Stimulating grassroot creativity for quality of life and quality of environment

This paper discusses an experiment on creativity development, a systematic endeavour aimed at empowering teachers and school principals through enhancement of their capacities to introduce and manage change at their schools. It focuses on enabling them to create learning processes and climates that stimulate creativity, especially creativity that enables students to self-help and to care for the environment. The experiment uses universities as 'beach-heads'. A group of university lecturers interested to join the program is functioning as trainer, consultant, motivator, network builder, partner, and facilitator for the teachers. The undertaking applies a multifaceted approach, involving the creation of a sense of urgency to change, restoring self-respect of the teachers. It also includes ways of starting the change from oneself, encouraging small but many practical meaningful activities, process oriented, recognizing efforts, collaborative network, cascading expansion, snowballing effects, self-selection and creating common ownership. This experiment had developed many self-organizing learning communities, inter-related and mutually benefiting in a national network for creativity. The teachers' involvement in creativity activities had brought changes in their attitudes toward students, their profession, environment, and toward change itself.