Learning, at heart, is unfolding ourselves.

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What is the Personal Creed Project?

A learning experience for anyone prepared to be transformed by discovering what they value.

An extended period of reflecting on your life to understand who you’ve been and who you now wish to become

A culminating moment when you share with a community of your choice your new understanding of who you are and the difference you want to make in other’s lives

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What is the Personal Creed Org?

A multigenerational team of students and educators committed to supporting self-discovery.

We make the Personal Creed experience available to individuals and support students and educators in schools and districts.

We host weekly discussions, monthly community meetings and offer other interactive gatherings online and in person.

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What are some benefits

of the Creed Project?

clearer sense of identity

and purpose

greater capacity

to contribute

habits of regular

reflection

deepened experience

of learning

What Students Say

I think this project made it clear for many students that they had a past, they have a present, and that they will have a future. It has gotten rid of that part of me that was unsure and skeptical about my future.

Shabnam Baigzad

(c/o 2010)

I have never thought of myself as actually someone until the creed project defined who I really was; it gave me a meaning, a purpose.

Marvin Nugyen

(c/o 2014)

In much the same way that a staircase makes climbing a wall easier but still forces a person to do all the climbing himself, the Creed Project gives students a systematic path outlining the topics on which the student should reflect without sacrificing the student independence required for honest reflection.

Sujay Kazi

(c/o 2017)

Recognition

Awards

James Moffett Memorial Award for Teacher Research
(National Council of Teachers of English / National Writing Project, 2001)

Dorothy Wright Award for Outstanding High School Teachers
(San Jose State University, 2018/2015/2005)

Outstanding American Teachers Award
(National Honor Roll 2007/2006)

Accolades

In an era when education policy makers’ only creed seems to be that testing leads to greater learning, John Creger’s Personal Creed Project challenges students to develop their own creed and then follow it.
Jim Burke, author of The English Teacher’s Companion

Several of my National Writing Project fellows use the Personal Creed Project, and their students pursue it with deep joy.
Jeff Wilhelm, professor of English education, Boise State University, Director, Boise Writing Project, author of You Gotta BE the Book

Four Reasons Educators Should Explore the Personal Creed Project

1) 30 years of classroom research to understand the remarkably consistent enthusiasm for the Creed experience from learners across the spectrum points to an expanded understanding of what learning is and how to engage it.

2) This fuller understanding, shown in a Model of Deepened Learning, makes clear that our current ideas about curriculum are based on an incomplete notion of learning, and explains why school mostly fails to engage and nourish young people.

3) Experiments in balancing today’s mostly academic curriculum by also meeting students’ developmental needs promise a new depth of engaged learning. In piloting this change, a Two-Legged approach is proving useful.

4) Once we can effectively expand and deepen curricula to reflect a more complete understanding of learning, classroom research suggests our students will also experience improved mental and emotional health.

Training available for schools and districts ready to explore a promising new direction in education.

available trainings