Rider University - Shadow Yearbook (Lawrenceville, NJ)

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the multidimensional, continuously accelerating modern human situation? To keep these questions from sliding back into the mythical context demands a rigorous yet imaginative log- ical technique of proposing hypothetical models and in- vestigating their implications both conceptually and fact- ually, while at the same time impartially accepting a wide base of actual occurrences as stimuli for the devel- opment and correction of the models. Emphasis on the first half alone, that of the speculative determination of solutions without the feedback from events, runs the risk of producing wholly theoretical answers that can be- come operative only under ideal conditions but cannot be put into practice in the historical setting. Emphasis on the second half alone promotes a directionless, short range solution for each immediate problem that arises with no anticipation of the ramifications of any one solu- tion on any other. The art of combining these two ap- proaches in any situation and to any subject that presents a problem for human decision making is itself a working definition of what an educated person should be able to do. It comes quite close to what John Dewey, the often mentioned but rarely appreciated American philos- opher, proposed as a pragmatic definition of education. Shifting attention from degrees to deeds, from paper credentials to demonstrations of working knowledge, from calculations of how much can l earn to projec- igfgg . tions of how much can I serve, would bring our educa- tional values out of the mythic stage and initiate a re- examination of our understanding of ourselves, our cul- ture, our condition. As long as the myth persists and pro- grams and procedures pay more attention to surface fea- tures than to basic assumptions, the pragmatic meaning of success will tend to be what the Peter Principle sug- gests it is-to advance to the level of your own in- competence. W by Donald B. Veix, Asst. Prof. of Education How can our schools capitalize on their most valuable resources, the potential creativity of their students? One must first recognize C13 the necessity for encouraging creativity C25 the nature of the creative student and his frustrations in the normal educational setting and C35 the fact that there are ways to encourage creativity. Creativity should be taught fsemanticists take warning, taught j because it occupies several factors in Guil- ford's structure of intellect. Intellect is, after all, the school's province. Thus, originality and flexibility should be encouraged, as well as more commonly recognized factors. ln a world where mass culture mass noise press in from all sides, the divergent thinker must be encour- aged for society's sake. ln all the logical fury he stands forth irritating, illogical and refreshing. As long ago as the 1840's Thoreau fled a Manhattan of 500,000 ex- claiming, There is a danger that a child growing up in such an environment would think of man as a herd. What is the creative student like? He is a mixture of lQ intelligence and creativity in varying high-low com- binations, according to Getzels and Jackson. He prob- ably drops in creativity in the fourth and seventh grades and climbs from the sandbox thereafter. He or she is in college if he is a good mix of intelligence and cre- ativity. However, according to Paul Torrance, the drop- out rate of high creatives in high school is far higher than that of high intelligences. He or she is humorous, self- starting, obsessed with truth and with the Ancient Mari- ner's necessity to tell his truths, playful and often irritat- ing in the normal classroom setting in both elementary and secondary school. In college, if he's made it, he's learned from many of his peers and teachers to keep his mouth shut and graduate. His divergent ideas are, after all, not the stuff that objective tests are made of. Thus his ideas are not rewarded on a convergent scale and he learns. The learner from elementary to graduate school is a product of educational evolution, a PARVACLET- REM: part parrot, part vacuum cleaner, part tape rec- order, part man. Creatives can be identified. Peer group identification is one of the quickest ways for a classroom teacher as well as interpretation of pictures. Everyone is creative to a de- gree just as everyone possesses IQ intelligence to some degree. Schools could identify thorrible wordj their cre- ative-intelligence mixes both among their faculty and stu- dent bodies and go from there. Creative environments could be blended into the schools. Creativity can be taught. Pre-conditions for creative 15

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A ' by Dr. Sandra S. Walther, Asst. Prof of Philosophy The College Degree is the last decade's contribution to the American Dream, our cultural vision of the Good Life. Its mythic quality is evidenced by the manner in which it is marketed in commercials by banks and insurance companies as something every self-respecting parent must provide for his children, as unquestioned a social and personal necessity as kissing sweet breath. The sweet smell of success, the myth implies, will be enjoyed only by those who possess the right toothpaste, the right deodorant and the right degree. Thus, students become customers for educations they do not really want and Colleges and Universities measure their own value in terms of the numbers of degrees produced and the aver- age salary of their alumni. Myths survive as long as they continue to have prag- matic value-that is, as long as they are supported by the behavior of a community of believers. ln this case, the connection between the paper credentials of the educa- tion process Cie., the transcript and the diplomaj and the Good Life is sustained as long as the economic system does in fact show the preference to the possessors of the proper papers. Presently, on the whole, it seems to still manage to do so but there are disquieting lapses. For example, in 1969, there was a glut on the labor market of graduates in such fields as chemistry, engineering and mathematics, as well as in the more esoteric fields of lan- guage study and philosophy. More significantly, public reaction to the recent ten- sions within academic institutions suggests that, al- though a degree may still be a socially approved com- 14 modity, the professional staffs of institutions of higher education are viewed with a mixture of alarm, suspicion and contempt. How long will it take for those attitudes to be transferred to the Product-the degree itself? If that were to happen, some Colleges and Universities might quite literally be forced out of business. Pressures are being exerted on the educational pro- cess from all sides-from those previously excluded who want to get in the system, from those within who want a variety of reforms, from alumni who want the old forms preserved, from the community demanding attention and respect for its concerns. Nature itself has served notice that our insensitivity to the role we play in shaping our environment is no longer tenable. These pressures are forcing a re-examination of present procedures, assump- tions, purposes and priorities. And the problems of pol- lution, overcrowding and depletion of resources cannot be solved by rhetoric, diplomacy or repression, although these techniques may still appear to work in other prob- lem areas. All these factors indicate to me a vital need to dis- tinguish the outward appearances and accidental fea- tures of our entire orientation to education from the sub- stantive considerations, which to my mind boil down to this point: What is an educated person able to do? . And that question must be tied to the consideration of the realities of the situation-what needs to be done. What kinds of intelligence do we need to solve the prob- lems we have? What methods, what experiences, what attitudes do individuals need to operate meaningfully in

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products have been identified wherever the products oc- cur. They are preparation, both direct and indirect, plateaug moment of insight, and refining. Direct prepara- tion, the accumulation of raw material and refining Cre- writingy consist of almost all of our schools' teaching now. But there is indirect preparation, the seemingly un- related experiences that are significant in creative pro- duction. Einstein studied mathematics but also read Dos- toevsky before discovering relativity. Morse was a graduate engineer but also a recognized painter before the telegraph was wrought What of the plateaus, the several incubation periods that occur, the subconscious Melvillian seas that spawn the feminine births? Aimless walks, play, relaxing, intoxication of the senses are all a if if Q W' . '+ lf, est? ,, H3 V' I, 11515 l l , 5 V ipuxcjai A i ' V CP ,ma !i1' .. F ' it 4, l l A i l W' ,IQ - 2-. , , A 16 - .JB MJD' part ofthis. There are times in our school experience where the thinking and logical must be balanced by the non-think- ing and intuitive. A quiet little 10th grade girl once replied to my final exam question, How could you make our classroom more creative? She wrote of a giant milk bottle filled with pillows and suffused with music and light of varying colors. One subject was Love and, in this class, as success or failure occurred, lights and music ebbed and flowed. Suppose a non-Skinnerian box. The student reclines below an open top. One, two, three sides fall. Remaining is a platform from which the learner floats. SQ 'YE nv , ixX A - Fbilafu,