Why Creativity Matters

According to the July 10, 2010 issue of Newsweek, America has a creativity crisis: Children's imaginations have become stagnated by an educational system focused on standardized tests, which endlessly drill children on answering questions but place little value on learning to ask questions, let alone question answers. And yet the ability to question answers and come up with innovative solutions is exactly what we need.

We can't really blame teachers for this. Most teachers I know would love to spend more time fostering creative thought. (The best teachers find ways to do it, regardless of imposed curriculum demands.) Creativity, after all, is considered the highest level of thought.

According to Bloom's Taxonomy (a categorization of thinking processes used by educators), the lowest level of thought is remembering information (that's what most standardized tests demand.) The next higher level is understanding information, followed by applying information, then analyzing and evaluating information (this is where we begin to question accepted 'answers') and finally creating new ideas.

According to Newsweek: "To be creative requires divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result)."

We all lose when children lose their ability to imagine and be creative. As Newsweek states: "The potential consequences are sweeping. The necessity of human ingenuity is undisputed. A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 'leadership competency' of the future. Yet it’s not just about sustaining our nation’s economic growth. All around us are matters of national and international importance that are crying out for creative solutions, from saving the Gulf of Mexico to bringing peace to Afghanistan to delivering health care. Such solutions emerge from a healthy marketplace of ideas, sustained by a populace constantly contributing original ideas and receptive to the ideas of others."

I have to agree. And in the age of the Internet, memorizing information has never been less useful. Consider that Google can give you the answer to just about any question in seconds - but so far it cannot generate an original idea or extrapolate a meaningful solution to a problem. We still need people for that. And doing it well begins with fostering greater creativity in our children.