Article- "Creativity Killers"

 Thanks for coming out to Farm Days today!  There was a crowd but I really enjoyed our time there.  That ice cream was better than I remembered.  I wonder if we could go by there tomorrow and get another sample?  Ha!  I will post pictures and update the blog before the weekend is over but I wanted to share this article was in my inbox today.

Creativity Killers (From Exchange Everyday)
March 25, 2010

I always view problems as opportunities in work clothes.
-Henry Kaiser

In The Creative Spirit (Plume, 1993), a book based on a PBS series on creativity, authors Daniel Goleman, Paul Kaufman, and Michael Ray point out these common ways adults discourage creativity in children:

1. Surveillance — Hovering over kids, making them feel that they're constantly being watched while they are working . . . under constant observation, the risk-taking, creative urge goes underground and hides.


2. Evaluation — When we constantly make kids worry about how they are doing, they ignore satisfaction with their accomplishments.


3. Rewards — The excessive use of prizes . . . deprives a child of the in trinsic pleasure of creative activity. 


4. Competition — Putting kids in a win-lose situation, where only one person can come out on top . . . negates the process [that] children progress at their own rates.


5. Over-control — Constantly telling kid how to do things . . . often leaves children feeling like their originality is a mistake and any exploration a waste of time.


6. Restricting choice — Telling children which activities they should engage in instead of letting them follow where their curiosity and passion lead . . . again restricts active exploration and experimentation that might lead to creative discovery and production.


7. Pressure — Establishing grandiose expectations for a child's performance . . . often ends up instilling aversion for a subject or activity. . . .  Unreasonably high expectations often pressure children to perform and conform within strictly prescribed guidelines, and, again, deter experimentation, exploration, and innovation.  Grandiose expectations are often beyond children's developmental capabilities.