Your Young Shevchenko, Picasso or Beethoven Could Be the Next Edison

By Walter Derzko

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The Ukrainian community has been offering numerous programs for young children over the past decades, ranging from dance, the arts, music to theater and sports. Should we be seeing the dividends from this activity as children grow up? The answer is yes and that’s good news for parents. Those pricey piano lessons or random toy parts littering your floors may one day lead to the next scientific breakthrough. That’s according to new Michigan State University (MSU) research linking childhood participation in arts and crafts activities to patents generated and businesses launched as adults.

In the study, published in the journal Economic Development Quarterly, the researchers studied a group of MSU Honors College graduates from 1990 to 1995 who majored in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, or STEM. They found of that group, those who own businesses or patents received up to eight times more exposure to the arts as children than the general public. “The most interesting finding was the importance of sustained participation in those activities,” said Rex LaMore, director of MSU’s Center for Community and Economic Development. “If you started as a young child and continued in your adult years, you’re more likely to be an inventor as measured by the number of patents generated, businesses formed or articles published. And that was something we were surprised to discover.”

Musical training seems to be important. The researchers found 93 percent of the STEM graduates reported musical training at some point in their lives, as compared to only 34 percent of average adults, as reported by the National Endowment for the Arts. The STEM graduates also reported higher-than-average involvement in the visual arts, acting, dance and creative writing. In addition, those who had been exposed to metal work and electronics during childhood were 42 percent more likely to own a patent than those without exposure, while those involved in architecture were 87.5 percent more likely to form a company. And children with a photography background were 30 percent more likely to have a patent.

Why?

Such activity fosters out-of-the-box or radical thinking, the researchers said. In fact, the group reported using artistic skills – such as analogies, playing, intuition and imagination – to solve complex problems. “The skills you learn from taking things apart and putting them back together translate into how you look at a product and how it can be improved,” said Eileen Roraback, of MSU’s Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities. “And there’s creative writing. In our study, a biologist working in the cancer field, who created a business, said her writing skills helped her to write business plans and win competitions.”

The results of the study could be crucial to rebuilding the economy, the researchers said.

“Inventors are more likely to create high-growth, high-paying jobs in our country, and that’s the kind of target we think we should be looking for,” LaMore said. “So we better think about how we support artistic capacity, as well as science and math activity, so that we have these outcomes.” [ Note that Tabachnyk wants to cut out physics, chemistry and biology as compulsory high schools subjects in Ukraine.]

Another exciting discovery was published earlier this year--Children’s complex thinking skills begin forming before they go to school

New research at the University of Chicago and the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) shows that children begin to show signs of higher-level thinking skills as young as age 4 ½. Researchers have previously attributed higher-order thinking development to knowledge acquisition and better schooling, but the new longitudinal study shows that other skills, not always connected with knowledge, play a key role in the ability of children to reason analytically.

The findings, reported in the journal Psychological Science, show for the first time that children’s executive function has a role in the development of complicated analytical thinking. Executive function includes such complex skills as planning, monitoring, task switching, and controlling attention. High early executive function skills at school entry are related to higher than average reasoning skills in adolescence.

Growing research suggests that executive function may be trainable through pathways, including preschool curriculum, and the direct teaching of thinking skills. Parents and teachers may be able to help encourage development of executive function by having youngsters help plan activities, learn to stop, think, and then take action, or engage in pretend play, said lead author of the study, Lindsey Richland, assistant professor, University of Chicago.

So where are all the would-be Canadian-Ukrainian entrepreneurs and inventors? Oh yes, we have our handful of very successful business owners/ entrepreneurs, which everyone can count on their hands and name. But according to the above statistics, there should be many more, especially from my generation. Maybe, it was because some were sidetracked and missed their true calling in life. The parents of my generation were often pushing children into safe, conventional professions-not a bad thing per say. “Become a doctor, dentist, lawyer, or teacher” parents would urge their children. Rarely was “entrepreneur” or “scientist” on that “wish list”.