Comments on: Schools Aren’t Creative

By: teachers don’t like creative students « C.DLT

teachers don’t like creative students « C.DLT — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:14:44 +0000

[...] From “Creativity: Asset or Burden in the Classroom?” (embed below), a good review paper. What the paper shows is that the characteristics that teachers use to describe their favorite student correlate negatively with the characteristics associated with creativity. In addition, although teachers say that they like creative students, teachers also say creative students are “sincere, responsible, good-natured and reliable.” In other words, the teachers don’t know what creative students are actually like. (FYI, the research design would have been stronger if the researchers had actually tested the students for creativity.) As a result, schooling has a negative effect on creativity. [...]

By: Teachers dislike personality traits associated with creativity | a life of the mind

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 17:47:22 +0000

[...] Alex Tabarrok over at Marginal Revolution has the story, From Creativity: Asset or Burden in the Classroom?, a good review paper. What the paper shows is that the characteristics that teachers use to describe their favorite student correlate negatively with the characteristics associated with creativity. In addition, although teachers say that they like creative students, teachers also say creative students are “sincere, responsible, good-natured and reliable.” In other words, the teachers don’t know what creative students are actually like. (FYI, the research design would have been stronger if the researchers had actually tested the students for creativity.) As a result, schooling has a negative effect on creativity. [...]

By: Teachers Don’t Like Creative Students — Marginal Revolution

Teachers Don’t Like Creative Students — Marginal Revolution — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:35:02 +0000

[...] From Creativity: Asset or Burden in the Classroom?, a good review paper. What the paper shows is that the characteristics that teachers use to describe their favorite student correlate negatively with the characteristics associated with creativity. In addition, although teachers say that they like creative students, teachers also say creative students are “sincere, responsible, good-natured and reliable.” In other words, the teachers don’t know what creative students are actually like. (FYI, the research design would have been stronger if the researchers had actually tested the students for creativity.) As a result, schooling has negative effect on creativity. [...]

By: Chris Lankford

Chris Lankford — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 20:42:54 +0000

While the cognitive side of many of these comments is interesting, I have to argue that, from experience, this is how things should be done in education. In my experience teaching college-level math-heavy courses, a firm basis in reasoning skills is the most critical step to academic success. Those who are, in addition to having high reasoning capability, also very creative perform the best, obviously… but a prerequisite of high-level reasoning skills is most critical.

If we are to become a nation which values STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education as highly as the fastest-growing economies today are, then we need to fully utilize the opportunity primary school presents to us as a vector for creating STEM-ready college candidates.

Many people (particularly those who have children which are or are themselves “creative but not gifted in math or science”) believe this is an unfair proposition, since success would be weighted against them. However, I argue that everyone on this planet who is blessedly free of learning disorders is capable of creating the foundations required to succeed in any reasoning-oriented field. It is up to the parent to instill the discipline, values, and sense of self-esteem required for this. With this, children will be “ready to learn how to learn”. Primary/secondary school will then teach them how to learn, and higher education will impart the actual knowledge necessary to get along in STEM fields… while the actual knowledge used day-to-day is naturally imparted through work experience.

In summary, my $0.02: Things are going well. We need disciplined, driven intellectuals foremost, while the creative few out of those many are the ones who will lead human society in the coming years.

By: Chris T

Chris T — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:59:12 +0000

I thought my formulation was elegant enough. I agree with what you said, but would point out that rationality is required to bring ideas to fruition, else all you have is randomness. Hence my first statement.

Conversely, without creativity, there is nothing to rationalize.

By: Tracy W

Tracy W — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:08:31 +0000

None of this supports the idea that schools actually do reduce creativity. Correlation is not causation. It is entirely plausible that the kids who were “ranked by their teachers as high on Citizenship and Drive to Achieve” would have been ranked as highly on citizenship and drive to achieve and as low on measures of creativity and mental flexibility if they had never been to school (although obviously, in this hypothetical, as they wouldn’t have had teachers, their teachers couldn’t have ranked them).

I also note the other potential explanation of high creatives’ inverse ranking – high creatives fail to conform to teachers’ expectations, so they decide that they don’t wish to conform to teachers’ expectations.

By: Matthew C.

Matthew C. — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:26:20 +0000

I really agree with this analysis, Bruce. Thanks for linking it. I am one of the refugees from modern bureaucratic “Science” who had always wanted to be a scientist, until I saw first-hand how the academic sausage gets made. I had no desire to put myself through that political environment and boredom and tedium and unimportance for the next 10 years of my life (always subject to having your career utterly destroyed by someone who didn’t like something about you), sucking up to the establishment in the hopes of landing an academic sinecure.

Hanson’s characterization of modern society as lacking very much creativity is one I agree with, but I see it as an indictment and not a positive development as he does. Of course, as our financial system appears to be destroying itself through collective insanity, perhaps a few more creative thinkers like Denninger, Shedlock, and Nourini and a few less establishment hacks like Geithner and Bernanke in charge would be a change for the better. . .

By: mjgeddes

mjgeddes — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:41:51 +0000

Chris, There is no rationality without creativity. Creativity is the primary medium of cognition and rationality is merely a subcomponent. There is no such thing as concept free general intelligence, despite what SIAI folks may try to claim. All general intelligence relies on explicit or implicit mental concepts or categories, and the generation and updating of these concepts (domain models, ontology, representations) always requires creativity. To wit,reality itself is not 'concept free'. The universe itself deploys a 'self-representation' system, and thus exhibits 'creativity'. What do you think the 4D block universe (space-time continuum) of relativity theory is? It is both the fabric of reality itself and a creative representation of reality! Concepts (creative representations) cannot be excised from any description of reality! Creativity is the fountain-head of all we survey.

By: Chris T

Chris T — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:40:19 +0000

Creativity without rationality is useless.

Rationality without creativity is pointless.

By: Chris T

Chris T — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:39:01 +0000

Heh, sounds like ‘Free Thinkers’.