Recently at the Initiative’s annual retreat dinner, management guru Tom Peters gave a resounding presentation on the importance of investing in people, first and foremost.

Education, he argued, must be the number one priority. And fostering creativity is the key to unlocking potential everywhere. Peters quoted Picasso, who said “every child is born an artist. The trick is to remain an artist”.

It is not the first time this quote has been used to support the argument that schools should foster creativity. In the most highly viewed TED talk ever, How schools kill creativity, Picasso is quoted by Sir Ken Robinson, who convincingly argues that schools actually kill creativity. 25 million viewers so far have been inspired by his talk.

Yet, might Picasso have been a little off his rocker when he said that every child is born an artist? Having never witnessed a baby make art, write a novel, or generate a scientific theory, this writer remains unconvinced.

First of all, schools in New Zealand do not kill creativity. Many Asian nations look to New Zealand when thinking about how to foster creativity and problem-solving skills in their own students.

And second, creativity should not come at the expense of the basics. Actually, the basics are prerequisites for creative thinking.

Psychologists define creativity as the production of something original and useful. Yet nothing is truly original. Everything new is a combination and derivative of something else. At its inception in the mind, creativity is that moment when the dots connect between one concept and another. This means that those basic concepts need to be mastered. They are the building blocks of creativity.

Governments around the world are often criticised when they narrow the focus to literacy and numeracy. Finland’s education reform guru Pasi Sahlberg falsely dichotomises the Western reform focus on ‘literacy and numeracy’ from Finland’s alternative ‘broad and deep learning’. But we cannot learn broadly and deeply without basic literacy, and we cannot develop higher-level reading skills without broad and deep learning. 

It may be frustrating for teachers who are trying to provide a broad and rich curriculum when top-down changes put more weight on the basics, but is it really a trade-off? Surely reforms targeting literacy and numeracy need not take away from creativity but add to it.

Robinson, in his TED presentation, says “creativity is now as important in education as literacy”, Agreed. But he doesn’t say it’s more important. Picasso was wrong. Children are not born artists. They are born potential artists.