EDUCATION AND CREATIVITY

 

If we don’t allow creativity, we will keep stagnating. 

Education is derived from the word ‘educare’ meaning to bring up. ‘Educere’ which is the bring out, ‘bring forth what is within. It is bringing out potential and ducere means to lead. It is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character, or physical ability of an individual. Many scholars have defined Education as the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills, and values from one generation to another.

Therefore, to educate refers to “developing the knowledge, skill, character of…” and so we can assume that the purpose of Education is to develop the knowledge, skill, or character of a learner.

Socrates argued that educational success is to rouse people to be fine and good in human civic virtues. He argued that education should be about drawing out what was already within the learner. This implies that education does not bring a new thing in a learner but rather identifies and grows what that is within the learner. The sophists viewed education as the provision of a skill to the learner. Many modern educationists view education in terms of; a) institutional instructions given to learners in schools, colleges, and universities, and b) a pedagogical science studied by the students of Education.

The questions remain; what purpose is education? What should one expect after going through the process of education? When I was in form six I had a conversation with then friends based on these questions. Why are we at school? Many of their answers surrounded the narrative of getting rich as if there was immediate revenue for being educated. Though my knowledge of the subject matter was not that much, I insisted that we were in school to attain a skill that I would use to get rich. I thought like the sophists. Obtain the skill, go and use it to achieve whatever one wants.

According to Noam Chomsky a renowned Educator at Massachusetts Centre of Technology education is meant for helping people to prepare themselves to learn on their own. It is also meant for indoctrination. These two purposes show us that Education is used as a tool which implies that it creates a mindset. This mindset is either positive or negative. It can build and it can destroy. When one is equipped with a skill and cannot think outside the box, we say that the person is indoctrinated. However, education as a whole is supposed to give one a chance to create something bigger than that that they have learned. So, in my own view, indoctrination should not be considered as a form of education though it is much used in African schools. An educated person must be able to know, think outside the box, and create a new idea.

It is clearly known by all philosophers that, Aristotle was a student of Plato; Plato was a student of Socrates. Aristotle came up with a philosophy of realism while Plato taught him the philosophy of rationalism. What if Plato forced Aristotle to think like him would we have had the philosophy of realism? Albert Einstein who was a learner of a teacher in class is considered one of the most intelligent men in the world; imagine he also had a teacher. He said, “All beings are intelligent, but if you judge a fish’s intelligence by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend the rest of its life thinking that it’s a fool.”  Learners have different innate natures within them as individuals. We ought not to confine them in a small world we as teachers regard as the truth.

Education should be a praxis of making oneself conscious and fully known. Gnōthi seauton is a Greek aphorism inscribed at the temple which translates as “know thyself” and is very paramount dictum for those learning and those teaching. It is in knowing themselves that one attains the highest form of education. We have seen many people who should have been good orators fidgeting around with engineering and those who should have been great engineers fidgeting with journalism. The despondent reason for all this is the desire to accumulate wealth, especially in Uganda. We have been brought to think that whoever is doing sciences will automatically get a job and accumulate wealth in shortest period possible. These do so even when they do not have much interest in the subject other than the accumulation of wealth.

We have grown up knowing that being a musician is an insult. Whenever one does anything wrong or acts weird in a society we quickly call them a “mudongo” This word means musician but is actually used as a synonym for stupidity in Uganda. If one focuses so much on sports, we quickly tell them that they will not eat from it. So, a person is forced to do something that they are not passionate about simply because of our education system.

When classifying subjects to study, we start with languages and mathematics, followed by sciences and humanities at the bottom. We have arranged this hierarchy giving a narrative that whoever fails at the first two is not as intelligent is ought to be. Yes, mathematics is meant to improve someone’s critical thinking and creativity. Have we thought that actually, a learner may develop critical thinking while doing what they are passionate about? Maybe if one cannot manage mathematics; why not give them a chance to try philosophy. Religious studies are doing a great job of indoctrinating our learners. Imagine a child is Christian, and every Sunday they go to Church to listen to their pastor and when they come to school we still teach them the same things; don’t question God. What if we left them to have their religious studies from their respective places of worship and taught them non-denominational ethics like being ethical without referring to the Bible or Qur’an.

We have come up with learned people with no creativity. This is because our objective is to accumulate wealth not to solve our problems. One may argue that Uganda’s problem is poverty but I would like to emphasize that poverty cannot be eliminated by an accumulation of wealth. We have experienced many wealthy fools in our society. We know of the word “toli mwaavu omutwe gwe mwaavu” (you are not poor, it’s your mind that is poor) which actually explains that poverty is not just a lack of money. It is a poor mindset. We ought to let our learners be athletes, musicians, teachers, etc. depending on their passions and capabilities without coercing them to do something to accumulate wealth. No work is better than the other.

Letting our learners do whatever they are good and passionate about, will give them a chance to be creative and provide solutions for the current problems using their own skills. We as educators should think outside the box and encourage our learners to do the same. Imagine giving a question to a learner with four answers and telling them to find the answer within the four presented. What if they had a different view? How would we know it? There is nothing wrong with being wrong. We should be ready to make mistakes and improve. Likewise, we should allow our learners to make mistakes and they will improve as they try. Mistakes will provoke another trial and another trial will provoke creativity. If we don’t allow creativity, we will keep stagnating.