We’re Born Natural Innovators, So Does School Kill Creativity?
As children, we’re born with wild and inventive imaginations. In fact, 98 percent of children are born creative geniuses according to a test devised by NASA scientists. But as we get older that figure dwindles, and by adulthood, the number of creative geniuses drops to an astonishingly low average. Which begs the question: does school kill creativity?
George Land’s Creativity Test
When the deputy director for NASA wanted to figure out how to separate creative types from the rest, he tapped George Land to create a test. The goal was to seclude those who could think outside the box and come up with atypical solutions to some of NASA’s toughest problems. So, in 1968, he created a test that accurately predicted creativity, but then found himself faced with the question of where creativity comes from. Is it learned, or does it come from experience?
Land decided to apply his test to a range of age groups to see how creativity varied as we get older. He used a sample of 1,600 children and continued the study into his subjects’ adulthood. Incredibly, he found that by the time they reached maturity, only two percent of subjects passed the creativity test, despite their creative success as kids.
Land learned there are two patterns for the way we generate ideas in our minds. The first is divergent thinking, or being able to generate new possibilities – where creativity comes from. The other was convergent thinking, where we judge something by testing, criticizing and evaluating it.
As it turns out, Land says we’re taught to use both types of thinking simultaneously, forcing them to compete with each other. When we think of new possibilities, we’re immediately judging, criticizing and censoring them, without just letting them come to the surface.
Creativity and Ken Robinson’s Ted Talk
One of the most-watched TED talks of all time belongs to Ken Robinson who carries the torch for Land in the fight to bring back creativity. Since his wildly successful speech garnering nearly 50 million views, he has written books and given several more TED talks discussing how we can tap back into that latent creativity.
Robinson noticed that our education system teaches us that being wrong is the worst possible outcome. Nowhere is there a better example of this than standardized testing.
Our thought process is forced to conform to controlled paradigms of right and wrong, and so ideas that don’t fit the mold are rejected. And in the past few decades, ascription to that paradigm has been pushed harder by prescribing drugs to children who don’t easily fall in line with the system’s ideal standards.
Robinson points to the example of Gillian Lynne, one of the most famous theater choreographers who’s made millions for her work on Broadway shows, including Cats and Phantom of the Opera. When she was a child she struggled with school and was told she had a learning disorder. Her parents took her to a doctor to figure out what was wrong and potentially prescribe her medication. The doctor told them she wasn’t sick, she just needed to pursue dancing. And the rest is history.
Imagine how many dancers, artists, and creative types have had their potentials wasted because our system doesn’t have the time or patience to guide them in the right direction. Instead, we’re disciplined to follow narrow paths and if we don’t conform, we’re told that we failed.
Â
Â
Robinson says that a teacher’s job is not just to relay information that they learned to their students; not to simply be a delivery system. That’s part of it, he says, but there’s so much more.
He says that teachers are the lifeblood of success to schools, they should provoke, stimulate, and mentor students. Education, he says, is not the same as learning, learning requires engagement and sparked curiosity.
Louis Mobley’s Creative Insights
Before Land created his creativity test for NASA, Louis Mobley was hired by IBM to teach its top employees how to think creatively – his teachings led to the creation of the IBM Executive School.
Mobley quickly found that many of the executives already working for IBM didn’t fall within the expected parameters when it came to standardized testing, so he realized he needed to figure out what made them successful leaders. The answer: being able to think creatively. So he formed a list of six creative insights he found were key to success in leadership.
- Â Â Â Â Traditional teaching methods, like testing and memorization, were less than worthless. These systems were counterproductive to creativity and forced students to think linearly when instead they should be thinking in a non-linear manner.
Â
- Â Â Â Â The process of becoming creative is an unlearning process. Instead of expecting students to think within preconceived assumptions, he wanted them to overturn existing beliefs.
Â
-     Being creative can’t be learned, it’s innate within us and must be released by doing it. Often creativity was channeled offline and in informal modes of peer to peer interaction.
Â
- Â Â Â Â Hanging around creatives was the best way to inspire creativity.
Â
-     Creativity is highly associated with self-knowledge – it is impossible to overcome biases if we’re not aware of them.
Â
-     You’re allowed to be wrong. Good ideas come from lots of bad ones. The reason we don’t hit our potential is from fear of being wrong.
Â
The truth in Mobley’s learnings is nowhere more obvious than in the success of IBM, and it’s unfortunate that these axioms aren’t applied more in our education system. But if there’s one thing that all of these researchers learned from studying creativity, it’s that we never lose it, it stays latent in all of us. In order to foster creativity, one must encourage its expression and not fear being wrong every now and then.
About the Author
What Is 'Vibrate High' and How to Raise Your Vibrational Frequency
Everything in the universe, including our thoughts and emotions, has a vibrational frequency that influences how we feel, act and relate to others. When our vibrational frequency is high, we experience greater well-being, clarity and spiritual connection. In this article we explore what it means to vibrate high, how to identify your current vibrational state and what practices can help you raise your vibration in a sustained way.
Table of Contents
- What Does It Mean to Vibrate High?
- Am I Vibrating High or Am I Vibrating Low?
- Raising Your Vibration: Essential Practices and Habits
- What Can You Achieve by Vibrating High?
- The Science Behind Vibrational Frequency
- Vibrational Frequency and Spiritual Development
- Strategies for Maintaining High Vibration Over the Long Term
What Does It Mean to Vibrate High?
Vibrating high refers to the level of vibrational frequency we emit through our thoughts, emotions and states of consciousness. Just as everything in the universe vibrates, we also project an energetic frequency that influences our perception, our decisions and the reality we co-create. A high vibration manifests through elevated emotions such as love, gratitude, joy, compassion and trust.
The importance of vibrating high lies in its direct impact on our daily experience. A high vibrational frequency favors well-being, enhances inner clarity and attracts people and situations in tune with that energy. On the other hand, a low vibration can generate emotional blockages, conflictive relationships or repetitive patterns that limit our growth. Learning how to vibrate high allows us to take responsibility for our energetic state and transform our lives from the inside out.
Am I Vibrating High or Am I Vibrating Low?
To know if you are vibrating high, observe how you feel physically, mentally and emotionally. People with a high vibrational frequency tend to feel at peace with themselves, face challenges with a positive attitude and cultivate healthy relationships. They also commonly experience synchronicities, creative inspiration and a sense of purpose.
Conversely, when someone vibrates low, emotions such as anxiety, frustration, fear or judgment predominate. The energy feels dense, it is difficult to maintain motivation and everything seems to go uphill. Recognizing if you are vibrating low is fundamental to initiate a change, since raising your vibration is possible with intention, awareness and small daily actions.
Raising Your Vibration: Essential Practices and Habits
Knowing how to raise your vibration does not require drastic changes, but rather incorporating daily habits that strengthen your energy, your presence and your inner connection. These practices help you sustain a high vibrational frequency, cultivate positive emotional states and live with greater coherence and vitality.
- Daily meditation: Dedicating a few minutes to inner silence regulates the nervous system and improves mental clarity. Constant practice allows you to tune in to a higher and more stable vibration.
- Conscious gratitude: Intentionally giving thanks shifts your mental focus and elevates your emotional state. It is one of the fastest ways to raise your vibrational frequency.
- Conscious eating: Eating fresh, natural, nutrient-rich foods sustains your vital energy. Avoiding processed and mindful eating also influences your vibration.
- Body movement (yoga, dance, walking): Moving the body unblocks stagnant energy and promotes inner balance. Activities such as yoga or dancing help to release tension and raise the frequency.
- Listen to high vibrational music: Music has a direct effect on your energy field. Choose sounds that inspire you and connect you to higher states of consciousness.
- Connection with nature: Being in contact with the natural environment harmonizes body and mind. Walking barefoot, breathing fresh air or simply observing the sky restores your energy.
- Creative visualization and affirmations: Using the mind in a positive way transforms your frequency. Visualizing what you desire and repeating affirmations raises your vibration and focuses your intention.
- Laugh, enjoy and surround yourself with positive people: High emotions are contagious. Sharing time with people who nurture you emotionally improves your vibrational state.
- Rest and restful sleep habits: Good sleep allows the body to regenerate and the mind to quiet down. Deep rest sustains a high vibrational frequency in the long term.
What Can You Achieve by Vibrating High?
Maintaining a high vibrational frequency not only improves your internal state, it also transforms the quality of your experiences. When you vibrate high, your energy becomes consistent with opportunities, connections and situations that reflect that same level of well-being. This internal change manifests in specific areas of life, generating a deep and lasting impact.
- Attract money and abundance: A high vibration connects you with the energy of trust and deservingness. This facilitates openness to new economic opportunities and a healthier relationship with giving and receiving.
- Improve relationships and bonds: When your frequency is high, you attract people who are in harmony with your energy. Relationships become more authentic, conscious and enriching.
- Elevate your emotional well-being: Feelings such as peace, joy and gratitude become more frequent and stable. This strengthens your ability to respond to stress and improves your quality of life.
- Connect with your purpose: Vibrating high helps you listen more clearly to your inner voice. This facilitates decisions aligned with what truly inspires you and gives meaning to your path.
- Expand your spiritual awareness: As you raise your frequency, you access states of greater connection with the subtle. This opens the door to experiences of unity, intuition and inner expansion.
The Science Behind Vibrational Frequency
The idea that everything vibrates at a certain frequency is consistent with the principles of modern physics. Matter, energy and even our thoughts and emotions are made up of vibratory fields that manifest at different levels of density and movement. The higher the frequency, the more subtle and expansive its manifestation.
Vibrational frequency is not just a theoretical notion: it has practical implications in everyday life. Studies in neuroscience, psychology and physiology show that positive emotions such as gratitude, joy or compassion generate beneficial effects on the nervous system, strengthen health and favor broader states of consciousness. These emotions, when sustained over time, raise the overall vibration of the body and mind.
In contrast, emotions such as fear, anger or sustained sadness are associated with lower frequencies. These can weaken the immune system, affect mental health and limit our perception of possibilities. Understanding how our vibrational frequency influences our physical, emotional and mental balance allows us to make more conscious choices to cultivate a more coherent and healthy energy.
Vibrational Frequency and Spiritual Development
Raising the vibrational frequency is an essential part of the spiritual growth process. As a higher vibration is sustained, inner perception is expanded and the connection to deeper aspects of the self is strengthened. This inner shift is reflected in greater clarity, a sense of purpose and a life guided by intuition.
A higher frequency acts as a catalyst for spiritual awakening. By letting go of limiting mental and emotional patterns, space opens up to experience a broader reality that transcends ego concerns. From this perspective, spiritual development is not an idealized state, but a gradual process of alignment with higher consciousness.
In addition, when the vibration is high, it is easier to access subtle experiences such as deep meditation, energetic perception or a sense of oneness with all that exists. These experiences are not exclusive to those who follow a formal spiritual practice, but are available to anyone who consciously cultivates their energy. Vibrational frequency, in this sense, is the bridge between the physical plane and the spiritual dimension.
Strategies for Maintaining High Vibration Over the Long Term
Raising your vibration is important, but sustaining it over time is what really transforms your life. This does not mean always being in elevated states, but learning to return to them more quickly and consciously. The key is to cultivate a routine that strengthens your physical, emotional and energetic well-being on a consistent basis.
Setting healthy boundaries, prioritizing self-care and surrounding yourself with uplifting stimuli are essential practices to prevent external factors from draining your energy. It is also essential to regularly review your thoughts, habits and relationships, and make adjustments when necessary. Vibration is not static: it changes depending on how you live, think and connect with yourself and the world.
