How We’re Sacrificing Our Creativity For Our Education

Sir Ken Robinson, holds a notion that education kills creativity. But, how does one go about quantitatively measuring creativity? Believe it or not, just a handful of paperclips can reveal a person’s creative capacity. By asking a test subject to brainstorm a list of ways to use a paperclip, the tester is able to observe their current capacity for divergent creative thinking. 

Divergent thinking is a thought process used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions. It typically occurs in a spontaneous, free-flowing, "non-linear" manner, such that many ideas are generated in an emergent cognitive fashion. This test, called the Alternative Uses Test, was first developed in 1967 by J.P. Guilford, an American psychologist of Cornell University best remembered for his findings resultant of creating the Alternative Uses Test. 

I decided to carry out the test on a handful of Havergal’s Upper School students to see for myself if it supported Sir Robinson’s hypothesis that education massively reduces creativity in students. Interestingly enough, the higher the grade the student was in, the worse they performed on the test. For example, Grade 7’s were able to list nearly 22 alternative uses for a paperclip on average while on the other hand, many Grade 12 students struggled to list more than 11. 

Though this creativity test is highly respected, it’s important to realize that creativity is subjective—it isn’t a test to take, a skill to learn, or a program to develop. Simply put, creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Chances are, the younger you are, the less failure you’ll have experienced; thus, the less you’ll fear failure, which may explain the results of the Alternative Uses Test. The results may also suggest  that, as you get older, your creativity diminishes. It may be because of the stigma we attach to mistakes and the praise we give perfection since “if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” - Sir Ken Robinson. 

We also assign quantitative grades to students based on their performance and tell them that better grades will lead to a better future. With this immense pressure put on grades and scores, it’s understandable that a fear of failure becomes embedded early on into each and every one of us. These current academic systems  may even lead one to question the difference between academic ability and intellect, which is more significant in the grand scheme of things. In my opinion, since intellect remains relevant for the entirety of your life, while academic ability is only relevant in an academic environment, the former is much more important一even if it doesn’t currently receive the attention that it deserves. 

The link between creativity and education is that we are educated out of creativity. Slowly, but surely, we are trained to think in a very specific manner. Deeply rooted into the education system is the belief that there are two types of people: academics and non-academics. Consequently, many creatively brilliant people view themselves as inferior because they are judged in a system that cannot measure their strengths. A lot of the time, these strengths  are creative talents

Why is education structured this way? The current education system was designed in the The Age of the Enlightenment, which was mainly concerned with the sovereignty of reason and knowledge. The values of this age were built upon the Latin phrase sapere aude, which roughly translates to “dare to know.” For the first time, people across every social class were encouraged to pursue what interested them, and many found that public education would be a perfect vehicle to do so. Furthermore, our current education system stems from the economic circumstances of the Industrial Revolution. One of the reasons obedience is valued  in the education system is because the system was designed with jobs, like factory workers, in mind. Therefore, public education was created in order to teach people how to follow orders and complete tasks as opposed to think critically. Nearly 180 years later, there is still evidence of this, whether it be how classes begin and end at the ring of a bell or how students are required to raise their hand in order to ask a question. To summarize, education was designed to teach a wide range of subjects, but also to encourage conformity.  

Though students are expected to have revolutionary ideas and attitudes, they are ill-equipped to satisfy these high expectations because they were told to adhere to the rules for the entirety of their childhood and adolescence.  All in all, we might want to rethink how students are currently educated, as the education system affects us all.