No one is forcing these luminary scientists to get involved in artistic hobbies. It’s a reflection of their curiosity. And sometimes, that curiosity leads them to flashes of insight. “The theory of relativity occurred to me by intuition, and music is the driving force behind this intuition,” Albert Einstein reflected. His mother enrolled him in violin lessons starting at age 5, but he wasn’t intrigued. His love of music only blossomed as a teenager, after he stopped taking lessons and stumbled upon Mozart’s sonatas. “Love is a better teacher than a sense of duty,” he said.
How to Raise a Creative Child. Step One: Back Off
Consider
the nation’s most prestigious award for scientifically gifted high
school students, the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, called the Super Bowl of science by one American president. From its inception in 1942 until 1994, the search recognized more than 2000 precocious teenagers as finalists. But just 1 percent ended up
making the National Academy of Sciences, and just eight have won Nobel
Prizes. For every Lisa Randall who revolutionizes theoretical physics,
there are many dozens who fall far short of their potential.
Child prodigies rarely become
adult geniuses who change the world. We assume that they must lack the
social and emotional skills to function in society. When you look at the
evidence, though, this explanation doesn’t suffice: Less than a quarter
of gifted children suffer from social and emotional problems. A vast
majority are well adjusted — as winning at a cocktail party as in the
spelling bee.
What
holds them back is that they don’t learn to be original. They strive to
earn the approval of their parents and the admiration of their
teachers. But as they perform in Carnegie Hall and become chess
champions, something unexpected happens: Practice makes perfect, but it
doesn’t make new.
The gifted learn to play magnificent Mozart melodies, but rarely compose their own original scores. They focus their energy on consuming existing scientific knowledge, not producing new insights. They conform to codified rules, rather than inventing their own. Research suggests that the most creative children are the least likely to become the teacher’s pet, and in response, many learn to keep their original ideas to themselves. In the language of the critic William Deresiewicz, they become the excellent sheep.
In
adulthood, many prodigies become experts in their fields and leaders in
their organizations. Yet “only a fraction of gifted children eventually
become revolutionary adult creators,” laments the psychologist Ellen Winner. “Those who do must make a painful transition” to an adult who “ultimately remakes a domain.”
Most
prodigies never make that leap. They apply their extraordinary
abilities by shining in their jobs without making waves. They become
doctors who heal their patients without fighting to fix the broken
medical system or lawyers who defend clients on unfair charges but do
not try to transform the laws themselves.
So what does it take to raise a creative child? One study
compared the families of children who were rated among the most
creative 5 percent in their school system with those who were not
unusually creative. The parents of ordinary children had an average of
six rules, like specific schedules for homework and bedtime. Parents of
highly creative children had an average of fewer than one rule.
Even then, though, parents didn’t shove their values down their children’s throats. When psychologists compared
America’s most creative architects with a group of highly skilled but
unoriginal peers, there was something unique about the parents of the
creative architects: “Emphasis was placed on the development of one’s
own ethical code.”
Yes,
parents encouraged their children to pursue excellence and success —
but they also encouraged them to find “joy in work.” Their children had
freedom to sort out their own values and discover their own interests.
And that set them up to flourish as creative adults.
When the psychologist Benjamin Bloom led a study
of the early roots of world-class musicians, artists, athletes and
scientists, he learned that their parents didn’t dream of raising
superstar kids. They weren’t drill sergeants or slave drivers. They
responded to the intrinsic motivation of their children. When their
children showed interest and enthusiasm in a skill, the parents
supported them.
Top
concert pianists didn’t have elite teachers from the time they could
walk; their first lessons came from instructors who happened to live
nearby and made learning fun. Mozart showed interest in music before
taking lessons, not the other way around. Mary Lou Williams learned to
play the piano on her own; Itzhak Perlman began teaching himself the
violin after being rejected from music school.
Even
the best athletes didn’t start out any better than their peers. When
Dr. Bloom’s team interviewed tennis players who were ranked in the top
10 in the world, they were not, to paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld,
doing push-ups since they were a fetus. Few of them faced intense
pressure to perfect the game as Andre Agassi did. A majority of the
tennis stars remembered one thing about their first coaches: They made
tennis enjoyable.
First, can’t practice itself blind us to ways to improve our area of study? Research reveals that the more we practice, the more we become entrenched —
trapped in familiar ways of thinking. Expert bridge players struggled
more than novices to adapt when the rules were changed; expert
accountants were worse than novices at applying a new tax law.
Second,
what motivates people to practice a skill for thousands of hours? The
most reliable answer is passion — discovered through natural curiosity
or nurtured through early enjoyable experiences with an activity or many
activities.
Evidence
shows that creative contributions depend on the breadth, not just
depth, of our knowledge and experience. In fashion, the most original collections
come from directors who spend the most time working abroad. In science,
winning a Nobel Prize is less about being a single-minded genius and
more about being interested in many things. Relative to typical
scientists, Nobel Prize winners
are 22 times more likely to perform as actors, dancers or magicians; 12
times more likely to write poetry, plays or novels; seven times more
likely to dabble in arts and crafts; and twice as likely to play an
instrument or compose music.
No
one is forcing these luminary scientists to get involved in artistic
hobbies. It’s a reflection of their curiosity. And sometimes, that
curiosity leads them to flashes of insight. “The theory of relativity
occurred to me by intuition, and music is the driving force behind this
intuition,” Albert Einstein reflected.
His mother enrolled him in violin lessons starting at age 5, but he
wasn’t intrigued. His love of music only blossomed as a teenager, after
he stopped taking lessons and stumbled upon Mozart’s sonatas. “Love is a
better teacher than a sense of duty,” he said.
Hear
that, Tiger Moms and Lombardi Dads? You can’t program a child to become
creative. Try to engineer a certain kind of success, and the best
you’ll get is an ambitious robot. If you want your children to bring
original ideas into the world, you need to let them pursue their
passions, not yours.
No comments:
Post a Comment