Eric Barker recently referred me to this interesting study, which looked at how elementary school teachers perceived creativity in their students. While the teachers said they wanted creative kids in their classroom, they actually didn’t. In fact, when they were asked to rate their students on a variety of personality measures – the list included everything from “individualistic” to “risk-seeking” to “accepting of authority” – the traits mostly closely aligned with creative thinking were also closely associated with their “least favorite” students. As the researchers note, “Judgments for the favorite student were negatively correlated with creativity; judgments for the least favorite student were positively correlated with creativity.”
This shouldn’t be too surprising: Would you really want a little Picasso in your class? How about a baby Gertrude Stein? Or a teenage Eminem? The point is that the classroom isn’t designed for impulsive expression – that’s called talking out of turn. Instead, it’s all about obeying group dynamics and exerting focused attention. Those are important life skills, of course, but decades of psychological research suggest that such skills have little to do with creativity.
Frontal Cortex: Classroom Creativity
(via Mind Hacks thanks to Duff)
April 21, 2010 at 5:55 am
Depressing recovery of school memories.
Thanks 😛
April 22, 2010 at 10:41 pm
I suspect my imagination is insufficient to truly grasp the probably cataclysmic collision of school and Chaoflux.
April 22, 2010 at 10:41 pm
…but I’m enjoying the attempt.