As the title states, over the past decade, a Professsor at William and Mary has been testing children on their synthesis and creativity and how they relate to the education or classroom experience. the results from this research is somewhat depressing. Forbes magazine writes,
“Over the last few decades, we have witnessed both a steady decline in the number of startups, as well as an increasing number of studies that suggest America’s education model fails to promote the kind of creativity, risk-taking, and problem solving skills necessary for entrepreneurship, and for a world and labor market that is in the midst of profound transformation. These are very worrisome trends.”
The article goes on to describe the issue more in detail,
“Based on scores from the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, the study reveals “that children have become less emotionally expressive, less energetic, less talkative and verbally expressive, less humorous, less imaginative, less unconventional, less lively and passionate, less perceptive, less apt to connect seemingly irrelevant things, less synthesizing, and less likely to see things from a different angle.”
This is an unfortunate circumstance and I think it would be considered a failing type of sales as well. We read as a class in Pink that the Ed-Med market is a booming opportunity for salespeople in this day and age. I truly believe that if these tests results are true than the education departments across our nation are failing their job of sales, that is to sell the dream of possibility and imagination to America’s youth. I know when I am blessed to have children to influence, I will constantly be “selling” them on the opportunity to blaze their own path and creatively solve daily challenges in order live life to its fullest.
BoweryJE22
The public education system is pretty messed-up, as most government-funded systems are, from my perspective. I wonder if public education is killing creativity and entrepreneurship, however, and not some other factor. I would like to see the study done by Professors William and Mary and how they tied this decline to education. Additionally, from what I’ve heard, creativity and entrepreneurship are on the rise. Wasn’t it Pink or Mattson that suggested 50% of millennials will be self-employed by 2020 (I could be SO off on this figure)? I agree with you when you stress the importance of “selling (children) on the opportunity to blaze their own path and creatively solve daily challenges in order (to) live life to its fullest.” Creativity and entrepreneurship are flames that need regular, intentional fueling, whether they are burning brightly or fading to a dim.
Great post, Dave! It’s difficult to foster creativity when so much of public education is standardized. There’s some innovation going on with STEM and arts focused charter schools which is pretty cool, though. My brother was part of the Performing and Fine Arts branch of Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School and he loved it. It would be great to see similar programs in more cities.