The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind–creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers.

Daniel Pink

Ed and I started The Laboratory as an experiment.

We had both been career changers who decided to become classroom teachers in economically disadvantaged high schools . After a couple of schools, and a decade in high school classrooms, we were constantly running into our former students who are now working adults. It was disheartening that we kept hearing the same thing over and over: their educational experiences did not prepare them for the real world. This was even coming from students Ed taught at one of the top-ranked selective enrollment high schools in the entire state.

Research shows, students need creative, conceptual thinking
According to The World Economic Forum, an estimated 65% of students entering elementary school will end up working in careers that don’t even exist yet. By the time many students enter the workforce, their skills are already outdated. How can we start preparing our students for their future if we don’t know what that future will be?

Rod Judkins, author of Ideas are your Only Currency, believes “to survive and prosper in our new culture, you need to think conceptually. To be at home in the world of the future, you will need to be an adaptable, open minded, problem solver, communicator, inventor, artist and entertainer.”

Additionally, a worldwide study conducted by IBM surveyed over 1,500 CEO’s from over 60 countries and 33 industries to identify the most crucial factor for future success: CREATIVITY.

In the most watched Ted Talk in history, Sir Ken Robinson says schools are the ones responsible for killing creativity. In his book, Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education he asserts that we need to radically change our school systems in order to cultivate creativity and prepare our children for the future.

Fostering Creativity
One of the biggest challenges is that people believe that certain people are born creative.

We launched The Laboratory, as an experimental space to teach creativity to students that love math and science but need a little push to think creatively and to reach creative students that do not enjoy math or science because they see it as a subject for linear thinkers.

What happens when students are given the freedom to use math and science as tools of creativity and connect it to their passions?

Our programs guide creativity through associative thinking, the ability to integrate previously unconnected ideas. Kids see connections by combining things that wouldn’t normally mix: math supporting storytelling, history brought to life through science.

In addition, we have discovered a number of books to continue our own development of creative and innovative thinking. Here are a few of our books that we recommend broken down by age group.

Also:
The creators of the ACT are potentially designing a test to “measure creativity”
The University of Chicago is no longer requiring applicants to submit SAT and ACT scores for admission