Rule Number One in Creativity is, No Rules. Thomas Edison one of the world’s greatest inventors, once said: “Hell, there are no rules here. We’re trying to accomplish something.” I have yet to enter a school anywhere in the world and see or hear this phrase. On the contrary, every school I’ve ever dealt with maintained “a veritable swamp of rules.” Highly creative people hate rules, because as Edison said, they’re trying to accomplish something new, and rules hold them back from questioning and challenging existing thought. Schools are very places where people are supposed to question and challenge everything. Many professors, however, hate to be questioned. Teaching, like all good communication, is about people connecting with people, yet most universities don’t want their professors to become close to their students. This has nothing to do with education. It’s all about the institution protecting itself against complaints of favoritism. The result is that students learn never to question or challenge the person in power, which they later transfer to their jobs. When it becomes difficult to question existing procedures and habits, it becomes impossible to innovate.