Right brainers will rule the future
October 9, 2007
As he grew up, he never let go of his childhood imagination. He had an interest in filmmaking and his family encouraged him by giving him the role as family filmmaker.
“I dream for a living.” — Steven Spielberg
What has traditionally happened to the value of creativity after we leave the imaginative freedoms of childhood? From childhood into adulthood, why have the Spielbergs been the exception instead of the rule? Largely, we are taught to abandon our creativity, and other functions attributed to right-brain thinking, once we enter school.
Susan Vaughn, in To Think Outside Box, Get Back Into Sandbox, cited an example of what happens to children and their creativity as they become older:
“In 1968, a creativity test used by NASA to select innovative engineers and scientists was distributed among 1,600 5-year-olds. Ninety-eight percent of the children scored highly creative. These children were retested five years later. Only 30 percent of the 10-year-olds scored in this category. By 15, just 12 percent of the adolescents tested highly creative.
And when the test was given over a period of years to 280,000 adults, only 2 percent fell into the highly creative category. ‘What we have concluded, is that non-creative behavior is learned.’”
Daniel H. Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future, includes a well-known story told by Gordon MacKenzie of Hallmark Cards. He volunteered to visit schools and speak to students about his profession as an artist. Each time, MacKenzie would ask students how many artists were in the room. Without exception, almost all hands went up in kindergarten and first grade classrooms. By second grade, most hands went up. By third grade, very few students raised their hands to identify themselves as artists.
In sixth grade classrooms, not one student raised their hand. “The kids just looked around to see if anybody in the class would admit to what they’d now learned was deviant behavior.”
In analytical, linear, logical left-brain educational institutions, it is sadly understandable that the qualities attributed to non-linear, whole picture, intuitive, right-brain functions would be deemed less valuable — even deviant in practice. However, the times they are indeed a changing.
As we move from the Information Age into the Conceptual Age, Pink puts forth a compelling overview of the transition under way now, and who will thrive in the integration of the right-brain strengths of design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning into business practices and quality of life choices in direction for every day living.
A Whole New Mind, Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future is a primer for understanding that although we might be of two minds, to continue to place more value on the left than the right will become a perilous position.
In addition to the book, You can find Pink blogging the Pink Blog.
