Creative learning

A FEW years ago, I spent some time interacting with children in Standard IV. The children were organised into groups of five. Each group was given a box of matches and a few pieces of rubber cycle valve tubes cut into 0.5 mm length pieces. I asked the groups to join the match sticks using pieces of the rubber. In a few minutes, the groups had created all sorts of regular geometrical shapes.

I took a square and poked the rubber tubes with a pair of dividers. I inserted a match stick into the hole at the four joints so that the sticks could stand vertically. Using match sticks and pieces of rubber, I could make a three dimensional geometrical pattern. The children got excited and took out their geometry boxes and started making various patterns. This activity did not stop at school. When the children were home, the parents were involved in the experiential learning activity. The end- products were brought to school. The teacher displayed all the products in a prominent place in her class.

Initiating Divergent Thinking

Creativity has many components. The most vital and basic is divergent thinking. In almost all our nursery schools, children, under the encouragement of their teachers, create a number of patterns using the diversity of materials such as paper, stones, shells, leaves and flowers. However, it is strange that creativity in education almost vanishes as soon as children enter primary school. Teachers are bogged down by covering the syllabus. In classes one and two, Fill-in-the-blanks and Matching exercises are given prominence followed by questions and answers in classes three to five. Mathematics is taught adopting "Convergent thinking approaches" wherein the child learns to do sums in a mechanical manner adopting the identical methodology used by the teachers on the blackboard. in the class. The child resists any other method suggested by an elder at home for obvious reasons.

I feel that divergent thinking must be initiated in the lower classes in a general manner. I would like to describe it as a content-free approach. Later, of course content-based approaches can be adopted. A few illustrations for content-free approaches are furnished below:

Unusual uses of an object

Every object has a traditional use. When a child is challenged to discover unusual or alternative uses of the object, he/she is initiated into divergent thinking. A class (Standard III) was selected and divided into groups of five children with a leader. The leader was asked to bring a tooth brush to the class. The next day, each group was asked to discuss and write down possible uses of the brush other than brushing the teeth.

The groups were given 30 minutes. Each group was given a chart paper and sketch pen to write down their findings. A few of their suggestions are given below: A tooth brush could be used for spray painting, cleaning the inside of bottles, for applying shoe-polish for oiling door hinges and for making geometrical patterns.

The teacher could conduct similar creative exercises selecting objects such as bricks candles, ear buds and so on.

Puzzles using dots and dashes

The teacher should select a "brain teaser" that is appropriate to the age group of the children. The creative exercise should be challenging for the child and should involve divergent thinking which is the basic component of creative learning.

The teacher should form a square pattern with nine dots on the blackboard and pose the problem using simple, direct, language. "You must draw four straight lines without raising your hand to connect all the nine dots".

After a few trials by children in groups, you may adopt a guided- investigative approach to enable the children to solve the problem. When you do that, you are involved in creative teaching- learning instructional strategy inside the class room.

Observe the sketch given below carefully. There are four numbered steps in solving the problem. Give them clues step by step using the blackboard. Do not solve the problem for the children at one stroke as it will not kindle their interest and lead them to divergent thinking. Children should be guided to look at solving the problem from a perspective outside the nine dots and then evolve the correct strategy.

Improvisation in a situation

Another outcome of divergent thinking is the ability to analyse, synthesise and improvise in a given situation or context. Teachers ought to give children at the primary school education level such opportunities.

Some time ago, I was taking a class for Standard V children on Types of Plant Stems. At a particular point in the lesson, I wanted the children to keep a sambar onion bulb on top of water in a glass at home and observe it for a few days. The problem was how to keep the small onion bulb so that the disc portion at the bottom just touches the surface of water. Children in groups brain stormed and came out with ideas. Some of the successful improvisations evolved by children are furnished below:

Use a bent pin and hook the apical portion. Tie a thread and hang it from a stand.

Keep a cardboard on top of the glass with a hole of an appropriate size. Make the onion sit on the hole.

Poke three tooth picks on to different sides of the onion bulb. Allow the set up to rest on top of the water surface.

After doing creative exercises which are content free you may take up appropriate content-based creative teaching strategies along with lessons in different subjects and formulate investigate projects in language, science, maths and social studies. Needless to mention, creative learning results in human resource development in a joyful manner.

W.A.F. HOPPER

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