Professional Reading #6

The Creativity Crisis

In 1958 E. Paul Torrance designed a series of creativity tasks. These tests have come to be known as a person’s CQ (rather than IQ). “The correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ.” What is interesting to note is that with every generation average IQ tests go up 10 points. All the many enriched environments and activities are making children smarter. But what is also happening is that since 1990 creativity scores have been steadily declining.

This is a disturbing trend because creativity is critical to the success of our country and our world. “All around us are matters of national and international importance that are crying out for creative solutions, from saving the Gulf of Mexico to bringing peace to Afghanistan to delivering health care.” New ideas and solutions come from a mix of many creative people thinking and creating.

This article states that it is too early to tell why this creativity decline is occurring. Two possible theories are first, the number of hours kids spend in front of screens and second, creativity is not being taught and emphasized in the schools. Many teachers and schools feel overwhelmed because there is so much to teach and cram into the day. There is not time to work in creativity. However, there are some schools that are meshing the two issues: material to be covered and creativity. One such school is National Inventors Hall of Fame School. The teachers came up with a project for fifth graders where they had to figure out how to reduce sound in the library. The library faced a public space and it was often quite loud. By the time the project was finished the students had mastered much of the curriculum “from understanding sound waves to per-unit cost calculations to the art of persuasive writing.”

One thing that has always made America great is that we are good problem solvers and we are creative. If this trend of decreasing creativity continues, we could face even greater challenges in our country. Children start out in life interested and curious about everything. Now we just have to figure out how to make sure that continues and does not get lost.

Reference: Bronson, P. & Merryman, A. The Creativity Crisis. 2010.