Creativity

A few weeks ago, the WSJ (one of my new favorite publications...it's a long story) ran a piece about measuring and enhancing creativity in children (see: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576019462107929014.html). Less interesting than the typical sounding of the death-knell of the American psyche are the examples of creative thinking in the form of samples and questions and answers from the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking -- a standardized test that is used to measure creativity (I'll let you tease apart those contradictions on your own). Based on the sample answers provided below, it seems that the standard or non-creative responses are too literal: when presented with an image, it is too easy or obvious to assume that it directly represents something that it looks like. A creative answer instead looks at each image and considers the causes of which it might be an effect, as well as the intention behind it for example whether it is the product of error, misunderstanding, or confusion. The creative responses, in other words, build a story around each object and make sense of it in the context of a larger narrative, while the standard responses see only discrete projections of static objects.

Creativity Test

Examples of creativity-test answers from students in fourth through sixth grades

TASK ONE: List all the things this figure could represent.

COMMON IDEAS
--A tornado
--Hair
--A squiggle

ORIGINAL IDEAS
--Path of a dizzy bug
--A straight line poorly drawn

TASK TWO: List all the things this figure could represent.

COMMON IDEAS
--The letter "T"
--Blocks in a row

ORIGINAL IDEAS
--Bases in some new game
--Stones in an anti-gravity statue