“For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining.”
Thus begins a recent cover story by Newsweek reporting the latest results from tests of our nation’s “creativity quotient” (CQ). The tests were designed by E. Alfred Torrence and are widely accepted as the best way to measure CQ. Children who have scored highly on the Torrence test in years past have become innovators, authors, entrepreneurs, software developers, diplomats, and college presidents.
In May, however, a researcher at William and Mary analyzed over 300,000 Torrence scores and observed that creativity has been steadily on the rise. That is, until 1990. Over the last 20 years, CQ scores have tumbled.
“With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter,” Newsweek informs. “With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.”
What’s driving the drop? According to Newsweek, technology and education are particularly nefarious culprits. At home, kids are spending more time watching television and playing video games; at school, our educational system is evaporating the creative juices. Neither of these criticisms is particularly new, but they are informative within the context of the creativity discussion.
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Melissa said:
I can definitely see a lack of creativity in today's children. At my school of over 800 students there are less than 5 children identified as gifted in the second grade. A chief component of being labeled gifted is being creative. Tell the average student to "do/draw/write whatever you want" and they will often sit dumbfound or become paniced because they don't understand the expectation and/or are afraid of failing. And no wonder, looking at the curriculum that we are required to cover you'll see that there isn't room for cutting and pasting and creating like there was when I was a child. Now everything has to have a purpose or a function or teach something. Kids aren't allowed to just be kids and experiment. What people don't realize is that play is a child's work. It's how they learn. Having an overabundance of technology isn't helping either. You can type anything into Google and find out the answer in seconds. No original thought needed. It's sad that the next generation can navigate a webpage better than than can navigate a pair of scissors.
Posted: August 25, 2010
Anne Egros said:
How can you judge today's creativity with a test designed in 1966 ? Everyday I see people on Twitter for example combining concepts from all over the world and cross-fertilizing to produce new ways of thinking and innovation.
Social media are changing the way people are creative and unlike brainstorming with a group of people in the same room, social media boost individual and collective creativity.
You cannot compare American's creativity in the 60's with today's globalization. China's economy is already #2 just before Japan and the emerging markets such as Vietnam, Thailand and South America have very young population and will change the way people think and do business in a couple of decades.
Posted: August 26, 2010
Bill Beahan said:
Creativity is actually being stifled in the govt schools which is why so many Christians are either home schooling or putting their kids in Christian schools. For example, my grandson's govt school has indoctrinated him in the false religion of "global warming". My daughter, an attorney, had to threaten a lawuit to keep his from sitting through the annual showing of Al Gore's propaganda film. Finally it was so bad they pulled hi out and last week he started at a private school. Hopefully he can be deprogrammed.
Posted: August 30, 2010