Last month Newsweek posted a long story about the decline of creativity in America. Just as we test students' IQ in schools, a test for CQ, or creativity quotient, has been given to American schoolchildren since the 1950s. The article reports that, while average IQ scores have been rising by about ten points per generation since the 1950s, CQ scores have been falling since 2000. The CQ means creativity in the broadest sense -- not just ability to create art, but also the ability to invent new ways of doing things, improve mechanical devices, etc. This is a major cause for concern, since we count on human creativity and innovation to improve our standard of living in every generation.
There are several reasons proposed for this decline. One I find particularly persuasive is the de-emphasis of art, music, and theatre in schools in favor of more time spent teaching students to achieve better standardized test scores. Our children are born with remarkably fertile creative imaginations, as anyone who has played with kids aged 3-6 can attest. School and society supress these imaginations so thoroughly that when the kids do take an arts class, usually the teacher's first job is to free up that creative spirit -- break down those inhibitions so creativity can flow.
Those of you who read this blog are part of the solution to this crisis. Create finished projects. Get them out into the world. When people see your work, they will have their own creative response, and keep passing it on to others. We must resolve to solve the creativity crisis, one idea and one artist at a time. America needs you.
For more information, here's a link to the Newsweek article:
www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html
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