The arithmetic for creativity and sex looks similar - you need to fund a large number of starters to achieve a small number of desired results, says The Learning Connexion managing director Jonathan Milne.

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Consider the arithmetic. In rough terms a human male provides about a hundred million sperm to fertilise a single egg. Human females start life with a potential supply of around two million eggs. Nature is very generous in the process of creating a human baby.

Families and/or governments are faced with another piece of arithmetic when they decide how much to invest in the education of the baby. There are many conflicting views. The dominant Western view is that schools contribute to national economies and therefore it makes sense to spend tax dollars on forms of education that are likely to generate more tax.

At a personal level something different happens. I don’t recall waking up in the morning with an intense desire to strengthen the national economy. When I was young I probably woke up thinking about sex, which is part of nature’s wonderful trick to produce more babies. In recent years I think more about the possibilities of helping babies to grow their own creativity.

Our relationship with children says everything that matters about education. At one end of the scale are the fearsome Tiger Mothers who demand that their kids surrender everything to tasks that might help them to prosper (providing things stay the same, which they won’t). At the other extreme, anything goes and nobody cares. Somewhere in the middle is an option which allows children to be themselves and at the same time learn survival skills including literacy and numeracy.

The Learning Connexion is driven by the belief that Tiger Mothers (and fathers) have always been wrong. The world is changing too fast to predict the specific skills that will have the greatest value when kids grow up. Hence we figure that the skill to be adaptable/creative is another vital part of the mix.

Bean counters recognise adaptability under the heading of ‘creative industries’ (which includes Hobbits, inventors, whale watchers and a vast spectrum of people loosely called ‘artists’). Depending on your definition the creative industries deliver between 5 and 10 percent of the beast known as ‘The Economy’. Creativity is spread less visibly through much of the remaining 90-95 percent.

The hard part for accountants is that the arithmetic for creativity and sex looks similar – you need to fund a large number of starters to achieve a small number of desired results. Even more confusing, successes like Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings, etc.) emerge in spite of government educational investment rather than because of it.

The good news is that we can count creativity in an entirely different way. Regardless of whether you achieve something like The Lord of the Rings, your creativity is likely to make you healthier, happier and smarter. Rather than being a dodgy gamble the collective and personal outcomes of creativity are a sure bet. At all levels, creativity makes sense.

When I see children (and adults) connect with their creativity I see a sort of frictionless learning. It is a blend of discipline, meaning and fun. Somehow it generates life and it is a reminder that sperm and eggs are just a means to a more important end.

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Jonathan Milne, Managing Director and founder of The Learning Connexion School of Art and Creativity presents some of his 'gently subversive' thoughts on creativity in a series of articles. Milne is equally interested in science and art and has always been captivated by the notion that life has meaning and heaven is within. He has led courses on art, business and creativity in businesses and universities.

In 2008 his book, 'GO! The Art of Change' , was published. He is presently working on 'Art, Meaning and Myth'. He says 'Creativity isn't a slogan - it's about real engagement with who we are. I love to see people getting a bigger sense of what they can be, both individually and collectively. It's like suddenly breaking out of a great spiderweb of entrenched expectations.'