In his 2006 speech at the annual TED conference, Sir Ken Robinson expressed the notion that “creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status” (2006). Throughout the history of education in the Western world, the focus has been on standardized, regimented teaching methods, allowing for rote memorization and regurgitation while actively neglecting the importance of creativity in the classroom. In the mid to late 20th Century, there came to be a new generation of educators who came up with innovative and revolutionary educational theories and techniques, which placed an emphasis on fostering creativity and looking for new ways to teach students the basic subjects such as language arts, mathematics and the sciences. This paper will focus on four key educators and their contributions to the modern educational landscape: James Moffett, Paulo Freire, Jaime Escalante and Geoffrey Canada. It will examine the innovations made by each of these pioneers and illustrate how their implementation has lead to greater academic and personal success, in contrast to the archaic educational system it was preceded by, which led to academic stagnation and the suppression of creativity.
The educational system found in the Western world during the early 20th Century was based on the belief that standardization and regimentation would lead to greater academic success while creating a more efficient teaching corps. Those in charge of children's education were greatly influenced by the Industrial Revolution and the successes that sprung from concepts such as the assembly line method. The focus of education was on preparing students for careers, either in the managerial and clerical sides of manufacturing or to have enough knowledge to enter the labor force with the ability to read, act professionally, and take direction well. There was no room for creativity and the study of the creative subjects such as art and music were seen as being frivolous expenditures. Once education became compulsory, administrators began looking for a way to streamline the educational system, making budget cuts first to those departments and subject which would not directly prepare the students for entry into the work force.
Prior to the World War II, they were a few progressives who began to voice their disenchantment with the current educational system. Prominent educators such as John Dewey, of the University of Chicago, attempted to make profound changes to the system, with varying degrees of success. However, after the war, the country once again became quite conservative and this filtered down into the educational system as well. A prominent school of thought, known as the administrative progressives came into power in the formation of the American educational system. They believed in a centralized, bureaucratic system in which control was stripped from the local school boards and granted to larger bodies often in charge of entire cities and regions. A hierarchy was established in which even these regional bodies had to answer to bureaucrats on the state and federal levels. The administrative progressives are responsible for many features of modern American education, especially high schools: career counseling programs, the move from many small local high schools to large centralized high schools, rigid curricula focusing on grammar, reading and rudimentary arithmetic and other forms of standardization. It can be argued that these so called “progressive” reformers replaced a varied and often times challenging liberal arts curriculum with ever-lower standards and indoctrination, particularly in inner-city schools, which thereby prevented the great majority of students from achieving their full potential.
During the cultural revolution of the 1960s, many educators began to question the system and started to develop ideas to innovate and revolutionize education. Many of the implemented reforms in the United States education system stemmed from the Civil Rights Movement and other social issues at the time including the end of racial segregation, the introduction of affirmative action, and banning of school prayer. These changes opened the door to radical thought in the classroom and allowed for educators to experiment with new teaching techniques that would not only prepare students academically but would challenge them and bring out their creativity to the forefront. We will begin to explore these educators and the profound and lasting effect their methods and theories have had on the American educational system.
In the field of writing, one educator stands out for his visionary approach to turning the world of English education on its head and building the foundation for the teaching methods employed today. Author and educator James Moffett revolutionized writing and language arts education for elementary, secondary and higher learning institutions. His work influenced teaching and led to many innovations in the educational field of teaching writing. Moffett's ideas differed greatly from the previous ideology of focusing on spelling, grammar, and formatted composition writing such as the 5 paragraph theme. Concepts such as the four levels of discourse, a focus on discourse in the writing process, inner speech vs outer speech, and incorporating meditation into the writing process were new to the educational field and impressed and inspired English teachers and professors when introduced by Moffett.
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