In a sensational interview with the TEDxTuscon channel, Dr. George Land told the audience about the shocking results of the creativity tests that he and his team were developing as part of a special NASA project. The task of the team of psychologists was to develop a test that allows to evaluate and measure the creative potential of preschoolers. The result shocked not only customers at NASA, but also the psychologists themselves.
In general, the test offered children various tasks that were understandable to them, offering them to be solved in one way or another. The test was conducted on 1600 children aged 4 to 5 years.
Scientists were ready for much, but what they discovered put them in a dead end. It turned out that 98% of children fell into the top category of the test, considered by psychologists as “genius”!
Since “98 percent” of geniuses seemed to NASA an incredible figure, the test was rejected as incorrect. However, the developers did not give up and carried out the same test on the same children, but already when the children reached the age of 10 years. This time, only 30% of children fell into the category of “brilliant imagination”.
The result was so strange that NASA became interested again and carried out the same test, on the same children, but already at the age of 15 years. Geniuses among them were less than 12%!
The next 5 years, NASA did not wait and slightly violated the purity of the experiment, putting the test on a random sample of adults. Among adults, the percentage of genius fell to 2!
Based on these data, Gavin Nascimento made a detailed scientific publication, the essence of which is as follows:
“The school system, colleges and higher education are gradually depriving a growing person of the creative genius inherent in each. There are several reasons for this, but the order of the ruling classes seems to be the most obvious one. What we put in the concepts of “school” and “education” is in fact a global institution, a complex psychological system, historically created to serve the needs of the ruling class.
In order for the so-called “elite” to retain its chic style of defiant luxury, while making a minimal contribution to the development of the new and to the production, not only an eternal artificial shortage, endless exploitation and incessant war are necessary. We also need a nationwide, supranational brainwashing system, which proves that “it has always been this way” and does not allow us to look critically at the predatory, slave-owning world system."
George Lund explains that each of us has two types of thinking: divergent and convergent
Divergent thinking is what we are born with which is called imagination.
Convergent thinking is also part of us, working in another part of the brain and limiting divergence.
Thus, divergent thinking works as an accelerator of brain processes, and convergent thinking is the brake which inhibits this process.
What happens to the children as we educate them is we teach them to do both types of thinking at the same time…and when you look at what’s actually happening inside the brain, you find that neurons that fighting each other and actually diminishing the power of the brain because we’re constantly judging, criticizing, censoring which are the greatest obstacles of creativity. And if we’re operating from stress/fear we use an even smaller part of the brain.
The solution is very simple. Turn on your five-year-old to tap into your imagination that everyone has!