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Apodaca: Balance of creativity, test scores needed

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In 1958, psychologist E. Paul Torrance developed a novel idea for a test, which he and his fellow researchers administered to about 400 Minneapolis children.

The 90-minute test involved asking the youngsters to respond to open-ended questions and tasks, such as how a toy fire truck could be improved or what could be made from two circles. There were no right or wrong answers. The intent was to measure creativity, defined as the ability to produce something original and useful.

Those first “Torrance Kids” were tracked over the coming decades, with astonishing results. Torrance’s creativity index had very effectively predicted those who would have success in demanding, problem-solving positions in business, government, science, engineering and other fields.

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The Torrance test has now been administered to millions of young people worldwide, and is considered the gold standard for measuring creativity.

There’s just one problem: Since 1990, even as collective scores on IQ tests and other benchmark assessments such as the SAT have steadily risen, Torrance scores in the United States have been declining.

No one knows exactly why the scores are falling, but increasingly fingers are being pointed at one likely culprit. The blame is being leveled on attempts to create high standards for education, which has instead led to a rigid, overly bureaucratic, teach-to-the-test environment that stifles innovative thinking.

Urgent distress calls are being raised that something must be done to reverse this trend. At risk, it’s believed, is the essence of what has made this country great, the resourcefulness that is at the very heart of American know-how, the ingenuity that has propelled us to the moon and created unrivaled bursts of invention in Silicon Valley.

To be fair, our attempts to create more equal educational opportunities through national standards are well-intentioned and have been spurred by deeply entrenched problems in some schools. These standards dictate only what students must know, not how they are taught. The latter is the province of states, districts, and schools.

What’s more, they can’t be the only reason for decreasing creativity. It’s generally agreed that our oft-derided obsession with standardized testing dates to 2001’s No Child Left Behind Act, and has since been reinforced by Race to the Top and the Common Core State Standards. The decline in the Torrance scores predates NCLB by a decade.

Nonetheless, a growing consensus is emerging that the unrelenting pressure on teachers to improve standardized test scores has consumed their teaching time and leached a joyful sense of discovery from learning. Too much of the school day is devoted to meeting inflexible requirements mandated by assessments, leaving precious little room for off-the-books projects and exercises that foster curiosity and diverse thinking.

I consulted a couple of friends, both retired elementary school teachers living in Newport Beach who have a combined 65 years experience in Orange County schools, asking how they used to inspire their students creatively. They poured forth a parade of wonderfully whimsical projects: holding “trials” for fairy tale characters; maintaining mock checkbooks; crafting cereal boxes and commercials to sell the products; making stock market investments in which profits were paid with M&M’s; inventing board games, staging plays and archaeological digs, and designing robots capable of traveling 15 feet unassisted and dumping popcorn into a bowl.

“The shame of it all is that with all you have to do crammed into a day, there isn’t time (for such projects) anymore,” said one of the former teachers. Creativity “is definitely being lost.”

Ironically, the impetus to improve standardized test scores was initially motivated — at least in part — by alarms raised over the relatively poor test results of American students in comparison with those in some other countries. But as we’ve raced to boost scores, some nations that we’ve been unfavorably compared with, such as China, have begun to look for ways to tap into American-style creativity to spur more innovation.

The calls to rein in standardized testing and nurture more independent thought also comes amid growing evidence that creativity isn’t just some innate talent that people either have or lack. Some children are born with a greater propensity toward creativity, it’s true, but given the right encouragement virtually everyone can learn to use their imaginations in new and resourceful ways.

Rather than dampen creativity with a factory-like system designed for one result only — increasing standardized test scores — we must allow greater room for flexibility, experimentation, and failure without dire consequences for teachers and students alike.

Ultimately, the battle over national educational standards and the loss of creativity leads us to a false choice. It needn’t be one at the expense of the other. We can and should have exacting standards in education, but that effort is in danger now in large part because of the backlash against high-stakes testing. If that problem isn’t fixed, the reform movement will backfire and the pendulum will swing again.

But if we rein in the testing mania, focus less on penalties and more on support, and strike a better balance between teaching students what we think they need to know and what they could discover on their own, then we might just be on to something. We might find a good recipe for rigorous and creative learning that will inspire future generations to thrive.

PATRICE APODACA is a former Newport-Mesa public school parent and former Los Angeles Times staff writer. She lives in Newport Beach.

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