Editor’s note – This article comes from a concerned student who believes creativity should be given due significance in education.
Author’s note – In this article I will try to identify what creativity is and the problems that are associated with incorporating creativity as a criterion in education. Ultimately I think creativity is very vital for not only our students’ growth but also our nation’s growth.
Indian education system is quite rigorous, competitive and tends to be rather stressful on the students. And generally, in our society, this is taken as a good sign and is considered to be a measure of the quality of education. And many of us consider our education system to be superior to that of other countries (esp. the United States) where it is more relaxed. But the truth is that the rigorousness of the system doesn’t equate to a better education system. This is a far-fetched claim, so allow me to explain.
Among many things, an ideal education system should focus on and nurture two key qualities in a student – Knowledge and creativity. But sadly, in India only the aspect of knowledge, and that too only theoretical knowledge, is touched upon. Even the practical application of the knowledge is not considered seriously. This is mainly because our education system so rigorously focuses on cramming as much theoretical knowledge as possible that there is no time or energy for the students to exercise their own original thought and creativity. They are neither encouraged nor exercised to think beyond their performance in the classroom…which in most schools/colleges involves preparations for the exams.
To most people creativity doesn’t seem like something that has to be taken seriously. This might simply be because it just cannot be measured or quantified without bias. Everybody is creative in their own unique way. Some may be creative in thinking, some else in writing and some others in painting, music or being comical. And also, not everyone judges creativity the same way, making it difficult to gauge it in an unbiased manner. As a consequence of this diversity in creativity and difficulty in guaranteeing an accurate judge of it, you cannot put two individuals’ creativities side by side and make a fair comparison. This makes creativity useless when considering it as a criterion for measuring academic competitiveness, which our society and education system are obsessed with. Linear and monotonous competitiveness in examinations is what is regarded highly...and you may wonder why creativity is so important.
As Albert Einstein himself once said – “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” Creativity is more like productive imagination and it, unlike knowledge, is a more dynamic trait. It is what has helped us create the immense wealth of inventions and discoveries in the world we live in today. It is what makes humans unique from animals. But it is often misunderstood as a quality that only artists, musicians or entertainers must possess. But the truth is that everyone should be encouraged to be creative and think out of the box. Mathematicians need to be creative, scientists must think creatively and even engineers should be creative if they are to succeed in making a breakthrough in their field.
With creativity encouraged and nourished, pupils will no longer be afraid to experiment, make mistakes or ask creative questions. It will make them think critically and make them attack real life problems laterally. It will make the pupils learn things firsthand in their own imaginative way, make them more open to new ideas, create a genuine inner desire to explore intellectual ideas and will make them go beyond classroom teaching in pursuing an idea or vision. These skills are not to be underestimated. These are the skills that make a revolutionary person...someone who thinks critically, invents, discovers, is a freethinker and has a grand vision. And these are the kinds of people that our country needs today, not workers with a mediocre aim of getting a fat envelope at the beginning of every month.
Indian students have really high competitive edge. But it is wasted on chasing marks and memorizing things that they don’t use or need in their life. If only they were allowed to compete on the basis of real life skills like creativity, lateral thinking and original thinking, they would grow to their fullest intellectual and creative potential. They would then be well equipped to tackle the real life problems that are faced by our country and take us to greater heights.
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