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     * creativity involves knowing where those boxes are drawn and consciously searching outside them when necessary
+In one of my senior-level computer science courses, the professor, Dr. D, presented us with a toy problem. Several students offered solutions, but again and again Dr. D found them wanting. I no longer remember the exact exercise, but I do recall that its most elegant solution required ternary reasoning---three-state logic---whereas the students' suggestions were all focused on binary reasoning. Dr. D then briefly lamented the ways that education destroys the creativity of its students before continuing with the lesson. Another professor, Dr. J, was also in the classroom that day. The way Dr. D seemed to write off the students' abilities bothered him enough that he referenced the incident obliquely in a later speech. Even though they had failed to notice the cleanest solution, he argued, the students had nevertheless displayed great creativity in their proposals. The educator's job is to nurture that creativity, not downplay it. (This wasn't meant to be a brutal takedown of Dr. D. He never named names, and it's possible that I was the only other person out of a few hundred in the room who knew the situation he was discussing.)
+In thinking about this contrast over the past several years, I ultimately have to agree with both and with neither. I do believe Dr. D was responding to a genuine phenomenon even as I share Dr. J's distaste for his language.