A dominant feature encouraged in education is that of criticism. Next to scholarship, we esteem critical intelligence as the desired product of our education system. Though the critical mind has a distinct role to play in society, it may be that we esteem it too highly as criticism is one of the easier forms of intellectual effort and one of the more limited. The critical intelligence cannot of itself generate the new ideas that are required for progress and even just to deal with changing circumstances
The dominance of the critical mind may be seen in the comments made on the wheelbarrow. When the example was given to adults, more than 80% of the comments where negative. some examples are:
"wheel is in the wrong place, strut too long and weak, unstable, strut is the wrong place"
This is because the critical mind compares what is offered with what is expected and complains about discrepancies. A creator must go beyond the expected.
When the same example was given to 12 year old children, a large number of creative comments were mixed in with the critical ones such as:
"easier for tipping, easier to turn corner especially into a ditch, easier for ones back to press down than to lift, can turn a sharper corner."
The critical creative ratio was 2:1 for the children and 20:1 for adults