As I was thumbing the pages of “The Creativity Crisis,” an article in the July 10 issue of Newsweek, I was surprised to run across a sample of a standard creative test for kids and adults. You simply draw something incomplete on a piece of paper, then give it to someone to complete using their imagination. A tiny scribble can become the Taj Mahal. This was a game I loved playing with my kids (especially in church).
According to the article, kids these days are less creative. Since the late 1950s, a standard of testing known as the Torrance test has been used to measure children’s creative quotient (CQ) score. A recent study suggests that since 1990, CQ scores have been falling, especially among the ages between kindergarten through sixth grade.
Why should we care? Well, according to an IBM poll of 1500 CEOs from around the globe, creativity is now the most important leadership quality for success in business—and because innovative thinking is a necessity in solving all kinds of local and global problems. As new studies come to light, our traditional thinking about left- and right-brain activities is also changing. In fact, it seems that both hemispheres of the brain are required to develop one’s ingenuity skills and that creativity can be nurtured.
Now I don’t feel so guilty about my Sunday scribbles.
