23 March 2000, 807 words
Modern educators place great emphasis on teaching children to be creative. Not only does the child learn better through creative teaching methods, but he or she functions more effectively in the real world. The old method of chalk-and-talk, while it still has its uses, will become more and more irrelevant as the nature of knowledge, and the nature of work itself, becomes irrevocably altered in the next millennium.
Trinidad and Tobago has modern educators - most of them apparently working at Bishop Anstey High School - but the education system itself is still mired in the19th century. There are also technocrats at the Education Ministry who understand and promote modern methods of education. Unfortunately, not one Minister of Education has ever followed their advice.
As with so many other facets of national life, it is our politicians who keep this country backward and ignorant. Education is the main key to economic progress - a fact proven by countries such as Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore - but there has never been any serious commitment to education from any political directorate in Trinidad and Tobago (including Dr. Eric Williams's PNM).
Under the UNC, Basdeo Panday's bright plan for education improvement, recently echoed by Education Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, is to introduce more religion in schools. They argue that this will help instil better social values in young people. Fact is, though, that those countries with the least social stability are invariably those with the most religion.
Brazil, 95 percent Roman Catholic, has child prostitutes, police execution squads and neo-Nazis. India, 80 percent Hindu, has 50 percent of its population illiterate, 66 percent wihout basic sanitation, and explodes nuclear bombs. Iran, 100 percent Muslim, governs by terrorism. The United States, with more fundamentalist Christians than any other industrialized country, has ten to100 times more rapes, muggings and murders than any other developed nation.
So teaching children religion, if it has any effect at all, is likely to worsen our social ills. On the other hand, teaching children to be creative may help mould a generation better equipped intellectually and psychologically for the modern world. This is because, in the modern world, the religious mindset and the creative one are quite antithetical.
Using laboratory data and biographical evidence, Harvard University psychologist David Perkins has tabulated six characteristics that define the creative personality. The first trait is a strong commitment to a personal aesthetic - an overriding need to wrest order, simplicity, meaning, richness or powerful expression from chaos. Art and religion have this in common, and this is why in simpler times the religious impulse fueled many great scientists and writers (though Descartes and Milton still got in trouble with the Church).
However, as part of this personal aesthetic, creative people have a high tolerance for complexity, ambiguity, disorganization and asymmetry. The religious mindset can tolerate none of these things, and modern society is so complex that nobody with a strongly religious mindset can now hope to do quality work in science or art.
The second creative trait is an ability to find problems. Physicist Linus Pauling said the way to make discoveries was to "have a lot of ideas and throw away the bad ones". The third and connected trait is mental mobility. Creative people think in terms of opposites and contraries, seeking new syntheses of ideas. But the religious mindset places all problems in God's hands, denies contradiction, and embraces narrow, inflexible perspectives.
The fourth psychological trait is a willingness to take risks. Creative individuals have a low ability to become mentally aroused. This might seems paradoxical, but all it means is that creative persons are mostly interested in challenging and complex tasks. The simplistic certainties of religion are boring to the creative, curious mind.
The fifth trait is objectivity. Contrary to popular belief, creative people are not self-absorbed individualists. The good artist connects to his audience, and the good scientist makes valuable discoveries, because they are objective enough to examine the real world effectively. The true believer, however, always insists that his subjective, non-empirical belief-system is an objective reality.
The sixth trait is inner motivation. Albert Einstein wrote, "The emotional state which leads to [creative achievement] resembles that of a worshipper or the lover." True enough, except that the worshipper's passion is motivated by the need for salvation. His mindset is, at base, utilitarian. He can never create art for art's sake.
If, therefore, we encouraged children to be creative, we would simultaneously teach them to be efficient, to love complexity while seeking simple solutions, to consider all sides of a question objectively, to defy convention, and to not be mercenary. This is why it'll be a long time before creative teaching happens in our schools: our present leaders - in politics, business, religion, media, academia - would like to keep their jobs for as long as possible.
Copyright ©2000 Kevin Baldeosingh