Updated 2nd Draft

Here's the most recent draft of my research paper. I have focused the paper more on the importance of creativity in the classroom, rather than just on the 4 educators and their techniques.

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. It is my contention that creativity needs to be returned to its rightful place in the classroom, as it has been shown to lead to greater academic and personal success, in contrast to the current educational system which has led to academic stagnation and the suppression of creativity. Education should in fact encourage students to be creative, yet it is often just a vehicle to turn creative children into conforming adults, with the cost being the loss of our inquisitive and creative natures.

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. The government administrators in charge of education were greatly influenced by the Industrial Revolution and the concepts that came from it, such as the assembly line method, in which an item is moved down an assembly line with each worker on responsible only for his specific task. In the educational system, the child would be passed down the assembly line, with the educators doing only what they were tasked to do. The focus of these educators 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, the administrators began looking for a way to streamline the educational system, making vast budget cuts to those departments and subjects which would not directly prepare the students for entry into the work force.

Prior to World War II, they were a few progressives who began to voice their disenchantment with the current educational system. This number began to grow exponentially during the cultural revolution of the 1960s. The United States in the 1960s was going through a cultural shift in which young people began embracing Eastern philosophies and new age teachings as a way to open their minds to their creative forces. During this change in the culture, there arose a group of educators who began to question the current system and started to develop ideas to innovate and revolutionize the classroom experience and bring creativity back to the forefront of education. As noted psychologist Jean Piaget states, “The principle goal of education is to create students who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done - students who are creative, inventive and discoverers”(Piaget 247). The changes brought upon by this new generation of teachers opened the door to radical thought and discourse in the classroom which allowed educators to experiment with new teaching techniques, such as the incorporation of meditation, that would not only prepare students academically but would challenge them by bringing out their long stifled creativity.

In the field of English education, one educator stands out for his visionary take on teaching writing, by emphasizing creativity in the classroom. Author and teacher James Moffett was and is still regarded as a revolutionary guiding force in writing and language arts education for his new age approach to what had become a subject devoid of creativity as it had become focused strictly on meeting basic writing requirements. As Moffett himself states in the preface of his book Active Voices, “Originality is the essence of true scholarship. Creativity is the soul of the true scholar”(Moffett 4). His work influenced teachers not only of his generation but also those that followed, and led to many innovations in the field of teaching writing. His ideas differed greatly from the previous ideology of focusing on spelling, grammar, and formatted composition writing such as the 5 paragraph theme. Moffett's 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 radically new in the educational field. These concepts so impressed and inspired English teachers and professors that when introduced by Moffett, mimeograph copies of his curricula were secretly made and distributed within the circle of English and language arts educators.