Introduction to  An Education Track for Creativity and Other Quality Thinking Processes

By Berenice D. Bleedorn, Ph.D.

A Personal Reflection

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.

Connections

Studies at an international university and constant contacts with students from all over the world opened doors of perception in my thinking and in relationships with global and futuristic trends. Connections to an already established focus on creative studies are continuing to emerge The fact is becoming increasingly obvious that the diversity of humans and human affairs in the “Global Village” are irrevocably interconnected and interdependent. I have come to believe that the dynamics of a radically changing planetary family demand a new level of systemic, visionary thinking on the part of both leadership and followership.

As a teacher of Creative Studies and Futures Studies in both Graduate Education and Business/Entrepreneurship Departments, and later as lecturer/trainer in Creative Studies for the business community, I became aware of the need for stronger relationships and connections between the institution of education and the “real world” of business. The case for their mutual interest in the “creative force” becomes clear in my 1998 publication, "The Creativity Force in Education, Business, and Beyond: An Urgent Message."

Schools have always had a responsibility to prepare citizens in a democracy to participate and contribute to the common good as well as to their own personal growth and development. Recognizing and cultivating creative thinking and problem-solving talents, along with other higher quality thinking processes should be an essential part of the current public and political attention to educational reform.

Institutions and organizations are all best served with habits of thought connected to the creative process as it relates to high capability thinking, including : systemic thought, integrative thought, vision, the unity of diversities, paradoxical thought and transformation. Membership in a number of these organizations is a constant reminder of their relationship to processes of quality thinking, among them: The World Future Society, Global Education Associates, United Nations Chapter, Creative Education Foundation, World Peace Movement, Environmental Organizations, et. al.

The ideals of peace and justice in the world, the quality of life, and maybe even the survival of our planetary home depend upon the evolution of the brain mind to higher, more complex levels. Schools everywhere have an obligation to add specific attention to quality thinking in official curricula at all levels.

A Collection

The articles collected here represent a variety of perspectives, most of which argue for a more serious academic attention on the part of educators everywhere to the discipline of creativity and the teaching of creativity and other quality thinking processes up, down, and sideways in school programs. The scope of my interests in the application of creativity concepts has been broad. The articles in the collection reflect that scope. There has been no special effort made to follow a standard pattern in the nature and focus of the individual articles. Rather, they represent a somewhat random reminder of the broad diversity of human experience that depends upon the thinking and the collective wisdom of everyone involved.

It will be noted that there is little consistency in the time frame of the articles. In some cases there is clear evidence that arguments and efforts for educational change made earlier have had a limited measure of attention in official academe. The facts continue to apply. Application of theories and practices advanced by early authorities like Torrance, Guilford, Burns, and Cleveland are more likely to depend upon dedicated scholars and advocates than on the established hierarchical system of traditional leadership.

Purpose and Audience

Conversations with serious educators at all levels, as well as with serious thinkers throughout society find ready agreement with the idea that everyone has individual learning needs, a natural urge to learn, to grow, to enhance oneself, and a hope to be recognized for some special talent. Large, inflexible, tightly organized and categorized systems of management make little allowance for student diversities and freedom of thought. The basic purpose of this collection of readings is threefold:

1. To argue for the fact that if educators are serious about reform related to the dynamically changing nature of the times, they will teach in ways that recognize and cultivate the highest thinking capability of all students, both in the student’s own personal behalf and as an unlimited intellectual resource critical for human capacities to meet the challenges of social change and the preservation of our planetary home.

2. To rally the educational and social forces that will grant to every learner the right to understand instead of simply to learn; to be perceived as an individual with distinct learning and thinking styles, with an individual place within the context of developmental stage theory as advanced early on by Gowan (1972) and Piaget (1950); and especially the right and freedom to think independently, and to have his ideas heard and respected. A just society requires that this right be protected.

3. To remind the reader that the deliberate teaching of thinking processes does not preclude the traditional teaching of content and basic skills. In fact the art of creative and related thinking processes enhances the internalization and motivation for all of learning. The integration can be described as, “learning to think; thinking to learn.”

The hope and expectation for this collection is that the diversity and interrelatedness of ideas in the articles will find a readership, both public and academic, in agreement with the essence of the message. Harlan Cleveland, former director and founder of the Humphrey Institute for Reflective Leadership at the University of Minnesota has often suggested that change generally comes not so much from top, official places, but “bubbles up” from the bottom. There is growing evidence that the population concerned with the education of children and youth and with effective leadership for a new and challenging kind of interrelated world –educators, parents, public officials and world leaders –all are ready for new ways of thinking about what we teach and how we teach it.

Summary

The human family is on the brink of major shifts. The new directions depend upon the attitudes, values, and combined thinking of both designated and undesignated leaders. The first step in change is awareness. These essays are designed to make clear the facts that:

• The creativity force is present or dormant in all humans to some degree. Pressures of standardized, conforming forces in education and society have caused the urge for creative expression to become silenced for many students and citizens. The potential for its development remains.

• The human brain/mind is the most powerful resource available for managing a society in transition. Its growth and possibilities are unlimited. Thinking processes need to be better recognized, understood, and developed in institutionalized learning.

• The academic discipline of Creative Studies teaches the understanding of creative persons, the creative process, the creative product, and creative press (environment for the encouragement of creative expression.)

• Studies of Creativity lead naturally to the teaching of other quality thinking processes (critical thinking, problem-solving, recognizing relationships, awareness of systems and one’s place within the “big picture”, integrative thinking, a capacity for vision and having some time reality in the future, the art of paradoxical thinking and more.)

• Students, citizens, and their institutions are all in need of new patterns of thinking for meeting the challenges of change. Education at all levels, including Higher Education, and especially Teacher Education Departments would do well to start at the top of the established learning ladder and make the paradigm shift to adding the teaching of quality thinking processes to the traditional diet of learning, remembering, and finding the “right answer” which may no longer be the best answer for an integrated planetary family in transition.

It is time to acknowledge the educational experience as a process that results in more than certification for a better job and greater income and status. It is time for all of society to perceive the years of institutionalized learning to be a preparation time for individuals to develop their natural intellectual talents as a base for lifetime learning. Further, it is a time for the cultivation of high capability, quality, complex thinking as a contributing member of the human family. William James reminded us: “Of all the creatures of earth, only human beings can change their patterns. Man alone is the architect of his destiny…Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.”

Chapters include: