We’re becoming less creative. Anyone have a creative solution for that?
Our creative juices are running dry, says Newsweek. Whether it’s due to hours spent glued to episodes of Sponge-Bob Square Pants or a classroom curriculum that fails to foster creative thought, one thing is clear: while the nation’s IQ has steadily gone up, its CQ (creativity quotient) has taken a turn for the worse, steadily declining since 1990, a trend that has become especially noticeable among elementary school-age children.
What, exactly, is lost, aside from some refrigerator decor?
Well, to name a few: possessing creativity helps reduce anxiety and combat boredom; we need innovative thinking to adequately combat global problems that are becoming increasingly complex; and, according to group of polled CEO’s, creativity was cited as the number one “leadership competency.”
The Chinese—once the kings of rote memorization and “drill and kill” learning—now scoff at an American school system that increasingly stresses a standardized curriculum and national testing. Indiana University’s Jonathan Plucker recently traveled to China, where he toured schools in Shanghai and Beijing.
Upon hearing American trends in education policy, Chinese professors “laughed out loud.”
“You’re racing towards our old model,” one explained. “But we’re racing toward your model, as fast as we can.” (Oh my god, are the Chinese actually becoming more powerful than us???)
With mandatory, state-wide testing popping up across the country, teachers are less inclined to take risks in the classroom. Burdened by a bureaucratic process that forces them to “teach for tests,” they’ve become hamstrung, their ability to incite passion and inspire creativity hindered.
Sure, standardizing how a teacher teaches (and how they’re evaluated) may weed out the John Kimble’s of the world. But what happens to the John Keating’s and Mr. Holland’s?
And while countries like China and England have actively reworked their curriculum to foster and encourage creative problem solving, let’s just say the United States has taken a more “passive” approach.
According to Newsweek: “While our creativity scores decline unchecked, the current national strategy for creativity consists of little more than praying for a Greek muse to drop by our houses.”
Yikes. That doesn’t bode well for all those budding Andy Warhol’s and Bill Gates’. Plus, last time I checked, these days Greek muses are few and far between.
Kids, then, are left to their own devices—creating fantasy worlds, and even inventing their own languages—but are forced to do so on their own time, outside of the classroom. More often than not, they choose the tube over imaginative play.
If only it were this easy.
—Nick Lehr
Learning is a multi-sensory activity…so teaching must be also. I recall the impact an Asian couple, who volunteered at my son’s elementary school, had on his math skills when they introduced him to an abacus. And I had a great history teacher who drew her lessons on the board as she told them. Creative play with your children is so important. My husband spent hours on the floor having tea parties with his daughter and her Cabbage Patch Kid. I challenge my at-risk boys class to jig-saw puzzle competitions that totally involve them in cooperative achievement. It’s the little things… Read more »
Helicopter parents need to stop hovering; allow children to fail and they will think of creative solutions instead of learn to wait for help. While we are at it, for very young kids, stop buying themed tie-in toys that allow play in only one way. Which makes for more creativity: wooden blocks or a Transformer? Last but not least, give kids down time. I know kids whose parents create schedules that run 60-70 hour weeks–school, ballet class, music lessons, soccer practice…it all leads to intellectual and physical exhaustion.
Cultivating creativity is a crucial issue–nice article.
All it takes is a couple of creative geniuses like Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, and America’s back on top.
Creativity comes from burgeoning and thriving civilizations. An explosion in the arts and expression always coincides with this. The United States is not a thriving civilization but in fact a nation in decline.
You had an article the other day stating that there is presumption that women are not funny. Women don’t engage in display behavior such as this. They are not magicians, they are not street performers, they are not comedians.
In a matriarchy such as ours men don’t produce anything.
When my son was very little, quite by accident, I started a program of “play ‘ with him that would provide major returns in his later life. On the floor, we played with toy trains, drawing layouts on poster board. This later morphed into wooden toy track sets, then HO gauge electric.I encouraged him all along the way to measure distance, angles, rises in track elevation all in accord with what real trains would need to function. I took him to zoo aquariums where he saw his first scuba diving group and got so enthused, he stripped to his jeans,… Read more »
An excellent article. Imaginative and creative thinking usually means different from the usual – and that takes a certain kind of courage whether you are a child or an adult.
great article.
as a father of two i think about this often.
the thought of putting my kids and their imagination through curricula designed to be generic disturbs the crap out of me.