| Searching for the Creative School by Barry J. Schwartz and Marlene Damon
Ever since Maslow's time, and even before that, psychologists have been at work rediscovering and refining the basic truths about creativity that biography and personal experience have revealed throughout history. Simply put, the experience of creativity in work and in love is a vitalizing influence and frequently spells the difference between living and merely surviving. If the exercise of creativity is vital to adults, then it stands to reason that creativity ought to be prized in education. But here, the difference between "is" and "ought" is painfully obvious these days. Thinking back, how many of us remember our primary and secondary school years as a time of flowering creativity? It is a safe bet that most of our creative development took place outside of school, after school, in a college or in work of our own choosing. And, all indications are that the current generation is having it worse yet. Schooling seems to consist of a contest between the creativity of a few good teachers and the regimentation of what is known as "the system." Against those rare gems of teaching talent is a school system evolved and conditioned to regimentation and conformity, supplanting with lifeless trivia the precious hours needed for sustaining interest and curiosity. And this is hardly a new crisis. History shows that our own public education system was modeled after the 19th century schools of the authoritarian Prussian state. One recipient of such pedagogy was Albert Einstein, who wrote about his own formal education: "One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year . . . . It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to rack and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty." 1 If anything has changed since those times, it is that there are more disconnected trivia and less substance in what must be crammed into one's mind, but just as much duty and coercion, if not more. It has become imperative for parents to become educated and demanding consumers, rather than trusting in the "system" to provide. The search for the creative classroom is every bit as important as selecting good food or good medical care. The uncreative school is easy to recognize. But what kinds of schools actually nurture creativity? Consider a few of the basic requirements of creativity, and you can seek out the more creative environments and avoid the least creative ones. The creative classroom accomplishes two things. First, it provides an atmosphere of respect and the sense of excitement and curiosity in which creative learning and exploration thrive. And second, it succeeds in imparting the basic knowledge and the skills of critical thought and self-discipline which become the raw materials of future creativity. As an example of creativity at work, consider a music conservatory. The successful student must develop mechanical and interpretive skills, and this means practice. Yet, the student's goal is to deliver a soulful and personal interpretation or musical invention. A mechanical performance is not good enough, and neither is a heartfelt attempt that is devoid of skill. Either is a waste of talent and potential creativity. The "creativity" often touted in standard schools is merely spontaneous self-expression, unimpeded by either facts, skills, or discipline. This stage-managed "self-expression" produces a kind of play-acting atmosphere that the students can sense as phony. But, according to the received doctrines of public education, factual knowledge and intellectual skill are either too dull, too difficult, or just plain not relevant to the stimulation of creativity in children. Facts are thus reserved for purposes of the standardized, multiple-choice test, where there is just no time for creativity. Thus, the two vital sides of creativity are sundered artificially. The "educationist" version of teaching is actually the very opposite of creativity as it is described in biographies of innovators. Surprisingly, much of what is true creative work applies across disciplines, personality types, and across all stages of intellectual development and sophistication. A similar sequence of psychological steps is taken in musical performance, mathematical invention, scientific discovery, and solving personal family dilemmas. The same creative process that brings forth inventions and symphonies once produced the insight that words have precise meanings and that "2+2=4." The creative process in adultsThe visible centerpiece of creative work is the moment of insight. Prior to the insight, you face an insoluble problem. You may feel you have bitten off more than you can chew. Following the insight, often the answer is obvious, and you may feel that you ought to have known it all along. It can be said that creative insights are not free, but are rather the mind's repayment for a considerable investment of attention and effort. The painstaking stages of preparation and "incubation" are often forgotten in any climactic breakthrough. The insight itself brings forth such a spontaneous outpouring of perspective that it is easily mistaken for "inspiration" from without. The concert pianist's performance may be an effortless "flow" in the moment, but everyone should respect the unseen work of practicing scales, passages, and interpretations with steady determination, on good days and bad days alike. Certain inner qualities are required for the care and feeding of insight. One must be able to restrain self-critical judgments during the process of "flow" and then be tough enough to test out the results against reality later on. Self-criticism too early on can abort the process. And yet, it is destructive to be too defensive about one's own ideas or to be afraid to test them in the real world. Some lessons for educationJust look at the expression of any child suddenly getting the meaning of a written word for the first time, and you know that insight is part of the birthright of each human being. Indeed, the task of education is not so much to introduce creativity, but to arrange things so that creativity is not extinguished by obligations, drudgery or peer pressure. The analogs of creative innovation certainly apply to the acquisition of language, a creative accomplishment probably unmatched in scope. This mysterious process involves serious-minded concentration, and experimental babbling, followed by more skillful imitation. But quite suddenly there comes an "explosion" of words and meaningful expressions. Obviously, an inner labor has been occurring between the stage of imitative babbling and the amazingly rapid transition into verbal awareness. It happens to everyone, and so the mystery is often taken for granted. It has often been noted that if a child is educated in a voluntary way with reading, the same "explosion" into reading and writing can be observed. Home education advocate John Holt has wondered how quiet the world would be if speech were taught in lessons the way reading is taught today. Unfortunately, the regimented school setting makes it difficult to observe many sudden leaps of progress. Nonetheless, the observant parent or teacher knows the insightful connection that occurs by the universal gleam in the eye, and by the sound of satisfaction peculiar to each temperament. The successful curriculum provides the materials and the means for the child to make painstaking observations and to experience and work out the sudden connections and leaps of understanding. Genuine, voluntary learning requires periods of absorbed dedicated practice, which is punctuated sometimes by playful abandon, and at other times by sudden leaps of skill. The creative teacher must be patient and resist the demand for uniform progress. Above all, the teacher must be observant. That means, at the very least, a measure of time free from interruptions, and certainly free from meaningless busy work. A strong prerequisite is time enough and the freedom to participate with others or not to, depending upon one's private inner processes. Children can grow from taking on deadlines, but they also need a playful rest. Adults too often forget that a child knows when he or she needs solitude and when it is time to have company. Creativity can be inhibited just as much by an unwanted interruption as by neglect. If the creative school is to be measured by its students, then there are several traits worth noting, which ought to be the prime directives of the good school. Their opposites are the warning flags of the uncreative classroom. Reality-centered, not praise-centeredFrom the start of learning a language to the highest abstract accomplishment of a career, the creative thinker and doer is centered upon the subject at hand. While sensitive to other people and their judgments, the creator at work is able to be free of "the good opinions of other people." This is often unfairly mistaken for encouraging "selfishness" and "anti-social" attitudes. Actually, the creator is in it for the process and the results, not for the praise, and a satisfied creativity makes for benevolent social companionship. Conversely, the constant interruptions and frustrations of regimented or chaotic schools help induce the all-too-familiar pathologies of the troubled classroom. Some educators and psychologists have begun to rediscover the need for "intrinsic" motivation, as distinguished from external rewards. Creators may value and enjoy the external rewards, but it is poison for any creator to place the judgment of teachers or customers or sponsors above personal judgment. Additionally, the whole trend in primary school education in this century has been towards relative judgments and away from any objective criteria by which a student could evaluate his or her own work. Educationists have preached that the requirements of objectivity are too harsh and unmotivating, and that children need to be graded "on a curve." Obviously, this idea has been followed to the extreme, and it has placed an intense focus on competition for praise in the form of grades. Indeed, the standard curriculum has been shaped by a deliberate policy of teaching "attitudes" and by grading "effort." Any programs aimed at gifted students or aimed at promoting creativity must swim against the institutional current favoring conformism and destructive competition for scores, grades and praise. By contrast, any creative schooling must have many ways of introducing real tasks, to be measured by real results that the student can understand. Systematic thinking and flexibility of thoughtIf an insight alters one's perspective, it must be because one had attained a perspective to begin with. The painstaking and pleasurable work of mastering one system of thought must be undertaken before the mind can rearrange the elements into a new perspective. Nobody, especially a child, can reorganize the chaos of unconnected trivia into a coherent perspective. The tools of critical thought, of arrangement, proportion, and logic, are the means of building systems of thought, so that one gains enough confidence and flexibility to consider changing ideas. Too many times, the doctrines of educationism have confused the whole process of creativity with the spontaneous expression which happens at the moment of insight. Genuine insight often means overthrowing an established order for the sake of a new and better idea. This may be counterfeited by the anti-intellectual attitude of overthrowing every system before it is built, and then calling the result "creative expression." Thus, the "bull session" theory of teaching. This "open-minded" process has produced many closed minds. Critical thinking and tolerance for error Obviously, creative work requires an ability to distinguish a valid idea from an invalid idea, a poetic phrase that "works" from one that "doesn't work." However, the creative worker cannot afford to moralize about making errors. Errors are part of the process of learning, and it is well to practice welcoming their appearance as part of a larger process of learning. The too-familiar standard recipe of workbooks and multiple choice tests allows for no creative exploration or high-level critical thought. At the same time, educators have become fearful of grading according to facts, for fear of damaging the fragile "self-esteem" of the pupil. They do not seem to acknowledge that fear of making an error is a sign of low self-regard. But both extremes of policy produce the same stifling results: the lesson is taught that an error is something to be feared rather than welcomed. The system makes it so that errors either set you back in your grade, or are too controversial to acknowledge altogether. It would be absurd to suggest that an infant must not be allowed to babble, and equally absurd to suggest that the child saying first words cannot stand to be corrected. Yet, both of these policies are applied to the learning of all sorts of subjects in the schools. In the creative classroom, exploration and experiment are vital, and trial-and-error learning is considered natural. A balance between necessity and playCreativity must not be confused with chaos. Deadlines and self- discipline are part of the equipment of every creative life. However, there must also be time off from obligations. Obviously, an atmosphere of tension and obsessiveness is not optimal for developing enthusiasm. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but constant fear is the enemy of creativity. Eric Hoffer has noted a two-sided aspect of creativity: periods of great invention have often come during times of duress and necessity for a class of educated people. However, many of the most useful of ideas and inventions have arrived during a playful mood. Gunpowder and the compass in China were playthings of the leisured class; the helicopter came from a daVinci toy. For a school to respect both sides of this spectrum, the teacher must be an observer capable of knowing when a child is ready for the challenge of pressure, and when the child is ready for play. If both sides are respected throughout the educational process, the student may grow to seek the best kind of work, involving playfulness and challenge. Recognizing the creative classroomThere is no philosopher's stone for finding creative schools in today's environment, if indeed it was ever easy. Regardless of any advances in computer technology, each child should be considered to have a right to an observant and creative teacher. Certainly the personality of the teacher is important, as is the freedom for the teacher to exercise his or her own creativity in the class. The best indicators are on the faces of the students over time, as distinct from a mere period of excited distraction. By looking and listening often to what the children are saying and doing, the teacher and the parent can gauge the success of education directly. ConclusionsThe nurturing of creativity is a great barometer of quality education, if only because so many good things must happen for creativity to result. Today, parents must begin to exercise their long-neglected rights of choice, knowing that the guarantee of good education cannot be taken for granted. They must look at choices amongst public schools where possible, and consider private schools, and even home schooling where necessary. There is certainly no time to wait for a thaw in the cold war between the school system and the creative intellect: families seek a warmer climate or build their own fires. A creative education need not be expensive. It is here that the schoolmaster's slogan can be repeated: "Expensive education, without the nurturing of creativity, results in ignorance. If each child has a birthright to mental growth, then finding a creative environment is a prime directive of parenting." Barry Schwartz, Ph.D., has taught psychology at New York University, including a graduate course on creativity. He is a research scientist, working as a visiting investigator at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, employing the technology of magnetoencephalography for imaging brain function. He is working on a book about philosophies of education in relation to creativity. Marlene Damon, M.A., has taught psychology at Farleigh Dickinson University in NJ, including a course on Adolescent Growth and Development and Educational Psychology. For 15 years, she had a private practice in New York City as a Marriage and Family Counselor. Marlene is currently writing a book and counseling women on overcoming the effects of emotional and physical abuse. The authors are in the process of creating a new private school in San Diego, which will serve as a prototype for a future network of schools. The authors can be reached at: The New Frontiers Junior Academy, 11835 Carmel Mountain Road, Suite 1304, San Diego, CA 92128. Tel: 619/736-0310 or E-mail bschwartz@pluto.scripps.edu 1. Cited in Separating School and State by Sheldon Richman, The Future of Freedom Foundation, Fairfax, VA, 1994, p 44, quoted from Compulsory Mis-education and The Community of Scholars by Paul Goodman , New York, Vintage Books, 1964, p 6.
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