Former journalist Bill Moyers is credited with saying, “Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.” Steven Jobs, the late CEO of Apple, put another spin on it when he said, "Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something.”
Here’s my take on it: I love connecting things! It can energize me…or calm me. Certainly it provides me with a sense of well-being and personal growth. One of the favorite parts of my job as a nonprofit fundraiser is the connective aspect of sharing client stories in ways that I hope can resonate with potential funders.
Yet more and more, today’s funders want data and logic models and indicators and evaluation plans. The work world of the new millennium is focused on improving processes—and being able to prove it with data. Quality improvement … Lean … Six Sigma. These are data-driven processes for organizations to attain a measure of quality near perfection. There’s that word again: data. Apparently data matters.
The artist Picasso is attributed with saying, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” Boy, do I feel that! Especially in this world of data-mining. I feel the creative aspects of my day job being squeezed out constantly to make room for easier-to-measure data and metrics. Lucky for me I can choose how I spend my time outside work to pursue whatever creative outlets I’d like. Our children, though, do not have that choice. I worry for them. In these test-centric, extracurricular-crammed times, when’s a kid supposed to get creative?
Sir Kenneth Robinson raises this question more eloquently and with the data to back him. He’s written books about how creativity is undervalued and ignored in Western culture and our educational systems. Sir Ken’s talk entitled "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" has become the most watched TED talk of all time.
His concerns are backed by scientific studies. Dr. Kyung Hee Kim with William and Mary has been studying the decline in creativity in U.S. children for years. Her research links to studies surrounding the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), an evidence-based, science-driven assessment created in the 1950s. Close to 3,000 individuals—or “Torrance kids”—have been part of the TTCT studies tracking creativity in the U.S. from the 1960s to the present.
And guess what? While America's IQ scores are on the rise, the country's scores on creative thinking have been declining since 1990. This is especially evident in younger children from kindergarten through sixth grade. Seems our ability to recite facts may be at an all-time high. But what about our passion and ability to ponder original ideas and make connections?
Creativity matters. But it involves taking risks. How different would today’s world be without the creative tenacity of Galileo, who was condemned for sharing astronomical findings that went against Catholic theology of the time? Or Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis, who was fired for raising the notion that infections could be spread by germs on doctors’ hands? Or philosopher Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake for daring to propose that the universe might be infinite.
So here’s my wish for today’s children. May you continue to study your science and do your math, read your literature and mine that data. BUT…may you NEVER stop thinking differently out of fear of being ridiculed. May you NEVER lose your curiosity because you’re too busy being “taught to the tests” in school. And may you NEVER, EVER stop piercing the mundane to find the marvelous!
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