Educating the Creative Imagination: A Course Design and its Consequences

The description of the curriculum of a university course designed to engage the deep structure of the creative process. First presented in 1984, the course has been given to fine arts majors and candidates for the B.Ed. and M.Ed. degrees. The curriculum is summarized in twelve concepts and then described under the topics “Primordial Images,” “Personality Type and Creativeness,” “The Cycle of the Creative Process,” “Enter the Masks,” and “The Ritual Process and Community.” The responses of students indicate that the course filled a deeply felt need for learning the language of mythos. The consequences included the formation of an ongoing community that has stayed together for ten years, gives public shows of artwork, and provides workshops on creativity to school children and adults.