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Children's
Creativity Museum is an innovative art and technology experience for children
ages 2-12 years located in Yerba Buena Gardens, in San Francisco, California,
U.S..
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In this very special guest post by Professor KH Kim, we find
out the updated facts of what is happening to people’s creativity levels over
the past decades, now with updated statistics for 2017. This is a follow-up to one
of the most important pieces of creativity research from the past decade.
Children are born to be creative, like eagles are
born to soar, see the world, and find food, not scratch and fight for scraps in
a coop. Instead of competing against each other on memorization tests, when
children utilize their creativity to its full potential, creativity can
contribute to healthy lives and future careers.
How
High-Stakes Testing Has Caused Exam Hell in Asia
High-stakes testing has shaped the main Asian
cultural values: 1) filial piety (e.g., to be a good son or daughter by
achieving high scores), 2) social conformity (e.g., to think and act like
others); and 3) social hierarchy (e.g., to obey the authority). High-stakes
testing has made millions of young men focus on preparing for tests, instead of
challenging the social hierarchy. It has resulted in exam hell, the
excessive rote memorization and private tutoring, starting in early childhood,
to achieve high scores among students in Asia. This situation has fostered
social conformity and structural inequalities. It has cost Asians their individuality
and creativity.
How
High-Stakes Testing Has Caused The Creativity Crisis in the U.S.
During the 1990s, American politicians, fearing
the educational and economic success of Asia, began to focus on test-taking
skills to emulate Asian success. Today, high-stakes testing costs
American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars each year, but the real cost is
much higher.
Highly-selective university and graduate school
admission procedures rely on high-stakes tests such as the ACT and the SAT.
Testing companies and test-preparation companies have reaped enormous
financial benefits and lobby Congres heavily for more testing. However,
because students’ scores are highly correlated with both students’ family
income and spending on test preparations, high-stakes testing has solidified
structural inequalities and socioeconomic barriers for low-income families.
American
Education Before and After the 1990s
Creativity is making something unique and useful
and often produces innovation. Prior to the 1990s, American education
cultivated, inspired, and encouraged. However, since the 1990s:
Losing curiosities and passions. Because
of the incentives or sanctions on schools and teachers based on students’ test
scores, schools have turned to rote lecturing to teach all tested material and
spent time teaching specific test-taking skills. Students memorize information
without opportunities for application. This approach stifles natural
curiosities, the joy of learning, and exploring topics that might lead to their
passions.
Narrowing visions. Making
test scores as the measure of success fosters students’ competition and narrows
their goals, such as getting rich, while decreasing their empathy and
compassion for those in need. However, the greatest innovators in history were
inspired by big visions such as changing the world. Their big visions
helped their minds transcend the concrete constraints or limitations and
recognize patterns or relationships among the unrelated.
Prior to the 1990s, many schools had high
expectations and offered many challenges. However, since the 1990s:
Lowering expectations. Schools
focus on students whose scores are just below passing score and ignore
high-achieving students.
Avoiding risk-taking. High-stakes testing
teaches students to avoid taking risks for fear of being wrong. The willingness
to accept failure is essential for creativity.
Prior to the 1990s, educators sought to provide
students with diverse experiences and views. However, since the 1990s:
Avoiding collaboration. Because teachers
have been compelled to depend on rote lecturing, students have few
opportunities for group work or discussions to learn and collaborate with
others.
Narrowing minds. Schools
have decreased or eliminated instruction time on non-tested subjects such as
social studies, science, physical education, arts, and foreign languages. This
contraction not only narrows students’ minds but gives them few opportunities
for finding or expressing their individuality and cross-pollination across
different subjects or fields. Low-income area schools, especially, have
decreased time on non-tested subjects to spend more time on test preparations.
Prior to the 1990s, schools provided children
with the freedom to think alone and differently. However, since the 1990s:
Losing imagination and deep thought. Test-centric
education has reduced children’s playtime, which stifles imagination. With
pressure to cover large amounts of tested material, teachers overfeed students
with information, leaving students little time to think or explore concepts in
depth.
Fostering conformity. American
education has increasingly fostered conformity, clipping eagles’ wings of
individuality (All schools preparing students for the same tests and all
students taking the same tests). It has stifled uniqueness and originality in
both educators and students. Wing-clipped eagles cannot do what they were born
to do – fly; individuality-clipped children cannot do what they were born to do
– fulfill their creative potential.
Fostering hierarchy. Students’
low scores are often due to structural inequalities, which start in early
childhood (e.g., the number of words exposed to by age 3), affecting their
later academic achievement. Yet, high-stakes testing has determined the
deservingness and un-deservingness of passers or failers. The claim
of “meritocracy” has disguised the structural inequalities by conditioning
disadvantaged students to blame themselves for their lack of effort.
Results of the
2017 Creativity Crisis Study
In “TheCreativity Crisis (2011)” I reported that American creativity declined from
the 1990s to 2008. Since 2008, my research reveals that the Creativity Crisis
has grown worse. In addition, the results also reveal that the youngest age
groups (5 and 6-year-olds) suffered the greatest.
The significant declines in outbox thinking
skills (fluid and original thinking) indicate that Americans generate not only
fewer ideas or solutions to open-ended questions or challenges, but also fewer
unusual or unique ideas than those in preceding decades (Figure 1).
The significant declines in newbox thinking
skills (elaboration and simplicity) indicate that Americans think less in
depth, with less focus, and they think less critically and in more
black-and-white terms than those in preceding decades (Figure 2).
The significant decline in open-mindedness
(creative attitude) indicates that Americans are less open to new experiences
and different people, ideas, and views than those in preceding decades (Figure
3).
The greatest declines in creativity among the
youngest age groups suggest that the younger children are, the more they are
harmed by American test-centric education.
Similarities between American high-stakes testing
and Asian exam hell have appeared. Increasingly, fewer American innovators will
emerge. The longer test-centric education continues, the fewer will remember or
know that eagles can fly, and the more we will see creativity and innovation
decline. America must not abandon its traditional way of raising eagles.
Eagles that soar high will see the whole big world, and children who maximize
their potential will become world’s greatest innovators. The world has improved
from breakthroughs made by eagles, not by wing-clipped chicks.
Dr. Kim
is Professor of Creativity and Innovation at the College of William &
Mary (kkim@wm.edu or
Tweet @Kreativity_Kim).
Dr.
KH Kim is Professor of Creativity & Innovation at the College of William
& Mary. After being an English teacher in Korea for ten years and upon
getting her PhD from the University of Georgia, she taught there and then at
Eastern Michigan University. She has dedicated her career to researching
creativity and innovators. Her research study titled "The Creativity
Crisis" was the subject of a 2010 Newsweek cover story that captured the
world’s attention. Frequently sought after by the media, she has shared her
expertise with numerous outlets including New York Times, Wall Street Journal,
U.S. News & World Report, and others. She is the author of The Creativity
Challenge: How We Can Recapture American Innovation and has won the Early
Scholar Award and the Hollingworth Award from the National Association for
Gifted Children, the Berlyne Award from the American Psychology Association, as
well as the Torrance Award from the American Creativity Association.
Originally published on IDEATOVALUE.COM
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