Post by marcmanheim on Aug 8, 2011 14:42:31 GMT -5
I agree that the creativity crisis is indeed present and unyielding. Last year, as a member of the Danville forensics team, I saw multiple speeches given on this topic. I’ve also seen evidence of the creativity drop in my normal everyday life. I also agree that ending the creativity crisis should be a high priority. As stated in the article, creativity is an important factor in solving world problems. However, I completely disagree with parts of the author’s analysis of the culprits for the loss of creativity particularly relating to this paragraph:
“It’s too early to determine conclusively why U.S. creativity scores are declining. One likely culprit is the number of hours kids now spend in front of the TV and playing videogames rather than engaging in creative activities. Another is the lack of creativity development in our schools. In effect, it’s left to the luck of the draw who becomes creative: there’s no concerted effort to nurture the creativity of all children.”
What defines a “Creative activity”? Anything that stimulates constructive thinking could technically qualify. Whether the individual is spending time watching TV or not has nothing to do with creativity. Watching a movie or playing a video game could be as intellectually stimulating as reading a book or solving a puzzle. It’s what the individual is watching that makes the difference. I also disagree with the first statement, that it is too early to determine conclusively the cause of declining creativity scores. On the contrary, with the tests done by Torrance and his colleges, it should be very easy to determine the underlying cause if the issue. All we have to do is look at the major changes that occurred around 1990 and see which ones could have to do with a drop in creativity. Perhaps the internet has played a part. Or maybe, the rising overprotectiveness (as is mentioned in the organization kid) is a culprit. There are plenty of possibilities.
However, I do agree that there may be less effort in schools to nurture creativity. This problem has to do with the constant increase in the amount of information that is expected to be covered in a school year. Before, teachers were able to spend more time on subjects and were therefore able to really have students think about that subject in depth. Now, with the increase in information, teachers have to sort of “throw” information at students so that they can move on to other required lessons. This fast paced learning leaves little to no time for in depth thinking, which is the key to developing creativity.
In short, the creativity crisis is looming and growing, and will continue to do so unless stopped. With the information gathered by creativity tests, we should be able to locate cause(s) of the creativity crisis and put a stop to it.