Nurturing the creative majority of our schools: a response.

I agree with many of the points made by Alex Whitson in the Fall 1994 Issues in Education column, "The Creative Minority in Our Schools." I take exception, however, to a central point in his article - that the creative element is a minority in our schools. I also disagree with his conception of education's historic role in America.

Whitson's definition of creativity ultimately creates the minority status that he wants to change. Before we go looking for the "dwindling creative minority," we should use a more inclusive definition of creativity, one that acknowledges an students' ability to be creative. Creativity involves novel and valuable behavior. For example, creativity may mean generating a new solution when previous efforts have been fruitless. Everyone will eventually face situations that are new to them, and they will have to decide between quitting or trying something original.

Too often, teachers let their students quit, and show them how to solve the dilemmas they encounter. On this point, Whitson and I have no disagreement: the American education system, for all its well-intended efforts to educate, fails to serve the individual's great need for self-actualization.

Whitson's narrow definition of a creative child needs to be enlarged. Every student has the need for self-actualization. Every child starts life as a curious individual who creatively solves problems (Lesner & Hillman, 1983). There is nothing odd or novel about creative thinking (Perkins, 1981). We all operate as a physical and biological cosmos and, therefore, innately own the vital change mechanism that functions as our creative process. Creative potential is a natural gift (O'Neill & Shallcross, 1994).

Life continuously presents situations that demand some kind of creative response. For individuals to survive in a rapidly changing world, their attainment of creativity is at least worthwhile, if not necessary (Slabbert, 1994). Creativity is a competency that depends upon certain cognitive skills (Jaben, 1986). Therefore, it is necessary to encourage creativity within our education system.

His identification of creative students as a minority subgroup gives Whitson the rationale for advocating separate classes for the "creatively gifted." To me, this smacks of ability grouping. When only certain "gifted" children are selected for more intense, highly structured academic programs teachers' development of creative approaches to work with other students may be discouraged by the school. Creative talent depends to some extent on the social context in which it develops, especially in its influence on the emotional strength needed for originality (Freeman, 1994).

Any debate concerning creativity is important, considering civilization requires continuous creativity to guarantee not only progress, but its very survival. The classroom is perhaps the most fertile ground in which to foster creativity. Travers, Elliot and Kratochwill (1993) suggest four guidelines for encouraging student creativity:

* ensure that classroom material matches each child's developmental level * give children experience deriving varied responses to a problem * encourage students to search for relationships * tolerate ambiguity; fear of failure and fear of the unknown should not stop creativity.

My second objection to Whitson's essay concerns his perception about the historic role of education in America. I agree with Whitson that "current educators seem concerned with molding students to fit into existing society" (Whitson, 1994). I maintain, however, that this has always been the case. Data since 1776 show that Americans have typically viewed education as an endeavor to direct students' behavior toward compliance, not individuality or creativity. Whether it was Noah Webster's advocacy for the direct imposition of values or Thomas Jefferson's argument for individuals forming their values by reading newspapers, education has historically been viewed as an attempt to control citizens' actions (Spring, 1994).

A historical overview of education from the time of the Founding Fathers to well into this century makes it clear that U.S. educators have never sought to foster creative thinking. Education for women was either dismissed or the topic of ongoing debate from Colonial days. Benjamin Rush, a celebrated champion of education for women, wrote, "Let the ladies of a country be educated properly and they will not only make and administer its laws, but form its manners and character" (Riley, 1987). Critics responded that women did not need to be educated, since they were confined to a domestic vocation. Glenda Riley (1987) notes that in the first quarter of the 19th century, women were educated in order to better prepare their sons to be loyal citizens. While men did not believe that a woman's mental and moral improvement was necessary for success as a mother, they found it difficult to dispute the female assertion that "men will never be wise while women are ignorant" (Riley, 1987).

In 1819, Congress authorized an annual appropriation for Native Americans to be educated by missionaries. By 1875, reformers and the Indian Bureau agreed that Native Americans needed to be educated away from their homes in order to prevent their extinction (Weeks, 1990). Creativity or self-actualization played no part in the education philosophy directed toward Native Americans, African Americans or the large numbers of immigrants that entered America between 1880 and 1920 (Graham & Koed, 1993; Krug, 1976; Trennert, 1994). Whether it was called enculturation or Americanization, some authors have argued that education's purpose was to make immigrant students accept their "proper" place in society (Morrissett, 1981), rather than view their status as a problem to be overcome through creative thinking.

Horace Mann, for example, argued for the support of secular schools, promising public education would reform the "immoral" elements of society, and make everyone more industrious and more Christian (Bowers, 1969). A half century later, G. Stanley Hall warned that juvenile crime was increasing and the youth of America were too precocious. He proposed teaching morality in the schools (Hall, 1911). These two prominent theorists of American education practices certainly viewed schooling as a means to foster conformity, not creativity.

This brief synopsis of what Americans historically have thought education should accomplish is certainly not exhaustive. John Dewey, among other progressive educators, saw the value of the individual in scholarly applications. By and large, however, the tendency of the education system to ignore creativity in favor of acquiescence to an orthodox agenda is much more entrenched than Whitson states.

Summary

I fully agree with Whitson's argument that our country's education philosophy should encourage creativity. I believe, however, that we must start from the perspective that everyone has the capacity for creativity, which should be encouraged and nourished. Creativity can and should be taught to all pupils. Although self-actualization may not have been a founding ideology of America's education system, it can become the cornerstone upon which we build a better system for all students.

References

Bowers, C.A. (1969). The progressive educator and the depression: The radical years. New York: Random House. Freeman, J. (1994). Gifted school performance and creativity. Roeper Review, 17(1),15-19. Graham, O. L., Jr., & Koed, E. (1993). Americanizing the immigrant, past and future. The Public Historian, 15(4), 24-45. Hall, G. S. (1911). Educational problems (Vol. 2). New York: D. Appleton. Jaben, T. H. (1986). Impact of creativity instruction on learning disabled students' divergent thinking. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 19(6), 342-343. Krug, M. (1976). The melting of the ethnics: Education of the immigrants, 1880-1914. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa. Lesner, W. J., & Hillman, D. (1983). A developmental schema of creativity. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 17, 1-11. Morrissett, I. (1981). The needs of the future and the constraints of the past. In H. Mehlinger & D. L. Davis, Jr. (Eds.), The social studies: 80th yearbook, Part 2 (pp. 36-59). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. O'Neill, S., & Shallcross, D. (1994). Sensational thinking: A teaching/learning model for creativity. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 28(2), 75-88. Perkins, D. N. (1981). The mind's best work. Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press. Riley, G. (1987). Inventing the American woman. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson. Slabbert, J. A. (1994). Creativity in education revisited: Reflection in aid of progression. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 28(1), 60-69. Spring, J. (1994). The American school 1642-1993 (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Travers, J. F., Elliot, S. N., & Kratochwill, T. R. (1993). Educational psychology: Effective teaching, effective learning. Madison, WI: Brown & Benchmark. Trennert, R. A. (1994). Major problems in American Indian history. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company. Weeks, P. (1990). Farewell, my nation: The American Indian and the United States, 1820-1890. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson. Whitson, A. (1994). The creative minority in our schools. Childhood Education, 71, 2-3.

The purpose of this column is to stimulate debate of timely -issues affecting children, youth and families. The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of Childhood Education or the Association for Childhood Education International. Readers are urged to respond by submitting manuscripts or letters to: Dr. Joan Moyer, CE Issues Editor, Curriculum, Arizona State University, Tempe AZ 85287-1711.

Permission to reproduce this column intact is not required. Copyright [C] 1995 Associationfor Childhood Education International.