The Silent Killers of Creativity + Curiosity

“WATCH OUT!” “Don’t do that!” Sounds of disapproval and caution filling the little boy's ear, he removed his hands and stepped back from the 2nd floor glass barrier at Whole Foods, returning to his family’s table. His mother smiled at his obedience, believing her cautionary shouts to be his savior from danger. Little did she know that the compounding effect of these warnings could be lethal - lethal to her child's creativity and craving to observe the world around him. Would it have hurt to ask him what he had been so intently observing, rather than uprooting his thoughts before they bore fruit?

This micro-experience constitutes a fraction of the creativity- and curiosity threatening practices demonstrated by institutions and individuals in our world today. I find it odd that we have the freedom to speak, but are often robbed of the freedom to think. The latter is in many ways more vital, in that thinking is the forefather of creation, execution, and impact. Yet day by day, from our very 1st to our very last, organizations and people direct our unique tributaries of thought into a uniform stream - the mainstream. Any divergence from the established standards of thought is instantly deemed a delusion. Don’t you find it funny that we’re taught to fit in throughout our childhood, then advised to stand out throughout much of our adult lives?

So where do these creativity and curiosity killers abound? Before cycling through these 1 by 1, I must clarify that my intention is to construct rather than condemn these individuals and institutions, equipping them with viable or proven alternatives to practices that subdue curious, creative, and critical thought.

The Home

The home — where it all begins. It’s within the comfort (or discomfort) of their own homes that children manifest or subdue their creativity and curiosity. At this stage in a child’s life, the onus is on the parents or guardians to support or suppress the child’s development on this front. Surveillance, impatience, over-control, and unrealistic expectations - while it’s easy to identify these approaches as falling on the wrong side of the fence, nearly every parent exhibits one or more of these at home on a daily basis. The impact dealt by these common forms of negative conditioning is often opposite the intention. Asking a parent why they exhibit such behavior will likely yield one of the following responses: “I want to protect my child,” “They need to know the difference between right and wrong,” “There is no other way they’ll learn,” “I’m protecting them from things they should not be exposed to.” It’s fair to assume these statements are backed with good intent. Shifting focus to the children, assessing what they think and feel when subject to this treatment, proves that the impact is misaligned with the intention. Children may report feeling fearful, intimidated, or restricted & may draw the following conclusions: “If I express my excitement, I will get punished,” “Exploring new environments is dangerous,” “Trying new things can be harmful.” This mismatch between parental intention and impact sheds light on the caution and forethought required when parenting children. Now, over-involvement is just one end of the spectrum. The other end - under-involvement - is in no way a more effective solution. Disregarding children could result in a number of negative scenarios, varying based on exact circumstance. Considering the digital age we live in, one developmental trend tying together many of these scenarios of neglect, is formation of an early/premature digital dependency - cycling between tablets, smartphones, social media, and video games. While digital activity is healthy in modest doses, its overuse leads children’s creative potential to stagnate and diminish. With this dependency, they will be conditioned to turn to their electronic companions for computational and cognitive tasks, while their brains lie fallow and uninspired. This virtual reality, void of parental availability and physical stimulation, is absent of affirmation and assurance. Resultantly, these situations of disregard lead to toxic developments within children’s minds, similar to the case of parental over-involvement. Their main methods of self-expression virtual, children in these situations develop an aversion to physical self-expression. Their fascination with physical exploration and discovery is shelved, as they become engulfed in their digital duties and starve their natural curiosities. It’s no surprise, then, that parental over-involvement and under-involvement lead to similarly dismal developmental outcomes. According to Dr. Bruce D. Perry, an M.D., Ph.D., and internationally recognized authority on brain development, the core constrictors of creativity and curiosity in home life are fear, disapproval, and absence. These assume a near thematic manifestation within the home: fear to express oneself after an attempt to do so is blatantly reprimanded; obliteration of budding talents when multiple acts of creative expression are disapproved of; growing hesitation to share discoveries when no one is there to affirm them. So we are now clear on the issues, but what is the solution? The solution lies in the parents’ approach. The caretakers must learn to assume a constructive, rather than constrictive, approach. Let’s revisit the opening scenario. A mother abruptly and vehemently scolding her child for nearing the 2nd-floor glass barrier. A harmless act of parenting in her eyes, a clear stamp of disapproval in his. If only she had, instead, kneeled down next to him, hugged him tight to allay her safety concerns, and asked him reassuringly: “What do you see down there, honey? What do you think they’re doing over there?” Disapproval turned to endorsement; construction replacing criticism. Had she done so, his curious thoughts would have become discoveries, fueling his pleasure and desire to continue exploring. Perhaps it’s more challenging to exhibit this affectionate approach when your child shows up at your backyard door covered in mud. This act may be more difficult to swallow. Nonetheless, in the glass barrier and mud incident alike, the child’s motive is the same: exploration and discovery. Hence, an approach of castigation will yield the same negative result. You see, every act of rebuke in response to a child's modes of exploration and expression, will constrict her curiosity and creativity. Conversely, approving and affirming them, by applauding a new discovery or admiring something alongside them, will construct these same traits.

Elementary - Middle School Years

Let’s dive into the next dimension, the elementary and middle schooling system. Sporting a standardized, subject-based curricula, our nation’s elementary and middle schooling systems kickstart a destructive development in their students’ young minds. The issue here is twofold. Firstly, the subject-based educational approach has drastic shortcomings. By compartmentalizing curricula into core subjects, our minds follow suit, also becoming compartmentalized. Clashing with the freeform nature of creativity, for which our minds are intended, the division of learning into boxes molds our minds into filing cabinets, when they should be shaped into relational databases. For reference, relational databases find connections between different data sets and establish well-defined relationships between them. Contrarily, filing cabinets keep data siloed and disparate. As we’re instructed to shut one cabinet before opening another, our minds suffer the later-in-life consequences of monolithic and discontinuous thinking. The second issue with our early schooling systems is standardization. Standardization turns learning into a monolithic experience, rather than one that’s dynamic and versatile. Is it just me or have you also considered it strange that, amongst the millions of books and works that have been published, we’re forced to read the same 50-100 throughout our first 12 years in school. The reason for this is easy to identify, but difficult to grasp. And that reason is standardized testing. To my earlier point, our schooling system forces our unique tributaries of thought into the uniform mainstream, in an effort to benchmark and test everyone's intelligence against a singular scale. Not only is this system ineffective due to its reductive assessment of intelligence and ability, but also because of its negative byproducts. Standardization denigrates critical thinking, discredits divergent thoughts or opinions, and does not prioritize real-life application of in-class learnings. As many of us come to find out, these 3 things are at the very core of innovation and discovery. Without the opportunity to think critically, entertain divergent thoughts, and apply their learnings in a real-world setting, our children begin to view education as impractical and inapplicable, lacking in opportunities or incentive to demonstrate their creativity and curiosity.

Out with the old, in with the new. Adopting a constructive and innovative approach within their schooling system in 2015, Finland replaced their siloed subject-based curriculum with an interdisciplinary topic-based approach. Originally founded in Norway, this educational model, often called phenomena-based learning, aimed to "[prepare] their kids for a future working life," said Bjorn Bolstad, the headteacher of Ringstabekk school outside of Oslo, Norway. Feeding the creative and heterogenous minds of their youth, rather than homogenizing and standardizing, Norwegian teachers create real-life, applicable educational experiences with key learnings from multiple subject areas. An example of this is the challenge to "climb Mount Everest.” "It includes the study of maps, weather and climate, making a list of the equipment they need, calculating the time they will need, making a budget for the trip and applying for funding in English (a foreign language)… Alternatively, they could focus on the environment and sustainability. This could be done by getting them to concentrate on an area of their locality and work as consultants. They produce a report - focusing on particular areas like transportation, energy and waste.” Counter to the stifling nature of standardization, the Norwegian approach is versatile and flexible. Since the teachers of each subject area work closely together, they add or remove elements freely based on the key learnings they wish to yield. Furthermore, as their learning process is stripped of abstractness and grounded in practicality, the children are not only more excited to learn, but are more readily able to apply their learnings to yield fruitful outcomes. “Students become very engaged in what they do at school - sometimes they don’t want breaks because they are eager to continue the work they have started,” says Mr. Bolstad!

High School - University Years

Entering the high school and university years, we have high hopes of improvement. As hopeful as we may be, our creative potential continues to suffer. Year after year, we’re taught to copy, rather than create. All our “creative" assignments from high school on to early university years involve reading and critiquing somebody else’s words. Whether explicating a poem, critiquing a novel, or analyzing a report, we are trained in the process of reviewing, recapitulating, and recycling. Resultantly, as recycled thoughts and original thoughts start to blend together, it becomes harder to identify where one ends and the other begins. While some high schools and most universities adopt an interdisciplinary approach in their classes, their approach remains - in many ways - a continuation of preceding years. The standardized curriculum and uniform assessment of students’ performance ever-present, these institutions are similarly focused on producing masterful 'information dilutors and regurgitators.' They hand students a microscope to examine and analyze the works of others, rather than a pen and paper to create our own. Due to the rarity of opportunities to create, their craving to self-express continues to dwindle. They go on adopting and promoting the ideas of others - whether consciously or subconsciously - because the inner genius that is dying to spew unprecedented thoughts, to illustrate grandiose ideas, and to create seismic impact, is being subdued by standardization and conformity.

The solution is simple, but its implementation is difficult. We need to veer away from standardization and move towards creation. Sure, it’s important to familiarize ourselves with the inventions, worldviews, and perspectives of centuries past, but let’s face it; far more important is our pressing need to create effective and scalable solutions to the global issues we face. CREATE is the key word here. Passed through a 12-year long assembly line of standardized, subject-based, and siloed curricula, we become anything but creators. Our minds are primed to separate and re-create, rather than to connect and invent – to separate subject areas into their respective bins and to re-create the solutions and processes of generations and millennia past. This cyclical act takes an irreparable and immeasurable toll on our creativity and curiosity, leading to the continued exacerbation of present-day global issues.

Reform must begin with Year 1 and go all the way beyond. Let’s imagine a reality with the following reforms enacted. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach with real-world applications - reflected in the Finnish approach – grade schools would not only motivate children to learn, but will instill and develop early on the success traits of pragmatism, resourcefulness, critical thinking, and execution ability. The grade school system having laid this foundation, universities should then serve as steroid-injected breeding grounds for creation. Having been primed in the ways of innovative and creative thinking, incoming college freshmen will have outgrown the traditional lecture-based learning environment. To meet the tectonic shifts in their learning expectations and to yield the most valuable output from their courses, universities replace the professor-led lecture model with student-led, collaborative and freeform learning environments. This includes: project series, in which students are placed into task forces to create solutions aimed at national and global issues; discussion forums, in which ineffective models - whether social, organizational, or corporate - are deconstructed and deliberated through divergent, thoughtful, and extensive questioning; traveling research teams, in which groups travel the globe, tasked with aggregating all necessary resources in pursuit of a common research goal; incubated startup teams, which are tasked with creating products/services that fill a pressing need in our national or global ecosystem. This purely interdisciplinary, action-oriented, and stimulating learning environment creates the leaders the world needs. Leaders who will only acknowledge, and not live by, historical precedent, focusing all their efforts on future innovation and invention. The leaders of tomorrow have no time to dwell on the works and wonders of others; they are instead hungry to create their own. To this end, we need to feed, rather than starve, their early desires for divergence. After all, every work and wonder we’ve marveled at has spawned from these desires.

Let Me Make My Point Clear

I hope it’s become clear in this sequential scrutiny of society’s creativity and curiosity killers, that each phase of change demands the one before it. Changing the university system and leaving the rest as is, would be moot, given that the “damage” would already have been done. Transforming the elementary and middle school systems, while keeping all else constant, would yield far more disillusioned high schoolers and undergraduates. And finally, fostering creativity and curiosity at home, only to then enroll children in schools that abate these same traits, is arguably worse than the current system.

I fear that my overarching points or intentions may be misconstrued in this unabashed societal assessment. In no way am I promulgating a single style of parenting, a golden standard of elementary and middle schooling, or the quintessential university learning environment. This is neither a prescriptive nor proscriptive piece. However, there are clear lessons to be learned from other successful models of parenting and schooling. The constructive parenting approach teaches us to be more available, supportive and patient with our children’s unruly - and sometimes, unhygienic - methods of exploration. The Norwegian schooling model guides us in ensuring our lessons, from Grade 1 onwards, are interdisciplinary, practicable, and versatile. The collaborative, student-led university model grounds us in the principles of solution- and action-orientedness, stimulation, and creation. Rather than viewing this piece like a guidebook, view it as a flashlight spotlighting the glaring inefficiencies/inconsistencies in our individual and institutional nurturing/educational efforts & illuminating the future of possibilities once the proper changes have been made.

Placing his small hands on the glass barrier, overlooking the ground floor, the young boy marvels at the lively world around him. Feeling the nurturing caress of his mother’s hand around his waist, he’s asked, “What do you think they’re doing down there, honey?” Feeding his curiosity, the mother helps generate connections in his head that he eagerly reports to his teacher at school the next day. Lucky for him, it’s project day - he and his classmates are tasked with planning a trip to a foreign country - to this end, they have to learn the geographic landscape and climate, learn the language of the foreigners, raise money to get there, and create a guide for navigating the country. Honing his skills of resourcefulness and nurturing his interests in cross-cultural communication at an early age, the child activates his creative and curious mind. Fast forward a few years. In high school, an assignment is announced to his class. The boy and his peers are tasked with creating personal blogs on a core topic of interest and posting bi-weekly for 1 full year. To fuel his budding interest for cross-cultural communication - an interest rooted in his previous discoveries - he writes each bi-weekly post on a particular culture’s communication style, including preferred methods, tendencies, and motivations. Generating his own conclusions, rather than reporting on connections made by others, not only does he learn to think on his own, but also begins to view creation - rather than revision and re-creation - as the norm. This leads to his intensified interest in the now-personal subject matter. With this sequence of childhood discoveries, achievements and resulting confidence + curiosity under his belt, he advances onto the intellectual playground: university. His first year, he’s placed in a discussion forum centered on cultural assimilation vs. integration. He and his classmates, each with a history of observation and research on the present-day state of cross-cultural interaction, are tasked with creating a more effective model for cross-cultural co-existence - a model that factors in varying backgrounds, belief systems, social constructs, and communication styles. Having been primed in the ways of connection - over compartmentalization - and creation - over revision and re-creation - organic, untried thoughts and solutions flow from the group smoothly. He takes initiative in consolidating the group’s findings in a comprehensive and cohesive report, to be presented to national lawmakers.

Now, I have one question to ask you: in whom would you have more confidence to successfully accomplish this task? A child whose parents critiqued his unruly forms of self-expression; whose teachers steeped him in siloed, standardized curricula throughout elementary and middle school; whose high school teachers trained him in ways of reviewing, recapitulating, and recycling; whose university professors stack ranked his abilities against 1000 fellow classmates by some subtractive standard and limited his creative abilities with their standardized approach? Or the child whose parents encouraged his early-age forms of self-expression - as unruly as they may have been; whose teachers simultaneously drove key learnings across multiple subject areas with practical, applicable projects and exercises; whose high school teachers enabled him to taste the sweetness of creation and the fruitfulness of self-driven, organic discoveries; whose university empowered him to apply life-long curiosities, experiences, and expertise to a relevant issue plaguing our society today? Which pathway will create the leaders we need to cure cancer, to eradicate world hunger, to restructure outdated laws that hinder our society, to mitigate the environmental risks of industrial production?