"The Creativity Crisis" -Kristin Critchfield

[kristincritchfield]

For most of the summer, I have spent endless hours listening to Eleanor Tubb spieling on and on about her imaginary world of fairies and mermaids and humans that are part fairy and part mermaid. The world that she speaks constantly of isn’t imaginary to her though. She’s one of those “anything is possible if you just believe!” type of girls. She’s convinced that mermaids clear the oceans of litter and that fairies are the reason that the seasons change. Can I just say that this girl has an extraordinary imagination? No matter what I tell her, she still holds on to her little make believe world, her paracosm. From what I inferred from “The Creativity Crisis” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, she’s going to be one smart child in the future (despite the fact that she’s pretty darn smart for an eight year old).

Obviously, it’s essential to keep the juices flowing. Creativity is important! The American education system should cultivate creativity, not undermine it. We have witnessed our education system gradually shifting to project- based learning because some schools have realized the importance of a student’s creativity. According to the article, “fact-finding and deep research are vital stages in the creative process. Scholars argue that current curriculum standards can still be met, if taught in a different way.” The article also explained that a new school in Ohio became one of the top three schools within its first year because of the impact of project-based learning. William and Mary College concluded that “The creative problem-solving program has the highest success in increasing children’s creativity.”

Should we nix traditional pen, paper, and note taking teaching methods and go for project-based learning all the way? Yes, in elementary and middle schools. That would provide a base for the kind of thinking students need to do when they get into high school. Then, high school would be the place where we would have to shift gears and go towards the more traditional way of teaching. The kind of learning we do in a high school will prepare us for college. Doing a bunch of projects would be fun, but I don’t think we would be doing much of that in college.

So even though, every day, I dread hearing about mermaids and fairies and how wrong I am about them not existing, I realize how important imagination and creativity is to an eight year old. And if this amazing imagination helps her out in the long run, the more power to her. I don’t want to see her creativity go to waste, though. Instead of shutting creativity down, elementary schools should be cultivating it for the future with project-based learning. I don’t see why elementary schools wouldn’t use project-based learning because it’s proven that creativity is key. It helped a little boy become a very rich man who invents medical technologies. Eventually, it could help a little girl who believes in fairies and mermaids become an inventor who actually creates a robot to clear the oceans of litter.

[gracefons]

While maybe mermaids and fairies weren't exactly my imagination growing up, though everyone's is unique and individual, mine was a little less in depth. However, while everyone had their imaginary friends walking around with them, I was a little bit different in that my imaginary "friend" was not exactly a person, but a wrist watch that could do anything and everything. He was the inspector gadget of watches. And I didn't need a imaginary human to talk to me, my watch talked to me all day long. However, what's even better about my watch is that its name was Jokah (wait for it.....) because he would tell me the best jokes ever.

I agree with Kristin in that creativity is key to great ideas. Yes, creativity and/or imagination might lessen some from the time you're 8 until when you're 38, but you never fully lose your creativity or even your imagination. If that weren't so, we wouldn't be able to dive into a great novel or get into a really good fictional movie. However, knowing Kristin on a personal level, I can say that she is one of the most creative friends I have. At the age of 17, her creativity still amazes me from her out-of-this-world, swagged-out raps all the way to her signature dinosaur drawings; I would have just loved to see her imagination and creativity at the finest age of 8.

[cheyennebolin]

I think that your opinion that we should start sparking up creativity levels in children at young ages would help them grow up more creativity wise. I think that if America paid more attention to the children here than our creativity status will begin to rise back up to where it used to stand. I believe that creativity is where learning all begins and that every child should have the opportunity to thrive at being creative. Learning should be fun and interesting for all students and if we don’t reach out and help today’s youth then they will grow up under their potential intelligence rate. If we don’t help to the best of our ability than the American creativity rate will continue to fall and our country’s future will be in grave danger. Creativity is a thing that will always stick with us no matter how old we are and is a thing that will help us continue to grow as humans. Even adults often find themselves doodling on sheets of paper when their minds travel off. In day to day life we depend on our common sense as well as our book smarts to help us through situations but what we fail to see is that creativity can help us too.

[stephanietapia]

Kristin, I really like how you said to go with the project-based learning for elementary and middle schools. It truly is a base for students at that stage in their life. In high school it is a completely different environment for students and although creativity should still be running around in their minds, there is a need for a shift into the more traditional teaching, like you mentioned. You know that I would like to become an elementary school teacher one day, and I can promise that I will definitely focus on providing the creativity base for young students. The education system doesn't really have a variety in creativity which they should focus on to provide different ways of portraying creativity to all ages. It would be really sad if younger student's creativity went to waste and it would be sad if everyones creativity got left behind just because they got bored. I also agree with you saying that creativity is key- it is a key to an infinite amount of possibilities for the future. It really is a wonderful thing to see a kid have so many extraordinary ideas and to see them come to life as they get older. I hope that little girl invents a robot to clear the oceans of litter

[sarahcritchfield]

Whoa, Kristin. I agree with you completely! It’s like we have the same brain, almost like ESP. We need to be creative! We have to keep those creative juices flowing! All kids should be encouraged to be creative on a daily basis. If not, the American creativity scores will plummet into disastrous regions! That’s why I also think that project-based learning is important! However, I don’t agree with what you said about getting rid of old pen and paper learning methods. I think those are still really important, especially for those students who simply can’t learn when doing everything hands-on. I know that taking notes with pen and paper isn’t really doing anything to boost the creativity scores, but you have to look out for all the kids, not just the creative ones. And even if you start the note taking in high school, it would be such a drastic change tht it would hardly make a difference. Another thing, I would love to hear about mermaids and fairies every day. With young children, you should encourage the use of their imagination. Let them cultivate it, and then maybe one day, the kid can be a famous author or movie maker. That would be amazing and you would have been part of that!