The California Homeopath
Journal of the California Homeopathic Medical Society

Introduction

My original reason for becoming an academic was because I believed inquiry was a creative and transformative process (Montuori, 2008). Most of my educational experiences unfortunately did not seem to reflect that principle. With a few exceptions, most of my education was spent in environments that viewed education as a memorization and regurgitation. When I began to explore alternative approaches to education, it soon became clear that they often simply valued the opposite of the traditional approaches.  In this paper I discuss two educational models; the "Reproductive" and the "Narcissistic," and propose an alternative I call "Creative Inquiry" (Montuori, 1989, 1998, 2003, 2005a, 2005b, 2006). In Creative Inquiry the goal is to honor the passion, creativity, and transformative process that can be a central part of inquiry. Creative Inquiry views the academic as transformative, and the transformative as grounded in the academic.

By "Reproductive" I mean an approach to education that sees the source of knowledge as almost exclusively outside the knower, and focuses almost exclusively on the accurate reproduction of that knowledge by the knower. It is about reproducing the content one has received; reproducing the disciplinary organization, instructional pedagogy, and power structures that generates this knowledge; reproducing the standard, accepted ways of conducting inquiry; reproducing the societal/industrial expectations for what a good member of the workforce is; reproducing the existing social and academic order.

Narcissistic Education emerges as an important corrective to the dry, limited view of traditional Reproductive Education. But if in the process it rejects high academic standards, if it does not involve dialogue with the larger scholarly community, if it is not grounded in the literature, if it is not open to challenge and critique, if it defies the laws of science and common sense, we end up with a narcissistic world of navel-gazing that adds little if anything of value to the field, "process" replaces "content," and an entirely new set of oppositions is created.

Creative Inquiry is designed to integrate the best of traditional scholarly inquiry and also expand what we mean by education and inquiry by including an ongoing process of self-inquiry that recognizes the role of the knower in inquiry. Creative Inquiry in the educational process is not merely an accumulation of facts and figures, the development of an academic specialization and expertise in a given topic, but can also be an opportunity to transform oneself, one's world, and the process of inquiry itself.

By Creative Inquiry I mean an approach that views inquiry as a creative process. Creativity offers an important entry point into alternative approaches to education for a number of other reasons. Students coming to alternative programs are looking for an opportunity, I believe, to do creative work. By this I mean that they want to do work that makes a contribution, and is not just a vermiform appendix to their advisor's research agenda. They want to do this work in a way that is exciting, in a way that leads them to understand themselves and the world anew. They want knowledge and self-knowledge, and the opportunity to develop and express a unique viewpoint that reflects their passion and commitment. This is precisely what they feel Reproductive education denies them. Having set these lofty and admirable goals, we must now explore ways o f achieving them.

By Alfonso Montuori

Alfonso Montuori, PhD, is a graduate of the University of London. He has been Distinguished Professor in the School of Fine Arts at Miami University of Ohio, and from 1985 to 1986 he taught at the Central South University in China. As principal of Evolutionary Strategies, a consulting firm specializing in executive development and the development of creativity and innovation, Alfonso has consulted on executive and management development, and creativity and innovation, with numerous international corporations, including Procter & Gamble, Network Appliance, Training Vision (Singapore), Pacific Bell, Stentor Group (Canada), Kaiser Permanente, Interstate Insurance, Omnitel-Olivetti (Italy), ENEL (Italy). Alfonso Montuori is Professor and Department Chair of the Transformative Studies Ph.D. and Transformative Leadership M.A. at California Institute of Integral Studies. A graduate of the University of London, he is the author of several books and numerous articles on creativity and improvisation, complexity, and education.