A post by Emily.
Creativity and problem solving are the lifeblood of every invention, art, business and adventure that humanity has ever undertaken. In my work with children I have a unique vantage point to observe the earliest development of creativity in each child I care for. But in recent years there has been a startling decline in the ability of each cohort of children to be creative. This is an actively researched statistic, measured as ‘creativity quotient’, and research shows that each decade children are measurably less able to creatively solve problems. ‘Standardized intelligence’ scores are rising over the same period, also demonstrating that academic performance is not the same skill as creativity. Dr. Kim of the College of William and Mary has done years of research that demonstrates a clear pattern of decline AND that decline worsens more quickly each decade as well.
https://www.ideatovalue.com/crea/khkim/2017/04/creativity-crisis-getting-worse/
The long term effect of this decline becomes magnified- less creative employees, fewer entrepreneurs, less interest in the arts, lowered participation in activities that benefit mental health, which results in a decline in mental health, business systems become less efficient as people stop using innovative thinking, the fall out is endless.
Infants show creative problem solving skills emerging from a very young age. The need to explore objects, people, and their environment means they begin learning how to manipulate things very quickly (haptics). Babies have to decide how to get from one place to another, reach a toy they can see, communicate a need without words – all forms of creative problem solving. As children grow they start to really branch out; climb on counters, swing from branches, stack logs, throw balls, rocks and other objects. They don’t do these actions randomly. Each one has a purpose; if I throw this rock, will it come down here or there? How fast? How hard? Will it break? Will it bounce? The children are attempting to classify their world, and test these theorems regularly and extremely creatively when given space, time and freedom to do so, But society in North America is becoming far more restrained. In general terms we are governed more by fear than say, thirty years ago. Children live in a world where playgrounds must be ‘safe’, school yards should be as flat and grassy as possible to allow for sports, trees shouldn’t really exist in school and definitely not bushland or ‘gasp’ open water!
Somewhere in the past we have begun to slide towards valuing total safety, behavioural conformity and academic intelligence over risk, creativity and assertive behaviour. Risk, creativity and assertiveness are very tricky to promote in group care models, and the larger the group- say at school- the harder it becomes to promote them. Some of the most widely respected (and creative) education models in the world are also models that are considered ‘exceptions’; charter schools, forest schools, Reggio programs, Waldorf and nature based programs. Educators everywhere sigh with jealousy when talking about such innovative programming as New Zealand’s Te Whariki or Australia’s newer mixed age group ‘facilitated learning’ schools- but the North American system still remains mostly unchanged from the 1950s.
Somewhere between kindergarten (which in Canada can be as young as 3 and 8 months old) and the end of high school the majority of children begin to believe such things as ‘I can’t draw’, ‘I’m not artistic’, ‘I am not a creator’ ‘I can’t solve that problem’. Creative arts in grade school becomes a half hour lesson once per week, taught by a teacher who has a math or english degree and a teaching certificate. Problem solving becomes formulaic, applied under certain situations to certain subjects. Even those who are creative are told to have ‘an alternate plan’ for a ‘real job’ after school. Children who are creative in school become labelled and grouped (drama student, art student, music student) as if being creative is not a valued skill in engineering, business, science and mathematics.
One of the most basic reasons that we are less creative today is that the building blocks of creativity are not present in our lives anymore. Children require specific types of input to their brains in order to develop the neural pathways needed to creatively solve problems. Take tree climbing. Do you recall climbing trees? Think about modern children’s opportunities for that now- accessibility, safety concerns, municipal code, child protective services, social views and a litigation minded society, all have a role in ending the likelihood that a child will climb a tree. Yet the action of climbing, specifically a living tree, has immense neurological and developmental impacts on the brain. The decision making process involved in moving your body to find a support is complex, requires vestibular, proprioceptive, touch, hearing and logic processing to achieve. As you move from branch to branch your body is processing more data than at any other time due to the complexities of movement and placement plus sensory input plus environmental and weather information, measuring strength in the various branches, thinking about the path up and back down again. In childhood you have more neural connections than at any other time in your life. As we stop ‘using’ them, they become pruned away, by limiting the types of input we provide we get stronger skills in some areas, but fewer in others. EVERY child has the ability to be creative, but only those in environments that promote and support creativity will continue to be that creative. The others will begin to believe they are not creative. These and other basic building blocks of ensuring a creative brain are being eroded faster than we can make adjustments. From the rise of cell phones, to safety concerns to fears of being labelled a bad parent or worse, having your child removed because you ‘endangered them’; the freedom to explore and create is being largely curtailed.
In essence the journey from childhood to young adulthood is fraught with many dangers…none so great as the loss of your creativity. It IS still there, dormant and slumbering. You have neuroplasticity to thank for that (another blog for another time). You CAN reconnect with your creative self; not by following a step by step how to video on Youtube (although it will help you produce a perfectly lovely piece of something), but by engaging with your inner child. Play, exploration and letting go of fear are the keys to true creativity. Let’s explore them together!
