I debunked this myth – made popular by Ken Robinson – a long time on this blog, and also more extensively in our first Urban Myths book. This new video uses new research to further debunk this idea. Link to the mentioned study under this video.
The summary of the study by Tamara Paulin et al:
- Temporal and prefrontal brain regions support divergent thinking.
- Deterioration of the semantic memory system is a core feature of semantic dementia.
- Divergent thinking on the Alternate Uses Task is compromised in this syndrome.
- Semantic processes are crucial for creative and flexible thought.
As always my dear fellow researcher Christian Bokhove had some interesting additional thoughts:
[…] ik opeens een mailtje van TED waarin de oude klassieke TED-talk van Ken Robinson gepromoot werd. Ik wil het niet hebben over het foutieve verhaal dat school creativiteit zou doden, maar wel over iets anders dat ik gaandeweg ben gaan […]
Mr. Robinson gave us few arguments to think about. But I can’t really agree with all of them. Creativity can be shown also through natural sciences, not only art and music.