Nurturing the creative instinct
Arvind Dhondphale
What is creative thinking? Let’s look at a few examples to try and answer this question.
Vikas Amte, son of social reformer Baba Amte, is a doctor. He works in ‘Anandwan’, a colony developed and run by leprosy patients near Chandrapur, Maharashtra. Water is a big problem in this dry region. Dr. Amte’s solution was to draw on available resources. He collected used tyres, plastic waste, and other junk from surrounding villages and towns. He cut them into pieces and mixed them with cement. He poured this mixture into the tyres and created check dams which has changed the life of Anandwan.
Chandramani is a cured leprosy patient living in Anandwan. A fine carpenter, he had lost his right hand in an accident. Not to be defeated, Chandramani designed a wooden hand, which he uses today to do his carpentry. The wooden hand can be folded the same way we fold our hands. He also designed special bricks which are eco-friendly.
Dr Laurie Baker was a British born Indian architect, renowned for his cost effective, energy effective architecture and designs that maximize space. Dr. Baker used bricks in an innovative way. He used space in harmony with natural elements like air and light, which cut down the use of electricity.
Mansukhbhai Prajapati from Gujarat is using terracotta to make refrigerators which do not need electricity to store and preserve foods.
These examples showcase what creative thinking is and how it can be applied in real life.
Can such creative thinking be developed or nurtured?
Creativity is often associated with art. But I believe that a mathematician cannot be a mathematician or a scientist cannot be a scientist without creative thinking.
So, can exercises at the school level help nurture creative thinking? This is an important question as creative thinking has the potential to provide solutions to all kinds of problems. This we can see from the examples above.
I work in a school that follows an alternative education system. The school provides space and opportunities to every student to grow in his/her own way and discover their individual strengths and interests. In this article I’d like to share with you some exercises that I do with my students in my efforts to explore whether creative thinking can be nurtured.
Free expression
Every year new students from different backgrounds join the school. Many students come from schools that don’t have art at all. For such students, the time spent in art classes helps open up their minds and bond with their classmates. It is very important that they feel free in the initial stages itself as that will help create the ground for original thinking.
They begin with scribbling with oil pastels on big sheets/roll of paper. After various layers, their work starts looking like an interesting piece of abstact art.
Natural art
Once I showed the school a documentary on the works of British sculptor, photographer, and environmentalist Andy Goldsworthy, who has produced site-specific sculptures and art in natural and urban settings. Later, I took students of different classes to different parts of the campus.
At that time some construction work was going on. There were piles of broken tiles, wood, and so on. I asked the kids to balance these one on top of another or arrange them in interesting ways.
Paper masks
Once I did an exercise in mask making with the students of Satsang Vidyalaya (a school associated with the residential school that I work in). These students used old newspaper pieces/strips and glue and pasted them on each other’s faces. Later, the thick covering was removed and dried. Then, the students painted the masks.
Drawing muscles
In biology, students learn about muscles and their layers. Since I am also interested in human anatomy, here is what we did. Students drew facial muscles on the face, palm muscles on the palm and so on, making it easier for them to identify with the subject and actually feel it.
Warm and cool colour schemes
Most students are interested in art but many are diffident about their abilities to draw or paint. This exercise helps them to come out of that complex. Friends sit as models for students who have to carefully observe the facial features and draw the face opposite them. After the face is drawn, they have to mark the areas of shade and light on the drawing. They have to use warm colours where there is light and cool colours where there is shade. That’s not all. Before they start colouring, they have to design the face with different design forms or patterns in the warm and cool zones. These designs may contain a certain theme or maybe related to a subject connected to warm or cool colours. After finishing the design forms they start colouring.
Working with soil
I try to make use of our campus environment as much as possible for my exercises. In this exercise children work on the soil. I conduct this exercise for all grade levels. I take them to a spot without telling them what they are going to do. Then I tell them the task and divide them into two groups. They have to spread out and start collecting any junk they can find in that area. The two groups work separately. They have to make five things out of the collected items.
Once this is done they have to build a story connecting these five things. If necessary they can arrange the five things together as one piece. They then have to narrate their story.
The author is an artist interested in child art. He is currently working at The Peepal Grove School, Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh. He can be reached at arvind.dhondphale@gmail.com.