Tom Kelley and Thoughts on Innovation After Kindergarten
November 21st, 2008Wow. Check out this post on Rich Hoeg’s eContent blog: Innovation After Kindergarten. In it, he references some great info from IDEO General Manger and author Tom Kelley. Here’s a snippet:
“Tom Kelley reviewed the works of an artist named Gordon McKenzie. This artist visited a school and spent time with each class from grades K through six. When he asked the kindergartners how many of them were artists … almost every hand went up. By the time he got to the sixth grade and asked the same question, only two hands went up. Somewhere in the intervening six years the children had learned how not to be creative … but instead looked around the classroom and sought their peer’s approval.”
Rich adds to this with his own observation:
“As a coach of Lego Robotics for the pas six years, I learned the same lessons. While the designs from the Minnesota H.S. robotics teams are robust, when it comes to creativity every coach knows one must visit the elementary school competitions. The younger children have not yet been taught what does not yet work. They experiment.”
With a daughter currently in kindergarten, and another set to begin in fall 2010, this is powerful and scary stuff…
November 25th, 2008 at 11:17 am
[...] Unlike the Gaulds, I’m no expert. But it seems to me that structured educational systems impede creativity, rather than nurture it. Is that true? If yes, what can we do about it? If no, why might my [...]
December 1st, 2008 at 3:14 pm
[...] Gordon McKenzie is correct in his observation that kids lose their ability to be creative between kindergarten and sixth grade, it seems sad that corporations are trying to then re-develop those same skills later in [...]