What if genius, rather than a trait enjoyed by a rare few, is more akin to a delicate ecosystem—one that thrives in early childhood, yet so often wilts under the constraints of conventional education and societal expectations?
The findings from George Land’s NASA-commissioned research in the 1960s, which revealed that 98% of five-year-olds tested as “genius-level” creators but only 2% of adults did, have long sparked dismay.
But to focus solely on these numbers is to miss the broader significance.
These results do not just reveal a stark decline in creativity; they invite us to question the landscape in which young minds grow, to consider alternative environments that could preserve, nurture, and expand this natural genius throughout a person’s life.