The Creativity Crisis

"A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 'leadership competency of the future'," reveals Po Branson in her Newsweek (July 16, 2010) article, "The Creativity Crisis."  However, she also reported research that revealed that "...creativity scores [for American children] had been steadily rising, just like IQ scores, until 1990.  Since then, creativity scores have consistently inched downward."  Branson notes that one likely culprit to the declining creativity of our children "...is the number of hours kids now spend in front of TV and playing video games rather than engaging in creative activities.  Another is the lack of creativity development in our schools.  In effect, its left to the luck of the draw who becomes creative:  there's no concerted effort to nurture the creativity of children."  Other interesting insights in the article:

• Jonathan Plucker of Indiana University was asked by the faculty at a major Chinese University to identify trends in American education, "...he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing."  After his answer was translated, the Chinese educators responded, after a good laugh, "... You're racing toward our old model.  But we are racing toward your model as fast as we can."


• "Preschool children, on average ask their parents about 100 questions a day.  Why, why, why — sometimes parents just wish it'd stop.  Tragically it does stop.  By middle school they pretty much stopped asking.  It's no coincidence that this same time is when student motivation and engagement plummet.  They didn't stop asking questions because they lost interest:  it's the other way around. They lost interest because they stopped asking questions."


• "In early childhood, distinct types of free play are associated with high creativity.  Preschoolers who spend more time in role-play (acting out characters) have higher measures of creativity;  voicing someone else's point of view helps develop their ability to analyze situations from different perspectives.  When playing alone, highly creative first graders may act out strongly negative emotions:  they'll be angry, hostile, anguished.  The hypothesis is that play is a safe harbor to work through forbidden thoughts and emotions."

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