The mold, he realized, had created a bacteria-free circle around itself. This observation led to the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of penicillin. Creativity isn't always a matter of exceptional talent, either. Most of us have only to look around to see pain, waste, and confusion - and ask if it has to be so. The refusal to take things for granted is the beginning of creative response.
Parents ask why their community has a drug problem.
They get the facts and the reasons for the susceptibility of neighborhood youngsters. With other parents, police, and community resources, they look for positive alternatives. A young person, disturbed by the ill humor of her grandmother, becomes aware of the elderly woman's empty life and helps her find an absorbing hobby. A teacher, dismayed by her students' apathy, re-examines her own methods. She finds new ways to reach the young people, and the class comes alive.