Research Shows That We Are All Born Creative Geniuses But Our Education Dumbs Us Down

There’s no doubt that the most intelligent beings are the most extraordinary creative geniuses. However, in today’s world of constant expectations and socially-acceptable norms imposed by the ruling classes, we often experience obstacles that prevent us from getting in touch with our deepest imagination.

We’re well aware of the fact that we’re systematically dumbed down and our educational system is the first one to blame, but it seems like nobody is doing anything about it.

Well, almost nobody.

One of the people who committed their lives to prove what kind of influence society has on our creative thinking and the main connection between creativity and our established educational program, is Dr. George Land, a famous speaker, consultant, and general systems scientist.

He dedicated his career to studying the enhancement of creative performance as well as the components that determine high creative performance.

According to Dr. Land, the main and essential reason for the loss of our creativity lies in the core of the two primary thinking processes when it comes to creative potential.

The first is known as Divergent thinking that means creating a fresh new idea, an original thought, rather than just observing it. This often happens subconsciously. On the other side is the Convergent thinking that that refers to judging and criticizing an already existing idea which happens in our conscious thought.

And the main problem with our educational programs in Dr. Land’s opinion is that schools try to teach children to use both thinking mechanisms at the same time, which is impossible.

“What we have concluded is that non-creative behavior is learned,” stated Dr. Land.

In 1968, he conducted a longitudinal study that involved 1600 children who were enrolled in a Head Start Program. He gave these children a test that measures a person’s creative brilliance to see how creative they were.

It was exactly the same test that Dr. Land and Bet Jarman created for NASA to measure the creative potential and problem-solving capacity of their future rocket scientists.

Dr. Land re-tested the same children at the age of 10 and again at the age of 15. The task was to look at a specific problem and come up with fresh, innovative ideas. He later gave the same test to 280.000 adults at the average age of 31. The results were shocking.

The highest percentage of people who scored at “Genius Level“ were actually 5-year-olds with 98% of creative brilliance, 10-year-olds scored with 30%, 15-year-olds with 12%,  whereas the adults scored with only 2%.

In other words, they discovered that the longer an individual is subjected to the educational system, the lower their creative potential became.

So, how can we work past the BARRIER and get back in touch with our CREATIVE SELF?

Creativity is in the mind, at the very core of our imagination. So, despite our society’s best efforts to train our minds into narrow reasoning and prevent us from ‘thinking out of the box,’ our imagination can’t be killed. It is a special something that lies in every one of us and is just waiting for a nudge to be reawakened and restored.

Based on all of the studies he conducted, and all the brain scans he looked at, Dr. George Land advises us that all is not lost. He suggests that we can rehabilitate our creativity by simply judging less and increase our empathetic side to try and understand more. He adds that fear and anxiety can also be extremely non-productive.

Also, one of the best methods, in order to safely regain our creativity and awaken our imagination, is engaging in different kinds of physical and mental exercises in order to help reduce our day-to-day stress.

Yoga, meditation, or every kind of physical exercise, cause a process called neurogenesis – the creation of new brain cells.

Another thing we need to work on, so we can easily get in touch with our creative self, is somehow changing our belief system. Believe it or not, it is crucial for us to understand that whatever outlook we have on the world is mostly shaped by some cultural, political, or national indoctrination.

It is essential that we get out of the imaginary box our society demands and OPEN our minds to the possibility of everything.