There is no more totalitarian experience than traditional schooling. And No Child Left Behind legislation has reinforced this totalitarianism:

• Classroom rows and aisles;
• Teacher talk—students listen!
• Drill and skill!
• Memorization!
• Testing facts!

We could go on but there is no new learning in further castigating the concept of “totalitarianism as the source of freedom-building.”

The real purpose of presenting the phases of The Thinking Wars is this: People who have achieved a level of “bureaucratic intelligence” by coming through such a debilitating experience as schooling have no right to define the freedom-building experiences for future generations!

The processes that empower or enable us to accomplish The Freedom Functions are The Generative Thinking Processes or Possibilities Thinking Systems:

• Relating Systems that enable people to receive and negotiate images of information;
• Representing Systems that enable people to represent elevating images of information;
• Reasoning Systems that enable people to generate improved images of operational initiatives.

Together, these processes define the Generative Thinking Processes necessary to enable other Components to achieve The Freedom Functions.

We may view the levels of Generative Thinking for youth in Figure 2. As may be noted, in 2000, the youth of the U.S. rate variably on the Generative Thinking Systems:

• Merging-driven or consensus levels of images of information (Level 4);
• Systems-driven levels of representing images of information (Level 2);
• Action-driven levels of reasoning with images of information (Level 4).

Together, The Generative Thinking Processes are calculated to enable the achievement of The Freedom Functions. Unfortunately, the limitations of Systems Representing inhibit Reasoning from achieving the highest levels of Operational Initiative.

Figure 2. Levels of Generative Thinking Processes (2000)