THE DAWN OF THE AGE OF CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

“When you can do a common thing in an uncommon way; you will command the attention of the world.”

“The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE), 2009 entitles every child in the age group of 6–14 years to quality education. Quality improvement in education focuses on the all-round development of learners. The Preamble of the ‘Learning Outcomes at Elementary Stage’ document of NCERT says, “Most often, teachers are not clear about what kind of learning is desired and the criteria against which it could be assessed. They use textbooks as the complete curriculum and assess children using questions given at the unit end exercises. The contextual variations in textual material and variations in pedagogy adopted are generally not taken into account, for there are no criteria to assess them. The learning outcomes for each class not only help the teachers to direct their teaching-learning in the desired manner but make other stakeholders, especially the parents or guardians, School Management Committee (SMC) members, community and the state functionaries to be responsible and alert towards their role for ensuring quality education. The learning outcomes defined explicitly can guide and ensure the responsibility and accountability of different stakeholders for its accomplishment by expectations in different curricular areas.” The system of education, therefore, needs to ensure enabling conditions to allow each child to learn and progress. Hence students and teachers should be aware of the learning outcomes at each stage of the teaching -learning process. This will enhance the quality of learning in schools, by enabling teachers to ascertain learning skills more accurately and take corrective steps without delay. It also provides effective learning opportunities to all students including children with special needs. In the present scenario, besides students and teachers, parents, community members and educational administrators are also keen to know about the learning of students and thus, monitor the progress of learning of their wards. In view of this, NCERT has developed a document named “Learning Outcomes at Elementary Stage”.

(Source: F.1028/CBSE/Dir(Acad)/January 18, 2019; Circular No. Acad-05/2019)

These set of learning outcomes suggested by CBSE focus on two major aspects of the education system i.e., creative/ experiential pedagogy and Innovative practice(s).

On the same lines, in a bid to move away from rote learning and involve more experiential learning and innovative methods, the board has decided to allow creative ways of answering a question. Senior officials from the board say evaluators have been trained for the purpose. Talking to indianexpress.com, CBSE spokesperson, Rama Sharma said that the move is being implemented to give a boost to conceptual learning and curb cramming. “Students are habitual of writing answers as written in the textbooks. It is important that they develop their own style of writing and not mere reproduce what the books say. Thus, we have issued instructions to give consideration to students who adopt their own writing style.”

“As long as a student writes the correct answer, their mode of expression or language should be considered. This would help them to focus more on concepts and promote innovation, expression and conceptual learning,” she added.

So, why is there so much focus on creativity? The right mix of creativity along with curriculum helps students to be innovative and also encourages them to learn new things. In fact, creative expression plays a key role in a student's emotional development. Creative education is when students are able to use imagination and critical thinking to create new and meaningful forms of ideas where they can take risks, be independent and flexible. Instead of being taught to reiterate what was learned, students learn to develop their ability to find various solutions to a problem. In his TED Talk “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” Sir Ken Robinson said that instead of growing into creativity in school, we grow out of it. Students all over the world have had more years of schooling than they care to count. During this process, students are taught that making a mistake is a sin. We have planted in our students’ minds a picture of a perfectly, carefully drawn life. The cycle of sitting still, memorizing, testing and getting a job have existed for a long time now and few dared to challenge it. However, those who dared to challenge the status quo like Albert Einstein, the Wright brothers, and Walt Disney have changed the course of history. This is the reason that these steps taken by CBSE are commendable.

Today, we are living in an innovation age, and creativity is more important than ever before in history. Graduates today need to maximize their own creative potential, because jobs that don’t require creativity are being outsourced or automated. All of the research shows us that there’s no creativity without sustained hard work, skill, and expertise. That’s why we can only reach a creative society with the active contributions of schools — the schools of the future, redesigned based on the latest psychological understandings of creativity and learning. Creativity and innovation becomes all the more important as India is emerging as a strong hub for startups and entrepreneurs. According to Union minister for commerce, industry and civil aviation, Mr. Suresh Prabhu, startups should build solutions which can solve crucial matters like water insufficiency in households or bring mass healthcare solutions to the rural areas. Testifying the efficacy of startups in propelling India towards growth and development, he iterated that the power of ideas can transform the lives of the people in India. He further enumerated the importance of converting ideas into business models to make them work and survive.

I recently picked up this book; I Love Mondays, by Mala Mary Martina. It talks about these new-age careers that people have taken up and pursued. The author calls them ‘Yellow Collar Careers’. She talks about doing what you love to avoid the Monday blues and instead turn them yellow by pursuing your own passion. According to Forbes, 81 per cent of the people in the world today hate the jobs they are in. This means, only 19 per cent of them have made the right career choices. According to the All India Council for Technical Education, between 2012 and 2015 as much as 44 per cent to 47 per cent of engineering graduates across India were placed in jobs that were not necessarily jobs they loved. The next generation of careers would need people who can be creative, instead of those who simply try to do what a machine can accomplish more quickly and with better accuracy. (Source: The Hindu)

So, it is the need of the hour to welcome creativity and innovation in education with open arms so that our youth can not only grab a desirable job but is also able to produce or create job opportunities.  Recently, I got a chance to interact with one of the ex-students of the school. She is presently studying in reputed School of Arts and Commerce in Delhi. She shared that she has been working with a non-profit organization which helps the underprivileged to explore their talents and generate source of income, judiciously using the limited resources available. It makes me feel so proud that she is contributing to the society as she continues with her formal education. The reason that she is successfully able to balance her formal education with this is the opportunity she got in the school to express her creative flair freely.

To conclude I would say, “The pace of cultural change is accelerating more quickly than ever before. In some biological systems, when the environment is changing quickly, the mutation rate goes up. Similarly, in times of change we need to pull up creativity levels — to generate the innovative ideas that will keep the future of our children afloat.”