Comments on how traditional education promotes conformity and stifles creativity, on the history of humans' relationship with nature, on depleted energy capital, and on solar power and other alternate energy resources. Includes a poem on youth, flowers, and learning. (MH)

Our culture enforces compliance and obedience in all its institutions and at every level. These institutions systematically discourage independent thought or unconventional action. Schools can play an important role in educating strong, independent thinkers. Teachers should act to reward creative disobedience and to discourage conformity. (JN)

Argues that advocates of content-based art education and other art educators attempting to move art to a central place in the school curriculum are struggling against unrecognized social realities. Concludes that competing value structures of creativity versus acquiescence and originality versus conformity are responsible. (CFR)

Published in 1949, chapter 1 of a book by the Stelton Modern School's coprincipal discusses the natural self-directed development of creativity and intellect in children. This process is thwarted and wasted by conventional schooling's emphasis on conformity, discipline, and uniform structured activities that have no relevance to the individual…

This article traces the demise of creativity in the national curriculum in England and Wales. It is argued that the creative dimension in the national curriculum has been purged by various government directives since the Ruskin speech in 1976, all aiming to introduce provisions of standardisation, centralisation, and vocationalisation of…

The balance between conformity to state standards and creativity in providing for individual differences in the classroom is discussed. With the current emphases on accountability and standards, learning opportunities for students are supposed to be aligned with state-mandated objectives. This may lead to a situation in which rote learning,…

The paper examines the nature of creativity and blockages to its expression especially in home and school settings in South Africa. A definition of creativity is offered which stresses the production of an original outcome or achievement. The creative process is broken down into the steps of preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification.…

Two analogies illustrate differences in educational philosophy: the child as clay to be molded by teachers to conform to predetermined standards, and the child as a flower, tended by the teacher so that it may blossom in its own way. Case studies of delinquent children have shown that some children are able draw upon inner resources and…

Richard Lewis, founder and director of the Touchstone Center (New York City), discusses how the move toward national education standards works against individualism and expressive learning. He suggests that teachers get so involved in meeting standards and goals that they fail to obey the natural laws of learning. (LP)

This article, based largely on participant observation by a British 18-year-old schoolgirl, considers forces that crush creativity in teenagers, including pressures at school, at home, and by peers. The article shows how teenagers whose creativity has been crushed then humiliate and crush the creativity of other teenagers. Mentoring is seen as one…

The conflict between Samoan culture and the development of creativity among Samoan students is examined. Creativity is defined as the process of sensing gaps, finding a means of effecting closure, and formulating hypotheses to eventually produce a novel product. The greater the pressure to conform, however, no matter what the source, the fewer the…