Creativity

The study of the creative mind and ways of measuring and increasing creativity emerged as the right mixture of nature and science by the times of post-World War II. The child became a focus for psychological investment in creativity. What was in question, particularly in the United States, was promoting the open-minded citizen in opposition to the authoritarian one. At the same time, creativity became a commodity presented to educators and parents as absolutely necessary.

The Education Department at MOMA was directed by the artist and art educator Victor D'Amico. D'Amico traveled through the United States to know art education programs in schools, and has worked previously in settlement houses in New York. D'Amico also passed time at the Black Mountain College. The Children's Art Carnival and Through the Enchanted Gate were two of the most important and experimental programs he created at MOMA. Both programs started from the conviction that children were naturally creative and should be left free from adult interference to develop their creativity.

Creative acts (acts that give rise to something new) are opposed to reproductive acts (acts that reproduce or repeat, more or less accurately, something that already existed, behavior patterns that had already been mastered, etc.). This ability to imagine and create orients human beings towards the future, something different from what is, towards “creating the future and thus altering his own present” (Vygotsky, 2004, p. 9).

This report is based on presentations made in a Workshop at Estoril Portugal 21st-25th November 1972 organized by CERI in collaboration with the Portuguese Ministry of National Education, and organized by the OECD. By 1972 Portugal was still a dictatorship.
The report aims to "identify contributions and benefits of the school as a focal point for social change". There are six major contributions: