Individualism and creativity at school

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Were you encouraged to be creative and individualistic at school? I mean - when asked questions by teachers, did they expect you to express your opinions concerning a topic freely and sincerely, in other words did they expect you to THINK on your own?

Many times I saw when a teacher asked about students' personal opinions, they started to look at each other like they hoped someone else to answer (even if there wasn't anything like incorrect answer in such cases), hesitating and almost never saying nothing on their own accord. And I didn't notice their opinions were any different from some conventional model of opinions of topics people are generally expected to have. In cases described by me, they simply said something perceived appropriate by public opinion, nothing original or controversial.

Did it look the same in your schools? Maybe what I described is only a specific character of Poland where people are sensitized to differences and everybody is supposed to be like others, to be a part of collective, not to stand out? I don't have experience with foreign schools so maybe it looks differently where you live.

No, everything was black and white at my schools, even in the liberal arts classes.

no, there was no individualism accept for my art class.. that's the only class where you had SOME level of expression.. hence why it was the only good class.

Are there any people who had more pleasant school experiences in this respect?

I saw a good quote in someone's signature that said something along the lines of: "They don't want your opinion, they want their opinion coming from you." That sums up my school.

Any others who would like to comment on this?

I carried individualism and creativity around with me like the plague...and it was barely tolerated most of the time....sometimes I would be assigned special art projects and whatnot...separate from the class..i had several teachers sorta try to mentor me...
It was different once I got into the Gifted and Talented classes in Jr. High...then it was encouraged.

In elementary and junior high, no absolutely not. We were all expected to learn the same lessons from the textbooks and give the same answers. In fact a few times on tests I gave perfectly valid answers which weren't in textbooks and of course the teachers marked them as wrong. It was a very valuable lesson for a little boy: teachers didn't know everything.

My high school was a prep academy and it was run more like a college than a HS. There was a lot of opportunity for being unique and creative, and those traits were desireable and rewarded.

Definatley not. Even in art class, I could never do what I wanted,only what was assigned. I hated it. I even told some of my teachers that I couldn't learn the way stuff was being taught, that I couldn't function properly like this, I always got shot down.

I always hated this attitude in school. Just phrasing an answer differently was enough to get it wrong with some teachers. Since leaving I have found out that many were afraid to stray from the acceptable path because they would have been fired.

I used to draw on my arm during class and I had to prove several times that I knew more than the teacher before he left me alone. I think he was just trying to avoid being embarrassed.

In the religion class in high class I had a teacher who was encouraging discussions in class and said to students to think for themselfs. Not sure if he really do encouraged the students to think for themselfs as I pretty much had the same way to see things as him. In CEGEP the class of philosophy generally encourage students to think and there is a lot of discussions in them.
For most of my school course I can't say, arimethics and maths are not things in which you give your opinion after all...

I had some teachers like that but I don't think I ever gave an opinion. I think most schools try to teach "to the test" now in order to get the highest national exam rankings.

Anyone else has anything else to add after all those years?

It really depended on the school and on the teacher for me.

At my elementary school (at least, the one I went to from 2nd to 6th grade), asking questions was generally wholeheartedly encouraged--except for in 4th grade, where my teacher often got very upset about it. One notable example was her becoming angry at the entire class when we all corrected her on the shape of an average American stop sign (she was rather insistent that they were hexagonal; we, of course, knew better!).

Everything after elementary school has been a crapshoot. I've had some teachers who encouraged creative thinking and new ideas, and some who seemed to believe that everything was black-and-white. I'd say it was about a fifty-fifty split overall.