Educational conference focuses on role of creativity

When Robert Sternberg went to elementary school in the United States in the 1950s he performed poorly on IQ tests and his teachers wrote him off as a weak prospect.

Zoom forward to today and Sternberg is one of America’s foremost psychologists, noted for his books about intelligence after a stellar academic career as a summa cum laude graduate from Yale University, with a doctorate from Stanford.

He maintains his experience in school was turned around in the fourth grade when a teacher saw he had potential and incited him to do better.

Backed by her encouragement, Sternberg went on to become a top student, a factor that has strongly influenced his views of education and learning, which he will be sharing at an educational conference in Geneva on Saturday.

Currently dean of arts and sciences at Tufts University, he is one of three keynote speakers at a forum about creativity in education, the latest in a series of annual educational conferences organized by the International School of Geneva (Ecolint).

The daylong conference at the International Labour Organizations headquarters, also features Christophe Mouchiroud, from the institute of psychology at the University of Paris Descartes, who will speak about the role of social interaction in the development of creativity.

The other featured speaker is Bengt-Ake Lundvall, an economics professor from Aalborg University in Denmark and an expert on the role of schools in the development of creativity and innovation.

Sternberg is famous for highlighting creativity as one of three key elements of intelligence, which he believes cannot be solely gauged through standard IQ tests.

The other elements are analytical intelligence, the ability to achieve academic, problem-solving tasks, and practical intelligence, which allows people to adapt to everday life by drawing on existing knowledge and skills.

"What I have advocated is that whether or not you have analytical skills it's important to use creative skills," Sternberg told Swisster.

"Things in this world are changing fast and what you have learned in the past will not see you through in the future," he said.

He gave as examples changes in the world of finance, politiics and social customs that require people to be able to adapt to new ways of thinking.

That is something that takes creativity and a willingness to pursue ideas even when they are unpopular, Sternberg said.

"The most important aspect of creativity is simply deciding for it," he said, referring the theme of his talk at the conference about creativity being a decision.

"It starts with a willingness to buck the trend," he said. "It's an attitude of buying low and selling high in the world of ideas."

Sternberg remains critical of IQ testing and has called for different approaches.

“The tests we’re using today differ little from the tests used a hundred years ago,” he said in a comment on his Tufts University website.

“There are cosmetic differences—fancier test booklets, machine scoring—but essentially it’s the same. From a scientific point of view, that’s sad.”

In his book, Successful Intelligence: How Practical and Creative Intelligence Determine Success in Life, Sternberg argues that creativity allows someone who is not book-smart in the conventional way to succeed.

For this reason, he says traditional IQ scoring tests are inadequate in gauging a student’s abilities.

Intelligence, Sternberg writes, is “your skill in achieving whatever it is you want to attain in you life within your sociocultural context by capitalizing on your strengths and compensating for, or correcting, your weaknesses.”

At least 208 people have signed up for the bilingual conference - talks will be simulataneously translated, Ecolint spokeswoman Catherine Mérigay said.

This year’s theme deals with an aspect of education that is getting increasing attention.

Last year was declared as the European Year of Creativity and Innovation, and the conference will be discussing some of the developments that emerged in 2009 from discussions and events devoted to the subject.

The conference, aimed at teachers, educational administrators, policy makers and those generally interested in learning issues, is being organized in cooperation with the International Baccalaureate and the International Schools Association.