CREATIVITY AND EDUCATION

Creativity is identified as a major aim of education throughout the world. Dewey identified the development of the skill to form proper judgments as a major aim of education, thus, though indirectly, clubbing the two aims. This aim, however, cannot be achieved without a proper organization of educational experience. In traditional schooling- prevailing throughout the developing world, and also in developed countries to a certain extent- educational experience is planned under the sway of behaviorism. Dewey reckons such an organization of experience as defective and insufficient to achieve proper educational aims. This article argues that the development of creativity is closely related to the development of the skill to form proper judgments in different situations. The article also argues that behaviorism , as the philosophy underlying traditional schooling(though it might appear to a few as an anachronism), develops responses in learners through a process that does not significantly improve creative powers. The article also reviews Dewey's position on different relevant issues and concludes , through a discussion on how educational experience should be planned, that Dewey's ideas are really helpful in developing creativity in learners