There is deliberate practice for skill-building. There is exploratory "making" that fuels originality. There is inspiration hunting and incremental tweaking to get to creative mutation. There is high productivity that triggers eventual ingenuity. I find the article hyperbolic in its thesis and execution especially when it comes to the final hand-wavy bit about how there is more per-capita creativity in non-rote learning.

While its hard to prove or disprove without a long study to prove or disprove the author's claim, I'm willing to die on the following hills:

1. Kumon sheets are the antithesis to creativity 2. Understanding is not a form of memorization (not the rote variety anyway)