World Creativity and Innovation Day
View(s):United Nations has declared April 21 as the World Creativity and Innovation Day to encourage creative multidisciplinary thinking to help human beings to achieve the desired sustainable future. This day therefore provides opportunities to consider and modify ideas before buying into them, appreciate different perspectives and approaches, develop curiosities further and stretch beyond existing knowledge.
Creativity is considered as the capability of conceiving something original or unusual. Invention is the creation of something that has never been made before and therefore can be recognized as a product of unique insight. Leonardo da Vinci can be considered as a perfect example of a man who was creative and innovative. Born in 1452, he excelled in both arts and sciences and his inventive contributions included music, mathematics, geology and astronomy. It is fitting that we observe the day celebrating creativity and innovation, six days after Leonardo da Vinci’s birthday.
Because of the extremely rapid evolving of the modern world, the challenge of learning is getting harder for the present generations and therefore the educational models need to be flexible and not fixed. We need to realize that the most important skill to teach our students is the ability to build creative and innovative minds that can adapt and face future unpredictable challenges. “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination’ said Albert Einstein.
Being mindful of the challenges faced by the future generations, the International Baccalaureate Educational Program has included creativity, action and service and three essential elements in its curriculum. The students are required to undertake a project in each of these three areas. These projects should reflect initiative, demonstrate perseverance and develop skills such as collaboration, problem solving and decision making. It allows students to enhance their personal and interpersonal development through practical experience rather than solely focusing on education inside the classroom. Thoughtful planning, reflecting and reporting are fundamental towards the success of the projects. Students are asked to reflect on the outcomes of their projects in regards to their learning achievements, contributing towards their personal development.
For a creativity project, a talented musician could learn a particularly difficult piece, or a different style of playing. Other examples of creativity projects are photography, website development, choir, speech & debating club, drama production, journalism, school band, art, fashion show, talent show and student union executive committee. According to William Ward “Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning”.
Imagination is defined as the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality. Imagination therefore, is the root of innovation. Everyone possesses a certain degree of imagination ability. One of the subjects that help to harness this ability is mathematics. Imagination is required to handle the abstractness of mathematics which allows you to deal with n-dimensional fields, for example. In fact, the teaching of numbers itself is abstract as numbers cannot be defined properly. Algebra deals with unknowns and visualization is essential in geometry. In short, mathematics trains the mind to visualize things that you do not see in nature, and thereby to be creative and innovative. Let me end with one of my favourite quotes by Paul Ganguin: “I shut my eyes in order to see”.
R.N.A. de Silva
ndesilva@osc.lk
The author is a
mathematics teacher at the Overseas School
of Colombo.