Divergent Thinking In Children: A Neglected Ability

Divergent thinking in children is an exceptional gift, as well as natural (no one has yet told them what is normal and, therefore, what is not). His open mind is full of possibilities, of unusual, original and always idiosyncratic reasoning. However, sometimes that creative potential tends to fade as they grow up due to an educational system that tends to standardize the way of thinking of its students, unifying perspectives.

If there is one thing that most of us know, it is that daring to reason differently can be dangerous. Galileo, for example, saw it on his own skin when his ideas led him to end his last years confined to his home in Florence. Open minds are the ones who challenge the world, no doubt, but they are also the ones who help you move forward.

It is clear that times have changed, that the endings experienced by other scientists like Giordano Bruno no longer happen. However, there are other types of situations. As Sir Ken Robinson, renowned expert on education, points out, today’s schools are “killing” children’s creativity.

According to him, our educational centers base their curricular models on nineteenth – century systems from a time in which the industrialization of society caused some capabilities to be valued over others. Promoting innovation, creativity or critical thinking was (and is often) unusual when what we have is a hierarchy of subjects and very rigid competencies to assume.

We forget that children come into the world “equipped” with extraordinary talents. We overlook the potential of their divergent thinking, that extraordinary psychic muscle that we sometimes weaken by exclusively educating them in convergent thinking.

Divergent thinking in children

Henry David Thoreau was undoubtedly one of the most revolutionary philosophers. His unusual ideas about freedom and responsibility made him one of those figures always led by clearly divergent thinking. Returning to your texts from time to time is undoubtedly a way to find inspiration in many ways.

He taught us that life is a canvas for the imagination. He also made us see that there are people who are born with a different music inside them and that these must be given way, because freedom leads to self-realization. It is much the same with children. However, we are not always able to intuit that magical melody and that incredible potential that is hidden inside each little one.

Thus, for example, experts on the subject, such as Dr. Len Brzozowski, point out something interesting that he discovered when conducting a study with psychologists George Land and Beth Jarman. The data from this work were published in the book  Break Point and Beyond: Mastering the Future Today.

• Divergent thinking in 5-year-olds usually presents scores similar to those of an adult with high intellectual abilities. Thus, when these little ones are asked how many uses they can give to a cup, a pencil or a shoe, they can give up to 100 (valid) answers. An adult usually gives an average of 10-12.
• Now, if we pass a divergent thinking test to a 10-year-old child, we will realize that this potential has been reduced, on average, by 60%.

Preschoolers are true geniuses

Divergent thinking in 4- to 6-year-olds has staggering scores.  It is necessary to refer at this point to what the professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, Álvaro Pascual-Leone, points out. Throughout these ages, what is known as synaptic pruning occurs in the brain  .

They are those sensitive periods of the nervous system where a programmed neural pruning takes place, modifiable only by experiences. If there are no adequate stimuli, that cellular pruning will limit much of the learning potential in the child over time.

It is not about having “many neural connections” either, because then the brain has an excess of “noise” (something that happens in autism spectrum disorder). The key is to optimize that pruning with learning and the most appropriate stimulation, the most optimal. Especially in that period between 4 and 6 years old, in which children have their full potential intact.

How can we protect and empower your divergent thinking?

Divergent thinking in children has particular learning needs that must be addressed so that it is not lost. They are as follows:

• They need immersive learning. Children should experiment, feel, touch, get excited … They should do it in a group with their peers but also in solitude, to encourage autonomous work (and their own space for creativity).
• Likewise, they need to work on learnings in which there is no single valid answer (as far as possible) . Divergent thinking is skillful in generating multiple options for the same challenge. Having your ideas often sanctioned and labeled “wrong” or “wrong” will be demotivating.
• To promote divergent thinking in children, it is also necessary that they feel emotionally validated. Feeling that they are accepted, respected, valued, and loved will help them feel free to explore, to discover new interests, to evoke responses, ideas, and reasoning knowing that they will not be criticized.

Finally,  it should be noted that promoting and protecting divergent thinking does not mean, far from it, completely eliminating convergent thinking. Actually, it is about harmonizing both dimensions. Sometimes there are problems that do need a unique solution, and children need to understand those kinds of situations too.

Therefore, we are able to take care of and optimize these realities. Let us remember that well-known phrase of Albert Einstein:  “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, then it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. “