Blog Discussion One: the Creativity Crisis

The Creativity Crisis: For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining. What went wrong—and how we can fix it.

while it looks scary to see the statement that 'American creativity scores are falling', root causes could be various if we dig into detailed analysis: fundamental school curricumlum setup, teacher and faculty's low competency level on creativity & innovative method of techning, parents' attention on innovation development of children, lack of sufficient social attention etc.

Profound study and feasible options need to be done by scientists and educationists in US, making breakthroughs in class or curriculum which enables kid to alternate between divergent and convergent thinking, combining more music and sports activities into study to further activate right brain, equip our kids with problem-finding and problem-solving skills and have better relationships with each other etc.

I think there are many reasons, one of the reason may be due to the patent system.

For example, there are many shan zhai product in China, many of them are not just copying. they are very creative. Although the quality is a problem.

In US , because the patent protection, you can't use other's product freely. that is you can't synthesis the existing pieces into new product. this for sure limits the innovation.

How can we improve the patent system to not only protect the inventor, but also encourage the use of existing inventions to prevent reinvent the wheel is important.

Library noise reduction project impressed me. Through this project, the students have a good exercise of the divergent thinking and convergent thinking, both of which is a powerful source of innovation. Very pleased to see,the article mentioned that China has already introduced problem-based learning approach (Similar with Library noise reduction project) in primary and secondary education. No doubt, to build an innovative country, this is good practice.

Beside schools, family is another important front for upgrade kids innovation. The paper said: "Preschool children, on average, ask their parents about 100 questions a day. Why, why, why-sometimes parents just wish it'd stop." No question rised, no innovation happened. The children will not ask questions because they lost interest, parents should foster child's interest and encourage them aks why.

In addition, let's change the angle from the social environment. Children now spend in front of the TV and playing videogames rather than engaging in creative activities, such monotonous and machine oriented communication to a large extent restricted the cultivation of innovation. Children should be encouraged to participate in lots of colorful group activities outside the home. This requires not only the family and school but the cultivation of the social environment, such as strengthening the Children's Palace building, youth invention contest, etc..

This article clearly states that there are Creavity Crisis happened particularlly in US after 1990 for two main reasons: One is kids spend more time on watching TV and playing video games; Second is the creavitity development at school is not adequate.

However, Creavitity is a kind of technique/skill that can not be nurtured by concerted effort. Generally speaking, divergent thinking and convergent thinking are two manditory elements for a successful creavitity. Since for the process of creavity, it inclueds fact finding, problem finding, idea finding and solution, it is not a single task but a lot of comprehensive skills and senses are needed.

In my opinion, it is not 100% right that creavitity can not be trained or mastered afterwards. Practices and a great amount of knowledges are definately useful in terms of creativity. At least, it is just like the foundation for a skyscraper. It is from daily accumulation; Secondly, the whole surrounding human lives also should be taken into account.

The last but not the least I want to say, the creavity crisis of US kids does not laterally reply on the CQ of US kids declined, but the whole environment of their living is changed dramatically. For example, for whatever we do, it is comparatively easy to make big progress at the beginning stage, but later on, it will definatelly be difficult to get more improved like a bottleneck. That is to say, the development of US is already quite advanced, so even a little bit creativity needs much more effort than before.

After finishing the article , i think the most important sentence is "To be creative requires divergent thinking and then convergent thinking."
It means both are necessary elements for creativity quotient , American use " Torrance Kids " project to show their creativity scores are falling significant.
Then author shows two reasons for that.
One is kids spend too much time in front of TV and playing videogames , which couldn't inspire kids capability of creativity.
The other is lacking of creativity development in our school , no concerned effort on it. The education curriculums need to be revamped.
Now more and more american school use " drill-and-kill " teaching style as curriculum standard, the art class only has once or twice a week and it proves to be less and less creativity for kids. Fortunately , the article praises Chinese education systems are promoted. More and more chinese students could get the correct education here.
From Prof Ali 's lecture on creativity and innovation , we use Jazz as background music to relax and try " divergent - convergent creativity challenge " educated method , which hope for inspiration to strike.
Aftrer all , we should keep pace with the updated changing world and set America as example , prevent the wrong way on our creativity education system again and absorb another country's good and successful experience.

After reading the artitle "The Creativity Crisis", I associated with the situation of China. Though the author said that "In China there has been widespread education reform to extinguish the drill-and-kill teaching style. Instead, Chinese schools are also adopting a problem-based learning approach.", there are still a lot to do to increase the creativity of Chinese education.
For examlple, the examination mode and the the principle of giving scores. In most of the universities in China, teachers like to use the opinions offered by the textbooks. If a student use opinions of the textbooks in a test, teachers tend to give him or her a high score. But in western conturies, the situation is totally opposite. Teachers will give a "zero" if a student copies the opinion on the textbooks. It`s the problem of concept.
So we could be creative only by changing our mind. Encouraging being unique, doing what others not do ,saying what others not say, go to wherever others not go, and don`t afraid of being laughed at. It`s fortunate that the youngsters have great courage to show the unique of themselves. Just like the "evening party of the orientation", we saw many innovative performances that day

(student number: 2010962402)

When I was young,I had no chance to be educated by a creative teacher. So what a pity, I must train myself to connect creativity and expertise. The story in this article attracted me in that a person earned a lot of money from his creativity and expertise. If I can use this method to find new way making money,haha~But the critical factor is how to form the connection. As I had grown up, I missed the nice opportunity to develop the right brain for dream freely. The more logically trained left brain may help to research facts and solutions correctly. "Neural networks on the right side scan remote memories that could be vaguely relevant" means that we should accumulate the universal connection in our daily life?If not, we can not develop divergent thinking or convergent thinking. Thus,it's the bottleneck for many adults.

I am with the point that the social environment around us ( in dailylife of study/work) can affect our innovation skills greatly. Everyone is born bearing big question mark in mind in term of knowing more about this world, so we are " creative" initially, because we alway can connect things looks " irrelevant". Then, we growed gradully, and we might have been asked to follow disciplines/ accept existing laws of science and technology, under this scenario, most part of our creativity ability could be killed gradually. Oppositely, if we are always in creative social atmosphere, teachers and our managers could encourage us "think differently" no matter it is really "right " or "wrong", then we will most likely to be creative.

In one world, a good management style in an organization could nurture " creativity" in some degree.

In the past 20 years, American creativity was declining consistently, so the creativity crisis occured. two main likely reasons for this crisis can be described as "the kids" and "the education". TVs and videogames seem more attractive to the kids than engaging in creative activities, and there’s less education on nurturing the creativity of children.

it's sure that flexibility can do good for creativity. those who grew up with hardship were forced to be more flexible. But the USA is one of the richest country in the world, most of the kids grew up in a very good living condition. the kids comparatively have the disadvantage. Parents in America should be highly responsive to kids' needs, encourage children to ask more "why", spend more time in role-play and open to the world.

also, the school should do more in education to help children to be more creative. the schools stuffs less complex information into children's heads, since the kids get overloaded, and creativity suffers. then the schools can increase the percentage of creativity class, such as art class. finally, because the lore of pop psychology believes creativity occurs on the right side of the brain, it is very important that the schools help the children to develop their right side of the brain to fix creativity crisis.

It is very interesting story. After reading it, I got these:
Fact-finding
1. The conception of creativity crisis
American is watching the situation of innovation of nation, and does a lot for the change of innovation. Relevant institution got many research about innovation, for example , the date comparison in different time and different countries, the potential reason for the change of innovation level.
2. The method to analyze case: FPISP
a) Fact-finding
b) Problem-finding
c) Idea-finding
d) Solution-finding
e) Plan of action
These are useful for us to do assignments.

Problem-finding
The data show that American creativity is declining. There is an interesting fact that enriched environment are making kids smarter, but this is a reverse trend with creativity!

Idea-find of reason-finding
1. The first simple reason that kids have more time to watch TV and play video games. They have less time to communicate and to do something benefit for innovation, for example, sports.
2. The education system is lack the relevant courses to enlighten innovation. Maybe the education system has no experience to develop innovation, or the teachers have no enough time to think about how to do this. In another word, they have neither good method nor good teacher.

Solution-finding
1. Creativity can be taught. Both actual experiences and neuroscience principal tell me that the innovation thinking can be developed. The education should be open to the strange idea of children, and it is more effective to arouse innovation with a supportive teacher.
2. Building suitable environment. The research found that the changing environment and colorful life are more effective to innovation. We can let children have more chance to choose and communicate, meanwhile encourage them to ask questions.

Plan of action
To be more open, to be more optimistic, to communicate more, and to do sports more…
Innovation derived from changing thinking, thus we should make the life more colorful and more flexible. The innovation is waiting for us in some corner, go to find it!

This is a very interesting article. The article explains from physiological prospective regarding the process of creativity. Some researches and creativity training method are shown in this article. All the efforts done by scientists and educators are helpful for creativity.

To create an innovation country that depends on technology innovation to develop economics, are the creativity researches and creativity theory training in school enough? Obviously not. People's creativity is affected by a country's culture, tradition, education, society values. To convert a country to be creative, first need change the people's thinking from all levels of goverment official to common people. Maybe this kind of change is conflict with culture, tradition and values. To breakthrough the limitations and use a new way to think and live is also a kind of innovation. The nation wide strategy must be supported by the goverment. The support must be all-dimensional such as education policy, culture policy, political policy and so on.

Comparison between different creative ability countries is helpful for us to identify which area need to be improved or innovated for a country lack of creativity.

It is quite interesting that the author takes China as a good sample for the education reform that promoting creativity. Admittedly, more and more of us realised the weakness of the current education system that only focus on the academic performance and the enrollment ratio into universities. Certain measures are taken to reform the system, such as the effort to reduce the load of the students, and to increase the flexibilityof University admission.

However, we have to say it is far from success. In fact, the outlook of the education reform is highly unclear, as long as the admission of university depends on pure academic performance, and as long as the education degree is the only or most important criteria to assess the talents, the education reform will only be a show. For example, some elementary schools in Shanghai are adopting "happy eduction". The curiculum includes music, arts, etc and there is no homework. The aim is to develop various qualities of the students, in stead of pure test scores. However, parents are reluctant to have their childen to enter those schools, because the happy education will not help them to enter into better high schools, and then into the universities. Therefore, only until the creativity become one of the key criteria for university admission and for further talent assessment, the measures to promoting creativity can be really implemented.

Guys, how did we conclude that China, or Chinese are not creative? By reason of draconian, text book memorising, head banging education since the Confucius period? What about the Japanese? Do you call them creative because of their innovation or just another bunch of copy cats as well??

Maybe China is indeed creative. Creative in its own way! China can clone something faster than the time you take to close your jaw back in awe.

The fact is that people in the West always wonder, "How the hell did China do this/ that, how did they clone it? how did they price it? where did they get this from???". 8/10 times they will think of some kind of governmental support (like parental support) or the Chinese got the pricing completely wrong. They may be right, I don't know.

Credits be given, China could make something cheaper and add in so many functions compared to the orginal (arguably many you wont need, but hey, value for money mate!).

Come on, China is a "developing nation", you can't compare a budding apple to a GM modified fruit yet. It takes time. Cut it some slack. Maybe China should take a slight break, take it a little easy, take stock of life, play more sports, have more fun, get out more out and play, sing more songs, dance!
Maybe these are all you need to be creative......

I totally agree, even American people are starting to look elsewhere out side US for opportunities in China. There is no stronger form of technology transfer than to have a world-class expert go off with all his knowledge.
But the cycle will not be smooth. What happens when the American consumer will no longer be the engine for world trade? It will not be a smooth transition. The US will have to save more and lower. China and the rest of Asia will have to become the consumer engines for growth. Europe will be forced to reform its social system.

Teaspoon wrote:Guys, how did we conclude that China, or Chinese are not creative? By reason of draconian, text book memorising, head banging education since the Confucius period? What about the Japanese? Do you call them creative because of their innovation or just another bunch of copy cats as well??

Maybe China is indeed creative. Creative in its own way! China can clone something faster than the time you take to close your jaw back in awe.

The fact is that people in the West always wonder, "How the hell did China do this/ that, how did they clone it? how did they price it? where did they get this from???". 8/10 times they will think of some kind of governmental support (like parental support) or the Chinese got the pricing completely wrong. They may be right, I don't know.

Credits be given, China could make something cheaper and add in so many functions compared to the orginal (arguably many you wont need, but hey, value for money mate!).

Come on, China is a "developing nation", you can't compare a budding apple to a GM modified fruit yet. It takes time. Cut it some slack. Maybe China should take a slight break, take it a little easy, take stock of life, play more sports, have more fun, get out more out and play, sing more songs, dance!
Maybe these are all you need to be creative......

what are you talking about the "Copy" talents of China?

You are right, nodoubtedly, Chinese is the most excellent in "Copy" something.

but Copy does not equal to "Creativity", even invalidated copy is anti-legal behavior defined by most nations all over the world. We do not want this title of "copy nation", even if we are often surprizing the world by our extreme technical skill on copying something.

what we are gonna do is to figure out the way to become a real "originality & creativity country". To achieve this goal, I think all the chinese might first understand where we are, understadn what is real "Creativity".

We may not have enough time to sing, dance, play...because every Chinese undertakes tremendous pressure of life, not like western people, we need to raise children and parents basically by ourself, not like western people, we have to struggle for the low pay work with bad living quality. But everything happening on this land is motivation of creatvity in future.

we are not standing at a real creativity step yet, definitely. But I really believe we can make it~

Leng Shijie 2010960064 (10GA)

Can the creativity be measured by a standardized test? I don't think so. At least, this test was explicitly designed to measure individual ability, but ignore the collaborative creativity. I think most of the creative ideas and products are achievements of team work.
I think American still show great cretivity today. Measured by the amount of patents, in 2010 IBM is the most creative company in the world, and it has kept this honour for 17 years, while HP stands fourth and Intel stands fifth, which are all American companies. Today's children and adolescents will be getting all kinds of creative stimulation and challenge from the video-games they play and the social networks they manage via their digital devices. I doubt the words like American creativity is declining.
I'm not disparaging ourselves, but we really need to increase our creativity. It's a pity that China is famous for copyright piracy, that shows our lack of creative to some degree.

it's really a amazing discussion, all of you give very good points, thank you very much for sharing :-)

In this society, many companies want to develop,creativity is important. Creativity can decide a company's life.People must have a creative mind in his head. This society must becom a creativit society.

While, the class was closed, and what left in our mind?

What is creative idea and creative way? We all know creative means thinking and facing regular issues in a differnt way, especially break the rules, say, jump out of the box. However, when we tried to use 6 hats, we followed the steps: Blue hat starting and Blue hat ending. Shall we call it creative?

For me, I think it's partialy. 6hats helped us to know the process and risk during making decision. but follow it solide will limit the creativity. And this can be treated as one aspect of Creative crisis.

So wisely use all the tools will help us in the furture work.

The article is very interesting. It shows us a theory that we learned from Prof. Ali's class as well. Creativity could be taught and learnt. A series of pratices could be used to enhance the divergent thinking and covergent thinking and make these parts work together to create new and useful ideas.

Creativity plays a criticle role in our life now. It is the souce of new and revolutionary ideas which will bring a innovative business model to a company, a disruptive technology to an industry and a new way for people life.

It is surprised to see from the article that China is used as a postive example of country making creativity as a key ponit in its education. But with the current situation that the national test scores are still the only evaluation standard for school enrollment, China also has a long way to go as US. Embedding creativity into every day school life and even the test evaluation system might be a feasible way to strengthen creativity in education.

Li Wenqi-GA 2010960090

Being creative is a part of who we are human beings. However I do believe that the word creativity depends upon the person's perspective of "creativity". we have this capability to be creative because as we all know all things are possible. Creativity is not really the issue but the faith and will to share the Gospel with such creativity. Remember that the Creator of all things is the one who is glorified.

A brilliant and long article, but this article still inspired me.

1. Creativity is not an abstract thing, it is concret, while it is the balance of the fact and the idea.
2. Creativity can be learned and studied. That means we can be trained to be more creative.
3. The target of creativity in the world is actually to provide people a most effecient way to find solution for the problems.

Fact finding - Problems finding - Ideas finding - Solutions finding
It is a process and method to solve problems and find solution, no matter in job, also in our lives.

Relax and thinking nothing is the beginning of creativity.