Teaching English and drama for nineteen years meant I have seen an awful lot of childrens’ creative efforts. An ex-colleague and outstandingly successful English teacher used to say that, assessment (only he called it "marking") was the cross every decent English teacher had to bear, and I would say 50% of the weight of that cross related to creativity. So this little video clip of Sir Ken Robinson at a conference which was sent to me, was especially interesting. It’s unusual to see humour used so successfully in such a forum, and I think in some ways it serves to highlight the seriousness of what he is saying about how so many schools stifle creativity and learning. But for me, in spite of my agreeing with a great deal of what he says about the structure of the current system, in the end his is another example of a presentation entirely predicated on poor professional practice. For example he tells a story about a child drawing God and the teacher’s response. I can hardly think of any teacher I have ever worked with, who would have responded in the thoughtless way he describes. Nonetheless, I have to agree with him that for so many children today, the experience of schooling is a stultifying and disappointing one.