Educator and Author Sees Promise

Despite ‘The Creativity Crisis’

By Eliza Hallabeck

For Sandy Hook resident Rudy Magnan, a July 10 article in Newsweek, “The Creativity Crisis,” pointed to information and concerns he has been focusing on for years.

Dr Magnan is the author of two books, Reinventing American Education, copyrighted in 1993 and focused on “applying innovative and quality thinking to solving problems in education,” and Mindsight: A Conceptual System to Implement Innovation in Thinking and Communication, his second book, due for republication next month, describes a design system of thinking that involves a series of skills and strategies to improve the quality of thinking.

“When we consider the significance of the Newsweek article,” said Dr Magnan, “we must realize that many readers will not realize what is really at stake. However, having had the experience as a teacher and having had the opportunity to collaborate with the most respected authority in the teaching of creative and design thinking (Edward De Bono, the originator of lateral thinking,) I thought it important to make the argument for a new education model.”

The Newsweek article, written by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, prompted Dr Magnan to visit The Bee recently to discuss his views of “The Creativity Crisis.” The article discusses children who were tested for creativity through different tasks by Ted Schwarzrock in 1958 Minneapolis, then tracked over their lifetime through, “books, dances, radio shows, art exhibitions, software programs, advertising campaigns, hardware innovations, music compositions, public policies (written or implemented), leadership positions, invited lectures, and buildings designed.”

Following the students through their lives Ted Schwarzrock, according to the article, found, “those who came up with more good ideas on Torrance’s tasks grew up to be entrepreneurs, inventors, college presidents, authors, doctors, diplomats, and software developers.”

While IQ scores increase by roughly 10 points, according to Newsweek, in each succeeding generation, “enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are failing.”

Newsweek reported Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, V.A., discovered the decreasing scores in May. Kyung Hee Kim told Newsweek, the scores of children between kindergarten and sixth grade show the “most serious” decline in creativity.

Awareness of the power of perception, thinking, and observation, Dr Magnan said recently, can help to counter the decrease in creativity.

“The mind is a very sophisticated operating system with billions of synaptic connections capable of making quantum leaps of discovery and creativity,” he said. “That’s what kids want. The mind likes to be discovering things.”

Dr Magnan used jokes as an example. The punch line always comes from left field, but suddenly the connection is made and laughter is triggered.

“It’s not only the laughter, it is the stimulation of the mind itself,” said Dr Magnan. “However, we teach information for comprehension and regurgitation. We train students to memorize and study knowledge to be covered in the curriculum. And there is nothing wrong with the foundations of knowledge, you have got to do that, but don’t always stay there.”

Dr Magnan moved to Sandy Hook last year with his wife, Maria, from Armonk, N.Y. During his teaching career, Dr Magnan said he worked at Adelphi University, in Garden City, N.Y., teaching social sciences, and he also taught at the high school level. Now, Dr Magnan said, he lectures overseas once to twice a year, and has been involved in the local school system in the past year.

Instruction is based on a consumer model instead of transformation instruction, which can spur the imagination to wonder, “as they did the lower grades when kids were fifth and sixth graders.”

As students grow older, Dr Magnan said, they begin to fall into the comfort of not using the same imaginative skills they had in abundance as children.

“We blame the teacher, but not the system,” he said.

In the areas of math and science, Dr Magnan pointed out, the United States still remains low compared to other industrialized countries. The overhaul of the educational system is prevented from growth, he said, because of a failure to focus on the systematic problems that effect it.

“There is a battle waging to manipulate the behavior and thinking of young people, starting with the mass media bombardment, the producers of TV and videogames, and advertisements that create this idea of wants and needs that kids don’t really need,” he said.

Students are unable to objectively evaluate the different propaganda placed within their frame of reference, he says, because they were never taught to.

“Thinking is our greatest national resource,” said Dr Magnan. “It is the critical factor that allowed humans to evolve through industrial society. Many of the great discoveries were made and written by individuals who were aware of the power of ideas.”

The factors of perception, thinking, and observation can be used to form a new education model, he said. When people start to observe the design behind principals and objects, he said, they discover new educational experiences. Everything in the natural world has intelligent design behind it, which is the focus of Dr Magnan’s next book, which he said should be available by next year.

Until the educational system, nationally, is overhauled, Dr Magnan said creativity can be learned at home in families. Parents and students, he said, should understand concepts and do personal research on their own to promote further understanding of issues.

“The research that is coming out, the research of Edward De Bono, the research that I have done, proves that it is possible,” he said. “It just takes time for people to realize that it is possible, and they can (learn creative thinking.)”