Brainstorm

Context

How many uses can you think of for a shoe?

Most adults can generate 10-12 responses before running out of ideas, but someone who is really good at thinking creatively can generate 100 or more ideas from a question like this.

Innovation and creativity researchers use questions like this to measure an essential skill related to creativity, called divergent thinking, or the ability to see multiple approaches to a problem and multiple answers to a question.

Creativity researchers George Land and Beth Jarman used questions like “how many uses can you think of for a shoe?” to test the level of creative thinking in 5-year-olds. They retested these same children at age 10 and then again at age 15. An impressive 98% of 5-year-olds scored at the “genius” level on the divergent thinking scale. At age 10, scores plummeted to 32%, and by age 15, only 10% of test takers reached this “genius” level.

As children grow up and advance through school, they are essentially educated out of creativity. Students are taught that there is one right answer and the answers for odd numbered problems happen to be in the back of the book.

With the most severe drop in creativity occurring between 5 and 10 years of age, or roughly 1st – 3rd grade, Brainstorm combats this creativity crisis by intervening at this age.