When asked the question: "At what age does human Creativity currently peak at?" there should be some immediate milestones that pop into your head. Somewhere in the mid 20's elicits a popular response, because never again in life will people be at such a high physical and energetic plateau. For people in their 50's a popular response comes with the reasoning that the working class has the ability to pay and invest in a variety of different activities. Even responses such as 70-85 seem reasonable, arguing that older generations of people have a higher understanding of the world around them and have the cognitive power to think of extraordinary things.
All these ages, however, are the incorrect answer. A plethora of research articles and psychological documents date the average creativity peak between the ages of 7-12 years old. Whoa. At 7-years-old, we are just starting to become acquainted with the world we are going to spend the rest of our lives in. At 7-year- old, we are still slowly mastering the language in which we will speak for the next decades. How, can 7-year-olds hit the highest peak of creativity at such a young age?
Is school that detrimental to creativity?
Science points to social construct, the biggest of which, is school. At 7 years old, most of us are in first or second grade, the checkpoint in our school career where we begin to actually learn new concepts.
How does this make sense, though? With a new insource of information and understanding, how does this lead to the gradual drops in Torrance creativity scores as we age and creativity deficiency? Is education that detrimental to the creativity construct in our grey matter? Renowned psychologist Michael Machalko once said: "Unfortunately, I've come to believe that education is a great inhibitor of our natural creativity...
To me, it seems that in the real world those who know more, create less; and those who know less create more." This idea, though seen as ludicrous, is imminent in everyday life. More often than not, self-produced success stories of inventors and creators have had a difficult background with educational values. Walt Disney, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, and Bill Gates not only have one thing in common with creating extremely successful businesses that have changed everyday life, but they all are also college dropouts.
New teaching methods soon to appear?
Top psychologists and human anthropologists have observed that the current Educational System of the U.S. cannot hold and maintain the crucial value of creativity due to the forced rigidity by the federal government. The main idea that is placed as the scapegoat is the "No Child Left Behind Act," which forces schools to prove accountability for providing education that tax dollars are going towards by following a tight curriculum with mandatory tests to be taken by students. The strenuous involvement in similar curriculum between schools and the competitive nature imposed on students to outperform others is often labeled as one of the roots of the creativity deficiency in America.
Though this has been the traditional teaching method, this provokes the question is there an easier way to provide education for youth while still maintaining a healthy balance of mental intuition? As creative minds continue to be snuffed by the current educational system, this promotes one final thought: how far are we willing to go to compromise learning new material over that of self-understanding and creative functions?
