The most interesting thing about Po Bronson and Ashley Merriman’s “The Creativity Crisis,” from the July 10, 2010 Newsweek, was what was left out of the article. There were a lot of references to people and past research that roused my curiosity. For example, I had never heard of E. Paul Torrance prior to reading this piece, at least I don’t remember ever hearing about him. Yet, a came to learn that he is a kind of creativity pioneer, developing some of the seminal research in the field. I feel like I must have come across his name at some point, for the life of me I can’t recall a time. This article became a point of departure for me to look a little deeper into his work , as well as the work of some of the other academics named, chiefly Kyung Hee Kim, Marc Runco, James C. Kaufman, Johnathan Plucker, and Rex Jung.
Shortly after reading the article, started Googling various academics referenced in the article. It didn’t take long to recognize how many of these academics were cross referenced with one another or by other sources. It was yet another confirmation of just how small the world can be sometimes. I discovered, that Dr. Kim actually worked with Torrrance, before his death while he taught at University of Georgia, which also now houses the Torrance Center for Creativity & Talent Development. Dr. Runco is actually the director of the Torrance Center. He also received the National Association of Gifted Children‘s 2000 E. Paul Torrance Award for creativity research. Dr. Kaufman has written a number of books on creativity and regularly writes a column for Psychology Today. Additionally, Kaufman received the 2008 E. Paul Torrance Award for creativity research. What’s more, the year before that Dr. Plucker received the same award. In fact, the Kaufman and Plucker have authored a book together, Essentials of Creativity Assessment. The only real genuine departure from this seeming bubble of tightly connected people is Rex Jung, but that is probably because he is more focused specifically on neuroscience. Consequently, his work seems to branch out far beyond just the study of creativity, also including intelligence, gender differences, as well as mood and personality. All in all, it turned out to be about a two hour Internet odyssey of information that spun a web of intersections that were nearly as interesting as the material about creativity. I had well over twenty tabs open in my browser as I was writing this.
Undoubtedly some of the authors’ finding came from working on the book NurtureShock together. While the book seems to be more about parenting, the mentions of children and education in the article draw a thin line to their research for the book. I also began wondering if it was, at least in part, linked to the release of The Power of Creativity, by another Torrance acolyte Garnet Millar’s. That volume looks to be comprehensive look at the Torrence’s longitudinal study of creativity, that has lasted over fifty years. That is an awfully long study by any standard and certainly deserves a lot of attention.
As far as the article itself is concerned, I am most interested in the results that showed a decline in child creativity since 1990. Since I have two little ones at home, this caught my eye. It stirred up a lot of my already existing fears about how much television I let them watch. It also made me wonder how primary schools handle gifted kids. For awhile, there seemed to be a genuine parental movement for gifted education as a kind of counterweight to special education. Yet when money gets tight all too often these programs are seen as little more than enrichment and expendable, a point the article makes. It also made me recall how fortunate I was as a kid in a school with a separate teacher for what then were called talented and gifted students. I remember doing some of the coolest lessons, projects, and even field trips of all my schooling because of that program. There is all kinds of stuff I learned then that is still with me today. It kind of disheartens me to think that other kids, potentially including my own, have not or will not have a similar chance that I had as a kid. Still, I wonder how much of it is a crisis and how much of that is simply to sell magazines.
I particularly liked the way that the piece opened and closed with a tight focus on one of the “Torrence kids,” Ted Schwarzrock. Using a specific example that is related but not necessarily key evidence to the overall story is a great technique. Plus, it provides the kind of human interest angle that makes a topic as heady as this personal and relaeable to any reader. It is a good example for any student writer of how to use this kind of technique to compose an interesting introduction and conclusion.
Ultimately, I ended up finding the mini-hunt that it inspired even more interesting. Like any article in a mainstream general news publication, like Newsweek or Time, it only skims across the surface, providing a mere introduction to the topic and the players. That is great for most people, and in this way it is a pretty good example. I couldn’t help bu wonder what the original draft of this article must have looked like. It had to have been chopped down from a much longer piece. It had all of the kinds of tiny gaps from a tough editing job. Still, even if it only proved the foundation for a fascinating flight of fancy, I found it pretty worthwhile and a great example of how a relatively superficial article can become the foundation for some fruitful research.
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