Translator: David Hsu Reviewer: Chryssa Takahashi
Costas, thanks for that big build-up
but my wife once told me that the secret to happiness in life is low expectations.
(Laughter)
So it's going to be trouble. OK.
41,156,321. Now, what does that number represent?
What that number actually represents is the most watched TED talk of all time,
because that's how many views Sir Ken Robinson's talk has had.
And what did Sir Ken Robinson talk about?
He spoke about education.
But in particular what he focused on was the problem with education.
Because what Sir Ken was talking about was the fact that
many education systems around the world were built for the Industrial Age,
and many of those education systems have not evolved
to cope with the new Digital Age, the transformational age.
So, what Sir Ken talks about and what he focuses on,
in fact what many people in many TED talks have focused on, is educational reform.
Now, I completely agree with Ken Robinson that we need to transform education.
What we need to do, in particular,
is to help children retain and build their creativity.
But the problem is I've got kids now.
So, I don't want to wait to 2030 for the education system to be reformed.
Βecause the reality is that I want my kids to be ready.
So therefore, what I have realized, and increasingly realize,
is it's not just schools and teachers that have the resposibility
for helping kids to keep and build their creativity.
It's also "us".
So, please raise your hand in this room if you have children.
Raise your hand.
Raise your hand if you are practising.
Raise your hand if you are an uncle or an auntie.
Or a friend to a child.
It's all of us.
So what I am going to talk about now, actually, I think is very meaningful.
It's meaningful for everyone in this room.
Now, these are my three children:
this is Charlie on the left, and Ries and Hannah.
And my wife Anne-Mie and I, we have a passion.
We have a passion to want to keep their creativity alive.
Now, as an academic, what I've done is I've read the literature.
I've looked at childhood development, I've looked at psychology,
and more recently, I've even looked at neuroscience.
So what I want to share with you
over the next ten minutes or so is what I have discovered.
What I've discovered from the research,
but not just what I've discovered from the research,
what we're actually practicing in our home.
So all these photos you'll see, it's just the kids, it's our house.
So, what do we know?
What do we know? The first thing is that kids need stuff.
If you want your cute children to be creative, they need stuff.
So this is our living room, this is little Charlie.
Behind little Charlie you see those colored boxes.
In those boxes are art materials, and glue and paper.
You see books, you see a piano, you see an instrument.
If you came upstairs at our house what you'll see is the big dresser boxes.
Now what's the problem, a big problem with modern society
is that we have the toy industries and the entertainment industries
and what these organizations bring is pretty "fabricated-imagination."
They bring characters, and they bring plot lines, and they bring props.
You know, when I was a kid, if you wanted to dress up as a Star Wars character,
you wrapped yourself in tinfoil, and had a broomstick and a sheet.
But now, if we go to the toy stores, what do we find?
We find the Stormtrooper costume and the Princess costume.
Now I'm not saying to you, "Don't buy your kids toys."
Of course we should. But maybe we should do less of that.
Maybe we should actually get them these other stuff.
So, of course, one of the things that our kids have access to is my garage.
And in the garage what do they find?
They find nails, and saws, and hammers, and so on.
And they construct stuff. They build their own tree house.
Now, this is very very important
because what kids also need to do to keep their creativity is to experiment,
and they need to fail.
One of the biggest killers of creativity
is when children become afraid of failure and afraid of judgment.
So it's about the "process."
It's not about the "outcomes."
My little boy Charlie, he recently came to me and said,
"Papa, can I borrow your chainsaw?"
(Laughter)
"Well," I said, "Yes, of course you can, Charlie. OK"
But, of course, I supervised him.
Because I didn't want a tree falling on the neighbor's house or something.
But you see, this is extremely important that they need these tools.
Now the other thing, of course, these kids need, is they need space.
So what you see in our house is just a little bit of space.
And, of course, they also need time.
Now, the thing about creativity is sometimes it takes time to evolve.
So the last thing we should do is clean up after every childhood play session
because actually, sometimes creativity takes days.
We should allow for those multi-day play activities.
The other thing we do as modern parents is we overstructure our kid's time.
We plan everything for them and, in fact, what children need is "unstructured time."
So the next time your children come to you and say, "I'm bored."
What do you say? You say, "Great! Go outside."
Because boredom's often the trigger for creativity.
Now, there's something else here, and that's "screen time."
"Screen time" is not all equal, OK?
Now, of course, TV is very passive. TV does not encourage creativity.
It is consumption.
Social media: watch out for that one. Why's that?
Because sometimes social media puts a pressure towards conformity.
But also with social media, kids are "too occupied."
So they don't have the time for reflection and introspection,
particularly important for teenagers.
Gaming is very interesting. I read a paper recently about gaming.
Now creativity involves "inventive" and "expressive" creativity.
And those two, of course, come together.
So when you look at some online gaming, like Minecraft, it's brilliant actually
because it involves both "expressive" and "inventive" creativity.
Now the problem, of course, is I've explained this to my wife
and my son Charlie overheard.
He comes to me everyday now and tells me how good Minecraft is for his creativity.
So that's fine. My message to you is take an interest.
Take an interest in what your kids do online,
and understand that not all screen time is equal.
This is my daughter Hannah.
Now, many years ago when I was living in Melbourne,
I lived next door to a Greek couple.
And before I met the couple, actually, I met the grandmother.
You know, one of these old Greek ladies who look like Darth Vader.
(Laughter)
You know, I remember I was in the front yard,
and then she leaned over and said, "Hey boy! Are you Greek?"
Obviously very bad eyesight, you know.
Anyway, but the two little kids were with her,
the two children of the couple, 5- and 7-years old.
And I turned to the old lady and said, "So, whose are these two?"
I'll never forget what she said.
She turned to me and said, "He is the doctor, she is the lawyer."
(Laughter)
What's that?
We put too much pressure on our kids
in terms of university, and entrance, and all that stuff.
Some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world,
they never finished university.
And many of those that did finish university,
the people who go on to create the right things,
often they do it in fields that had nothing to do with their studies.
So let's put a little bit less pressure on the kids.
The other thing is "stop worrying."
Let's stop worrying about our kids getting kidnapped
or hurting themselves, you know.
OK, in some countries in the world that might be an issue.
But in most countries, it's not.
Now, what's the problem here, you know.
Because kids, they will explore, they will have adventures.
You know, earlier this year my son Ries who's 13,
he hit a car on his bicycle.
You know, and it was terrible because the bike was destroyed,
and the driver of the car was completely traumatized.
But Ries was OK.
He bounced off the bonnet,
he landed on the ground, he had a grazed elbow.
It doesn't mean that we stop Ries riding his bicycle
because he loves it, and he needs that freedom and autonomy.
We need to give kids that.
In many countries, the US, Australia included,
do you know that they're removing the high climbing bars from playgrounds?
Why?
Because they're afraid kids will get hurt, and they are afraid of litigation.
But if we never allow our children to climb high,
they will never dream of those far horizons.
So we will have to let them explore.
Now, there's something else here,
because in our house what we do is we celebrate creativity.
In the bookcase, -- I'm a big fan of Bansky, the graffiti artist --
there're books about Bansky.
I talked to Hannah about the meaning of that art.
But equally on a Friday night,
we watched the BCC's "Strictly Come Dancing."
It's wonderful, it celebrates movement.
But equally in our house, we've talked about entrepreneurs.
And what the message we sent to our children is
creativity is present in every field of endeavor.
It's in business, it's in art, it's in music,
it's in sports, and of course, it's in business,
but we celebrate that.
Now, there's something else important here
and that is "divergent thinking".
So much of the problem with modern education
is that it encourages linear thinking, one right answer.
So what I do a lot with my chidren is I give them riddles and brain teasers.
For example, a lady puts her hand in her pocket,
and she realizes there's something in her pocket -
but there's nothing in her pocket, and it's not her hand.
What is that?
As adults, we have a real problem thinking about this because it is divergent:
the answer is "a hole."
(Laughter)
You see, if you practice these things with your kids,
it develops different connections in their brains.
They practice divergence.
What happens over time, they become better at the riddles,
they absolutely become better at the riddles.
So I encourage you to do that.
My kids love these riddles, well, they mostly love them.
My son Ries, we were seating at the breakfast table a few weeks ago,
and I gave him a riddle, and Ries turned to me and said,
"Papa, we are here to eat, not to have fun."
(Laughter)
Ries spent his formative years in Germany - so that 's another story.
(Laughter)
OK. You know, there is something else here:
there is something else here,
and it's this.
My little boy Charlie, he's wonderful, he's 9-year old.
A few weeks ago, I was really tired and I was shouting at the kids,
and Charlie turned to me, and you know what he said?
"Papa, you're tired and you're hungry,
I don't think we should be having this conversation."
(Laughter)
And he was absolutely right, yeah? Because kids need that too.
Kids need rest, they need sleep, they need nutrition, good nutrition,
but they also need movement; they need sport.
Now, why is that?
Because now, we are getting to the neuroscience.
Because when you exercise, when you work hard,
when you do sports, you dance, you release dopamine in your system.
And dopamine is understood to boost active thinking,
to boost alertness, and to boost creativity actually.
So kids need to move. Sports boost dopamine.
Now, of course, I mean, you can also boost it with cocaine and sex.
(Laughter)
It's up to you whether you tell your kids that one.
There's another thing, it's called oxytocin.
Now, oxytocin is a chemical in our body.
When do we get that rush of oxytocin,
it's when we're in deeply loving, affectionate relationships.
Now, why is this important for creativity?
Because collaboration, invention is about coming together.
It's about listening to other people, empathizing with other people.
Now what is the research?
A very recent research,
we can actually boost the oxytocin level of children by hugging them.
And in fact, what the research shows, is that the optimal number of hugs per day
before the oxytocin levels plateau is 7.
So, in our house, I give my wife, my three kids, seven hugs a day.
And then I say, "Enough."
(Laughter)
No, I am just kidding.
But we do talk about the "oxy" - "Have you had your hug-quota today?"
Because it is important, OK?
So, here's what I want to leave with you actually.
You know, this idea that we need to reform education,
I absolutely agree with Ken Robinson,
I absolutely agree with the TED speakers who talked on this topic,
But it's not just schools that kill creativity.
It's also parents that kill creativity.
So in fact, what we need to do is that we need to take accountability,
and what we need to do is provide kids the resources they need:
the time, the stuff.
We need to build an environment in our homes that celebrates creativity.
And, of course, what we also need to do
is make sure that our children are happy, and healthy, and loved.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)