There is growing evidence that disappointment in public education and its traditional management system has created alternative education systems that are doing a better job of serving the diversities of the student population. The disenchantment of enlightened, serious educators with the prescriptive, bureaucratic nature of much of the educational administrative system has grown since the federal No Child Left Behind regulation. Excellent teachers and administrators have been lost to the system and there is increased sentiment for an updating of formal education. We seem to be at a time when public demand and action for educational change and updating is the only way reform can be accomplished. Here, Berenice Bleedorn provides a collection of twelve articles that are designed to remind the reader of the critical value of creative, critical, systemic, and futuristic thinking in an integrative, interactive global system in the process of radical change. All of our social and political institutions depend upon the capacity of both leadership and followership for complex, fair-minded thinking. The public and enlightened educators within the system need to be the catalyst for the necessary change. They need to understand that strategies and programs for effective learning for a diversity of students are available; that the impetus for such institutional change depends upon their initiative; and new directions need the powerful voice of the informed electorate when positive change is an imperative.

This book will be useful to those seeking information for more effective operations and those committed to serving the learning needs of students.

Some serious thinking persuaded me that the best introduction to this collection of articles would be a reflective statement of my personal journey of academic exploration and discovery. It is a record that accounts for the scope and intensity of my belief system regarding creative education.

From my earliest teaching experience in a Minnesota rural school to a doctorate and university professorship (with a brief detour as consultant with the Minnesota Department of Education) I have had a fascination with the dynamics of student learning and thinking. Studies in Educational Psychology with Dr. E. Paul Torrance at the University of Minnesota in the mid-sixties introduced me to the discipline of Creativity and provided the theoretical base for the intuitive perceptions and practices of Creative Education that had marked my student-oriented teaching style from the beginning. I have been one of those educators described by Harlan Cleveland as “A Reflective Practitioner and A Practical Academic.”

Years of association with creativity programs and institutes, a penchant for independent study, and a sense of mission to provide academic leadership in establishing attention and legitimacy to Creative Studies have led to a thirty-five year history of teaching, lecturing, writing, and educational entrepreneurship in the field of Creativity.

Three major authorities in the understanding of human thought and behavior have had major influences on the ideas in these articles. Dr. E. Paul Torrance became my mentor when I had the privilege of studying with him during his years in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota during the mid-sixties. The intensity of his educational commitment, his pioneering spirit, and his profound respect and encouragement for students became guidelines for all of my professional life. Another constant guide for the understanding of human differences and possibilities has been an early acquaintance with J. P. Guilford and his Model of the Structure of Intellect. His presentation to the American Psychological Association in 1959 opened the doors to the understanding and development of the discipline of Creativity and formed the basis for subsequent work on multi-intelligences by authorities like Howard Gardner and Arnold Skromme. A third major influence on the nature of the articles is the seminal work on leadership by James MacGregor Burns whose ideas I encountered in the process of studies in Leadership and Human Behavior at United States International University in San Diego in 1985. The factor of global dimensionality is drawn from an acquaintance with and admiration for the thinking of Harlan Cleveland, Founder and First Director of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

Since the creative thinking process has application across all disciplines, I became an early advocate for Interdisciplinary Studies and Integrative Education. As an older student and later as a member of university faculties I found other reasons to look for changes in Higher Education programs and practices. Traditional academic emphasis on the behavioristic, quantitative research orientation of the behavioral sciences and years of delay in the official validation of humanistic, qualitative research by behavioral sciences added necessity to a natural curiosity and inclination for independent learning. Years of exploring the serious literature on creativity and related philosophies, along with active involvement in conferences with relevance to creativity provided valuable resources for participating in the evolution of the discipline of creativity.

A natural extension of that discipline is leading to the promotion of the deliberate teaching of other quality thinking processes. Science and technology have been applauded for providing the means for the immediate acquisition of unlimited quantities of information. Now there is a need for the development and practice of higher quality processes of thinking in tune with the global dimensions of a new kind of dynamic, complex world and the challenge of its preservation.

There has been a dramatic increase in the amount of literature and research relating creativity to a variety of issues with connections to studies of human potential and behavior: self-concept, higher consciousness, humor, learning styles, prison populations, brain hemispheric dominance, spirituality, leadership, and much more. My doctoral dissertation was published in 1988 by Peter Lang Inc. with the title, “Creative Leadership for A Global Future: Studies and Speculations.” The research showed that of the talents perceived by educators, business leaders, and college students to be of primary importance for global, futuristic leadership, a majority were not perceived to be adequately addressed in current American educational practices.