
were to disappear from the Earth,

399
00:18:09,848 --> 00:18:12,689
within 50 years all life
on Earth would end.

400
00:18:13,688 --> 00:18:16,760
If all human beings
disappeared from the Earth,

401
00:18:16,784 --> 00:18:19,418
within 50 years all forms
of life would flourish."

402
00:18:20,244 --> 00:18:21,529
And he's right.

403
00:18:22,291 --> 00:18:25,925
What TED celebrates is the gift
of the human imagination.

404
00:18:26,417 --> 00:18:28,488
We have to be careful now

405
00:18:28,512 --> 00:18:30,767
that we use this gift wisely

406
00:18:30,791 --> 00:18:34,020
and that we avert some of the scenarios
that we've talked about.

407
00:18:34,044 --> 00:18:37,976
And the only way we'll do it is by seeing
our creative capacities

408
00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:39,610
for the richness they are

409
00:18:39,634 --> 00:18:42,816
and seeing our children
for the hope that they are.

410
00:18:42,840 --> 00:18:45,238
And our task is to educate
their whole being,

411
00:18:45,262 --> 00:18:46,746
so they can face this future.

412
00:18:46,770 --> 00:18:48,976
By the way -- we may not see this future,

413
00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:50,430
but they will.

414
00:18:50,454 --> 00:18:53,533
And our job is to help them
make something of it.

415
00:18:53,557 --> 00:18:54,557
Thank you very much.

416
00:18:54,581 --> 00:18:57,581
(Applause)