What Happens When You Remove the Rules?
I’ve just finished marking a set of reflections that have left me nothing less than emotional and in awe of these incredible 16–18 year olds. I wasn’t expecting it at all. Even after the first three blew me away, I still didn’t believe that each one that followed would do the same. I had anticipated the usual things: the paraphrasing, the borrowed language, the AI-generated fragments, or even that overly poetic performance teenagers sometimes slip into. But this time, something different happened. Something in them opened, and I find myself unable to truly articulate what this means for me, or for them.
These are young people at the start of a demanding IB Diploma academic journey. Some came with an art background, many didn’t, but that didn’t matter at all. What mattered was the honesty that emerged once they were taken out of the familiar. It was the moment that the rules fell away that their nervous systems started speaking, and the process became a mirror.
The workshop that held this revelation helped me to realise, yet again, that when creative work is handled properly, it reveals who someone is long before they can explain it. It shows you what is unconscious, unspoken, protected, hidden, afraid. And more than that, the space you create gives permission for something truly transformative to happen.
What People Think Creativity Is (and Why They Are Wrong)
When I think about how many people still think creativity is about making art, or talent, or neatness, or having some kind of special gift, I feel so frustrated. Despite so much literature available on this misconception, the common belief is that it starts with skill or is about aesthetics, yet this couldn’t be more wrong.
Creativity, when approached through the body and the unconscious, is not about expression, but about access. It’s a doorway into the places that the school system doesn’t touch. Industrial-age systems didn’t need it, and they certainly didn’t want it, so it wasn’t taught. And in many places, it still isn’t. For anyone living in Norway or Switzerland, you’ll understand how lowly art education is, if it exists at all. Whereas, in truth, it’s the part of us that doesn’t care about being perfect, that embraces opportunity to learn and grow, that revels in freedom, doesn’t care about rules or grades, or whether you “know how to draw.” It just wants to show you what’s already inside.
Art, in this kind of work, is a tool, a bridge, a way in. It’s the gateway between our performing selves and our truth, our authenticity. The outcome isn’t the artwork. The outcome is the insight, the self-awareness, and the next sign post of our journey.
What We Actually Did
The students began with structure; carefully measured lines, a list of elements to draw, creating order. It put them straight into their habitual patterns: following rules, feeling happy if they got it right, control, precision, comfort, perfectionism, avoidance. And for some students: fear, over-thinking, or memories of perceived failings of similar tasks. Everyone started at zero because the task wasn’t about skill. It was about noticing themselves.
Then we disrupted everything. Dragging and pouring, scraping, eyes closed, eyes open, scissors, ink, spray paint. Chaos, relief, resistance, laughter, panic, fear, release. I could feel the energy in the studios. It was emotional and exhilarating.
Some students looked terrified at first, whilst others were truly alive. Many didn’t know what was happening in their bodies but there was a wave of energy that swept everyone up. This was both individual and collaborative, immersive and explosive.
And then came discernment; the slow, quiet, stabilising moment where you look at what remains and ask, “What now?” Not from fear, nor from performance, but from something deeper that has finally been given a voice.
The Moment Everything Shifted
When their reflections began to arrive today, everything inside me was alight. There was a maturity here that wasn’t synthetic or performed. It didn’t come from training or prior knowledge – it came from what the work unearthed.
Here are some of their words, exactly as they wrote them:
“My hand was moving without me.”
“I didn’t realise how much fear I had of doing something wrong.”
“The panic I felt reminded me of childhood. It shocked me.”
“The unconscious made decisions I didn’t agree with, but I see myself in them now.”
“Destroying the work was the only way to find what felt honest.”
“I could see how my cultural training held me back.”
“The chaos felt like a mirror.”
“I realised I don’t know how to let go unless something forces me to.”
It absolutely blew me away this morning, and here I am, 12 hours later, recognising that something huge was revealed through this workshop. A workshop that was born from my quest to share my belief that AI is providing us with a choice to awaken, to be human. The students’ level of insight after one embodied workshop says everything about what young people are carrying inside them, and everything about how our systems fail to draw it out.
What The Work Revealed
This wasn’t about art. Not really. This was about identity and pattern and survival and instinct. The simple task that manifested these illustrated, 400-word reflections asked questions such as “How did it feel when those rules were disrupted?”, “What surprised you or revealed something about your habits or identity?” and “What did you learn about how your experiences or perspectives shape your choices?”. I learned more about how all of my students learn as a result of this task than I could possibly have imagined. I saw it in the work, in the words, in their bodies. I saw how:
One thinks in spirals, making connections across memory, theory, and feeling.
Another feels everything in the body first, before language arrives.
One hides behind performance confidence because admitting confusion is too vulnerable.
Another learns quietly, invisibly, doing the deepest work where nobody is looking.
Some need structure to feel safe, and disruption makes them shake.
One tries to perfect everything because culturally they were taught that mistakes are dangerous.
One moves instinctively, without thinking, surprised by what comes out.
Another creates to cope with displacement, loss, or emotional overwhelm.
None of this is visible in traditional classrooms, nor does it appear in tests. But it appears instantly when you work with the unconscious and create a space for students to begin the journey of finding themselves.
This Is Not About Art
This was not about painting, and we didn’t “express ourselves.” We didn’t try to make something beautiful or show off any skill to impress others.
We used creative work to access the psyche; the part of us that already knows who we are, even when we don’t.
This is identity work disguised as art-making. It’s self-awareness arriving through the back door, and it’s what learning looks like when it is alive and when it gives students permission to speak truthfully. Education has long neglected that people learn with their whole selves: their body, their history, their fear, their instinct, their longing. Creative Intelligence brings it back.
Why This Matters in The Age of AI
AI can follow patterns, and it can produce outcomes.
AI can replicate style, method, accuracy, even voice, but it cannot do this:
It cannot feel the rising panic during a rigid grid.
It cannot sense the relief of disruption.
It cannot flood with childhood memory after an unexpected mark.
It cannot recognise a pattern of self-protection in how someone avoids a colour.
It cannot access the unconscious.
It cannot tell the truth of a person’s becoming.
Daniel Priestley is right: the new essential human skills are self-awareness, discernment, collaboration – and they are teachable. I have just watched a room of teenagers embody all three without even realising they were doing it.
If we keep teaching young people the way we were taught, we are preparing them for a world that no longer exists. This work shows another way.
Closing
I keep returning to one feeling: this is what education is supposed to be. Not performance nor memorisation. Not fear of being wrong, but a place where people meet themselves truthfully and begin to bravely discover the parts they’ve never had permission to see.
If this is what happened in one workshop, imagine what could unfold in a team, a staff group, a school, an organisation, a leadership retreat.
If we want people to grow, we have to give them a way to meet themselves first.