Killing the Spark? Education and the Blue Flower
- J
- Nov 10, 2022
- 2 min read
In the 1960s, NASA ran a long-term study on divergent thinking—our ability to generate original ideas. The results were stunning:
At age 5: 98% of children scored at "genius" levels.
At 10: Only 30%.
By 15: Just 12%.
As adults? A dismal 2%!
What happened? School.
We send kids to school to prepare them for jobs, college, and standardized tests—but in the process, we may be teaching them out of their natural creativity.
Sir Ken Robinson made this point in his famous TED Talk, where he argued that traditional education systems prioritize convergent thinking—right answers, rote memorization—over the kind of divergent thinking that drives creativity.
The pandemic gave us a chance to rethink education, but it appears that all we did was move the classroom online — making things even worse. Tech was just a faster conveyor belt for killing the spark. And now with AI...
What we need isn’t more information. It’s more imagination. More making, doing, playing. We need a shift:
From Instructionism to Constructionism
From Convergent to Divergent thinking
From Information to Imagination
From Content to Skills
Imagine a world where kids don’t have that spark crushed out of them by the time they’re adults. Where they stay curious. Where they don’t forget how to dream. Where they explore and create. That’s what education should be about.
BUT- we're not talking about a free-for-all. Don't toss out all structure. Just bring back wonder.
Of course test scores and competence matter. Kids need real skills to navigate the world. But based on the numbers, something’s off. We’re not keeping the balance. If 98% of 5-year-olds show creative genius and only 2% of adults retain it, we have a problem—not of rigor, but of imagination loss.
The Blue Flower in the Classroom
The Blue Flower symbolized the longing for the infinite—imagination, creativity, connection. Today, that flower risks withering in standardized classrooms. But it doesn’t have to. Education doesn’t need to choose between knowledge and imagination. It needs both.
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