Art of Learning ~ 1

I was the usual school dispersal, and all the children were walking with their guardians who had come to pick them up, chattering away about their day’s happenings.

- by SOUMYANETRA MUNSHI

I overheard one very short conversation between a mother and her daughter, who, I later learnt, was in class 3.

The mother said, “So... what happened in school today?”... and the daughter started excitedly, “You know in art...”... at which the mother stopped her and asked with a tinge of irritation, “No... I meant... what happened in subjects?” The girl innocently looked at her mother and asked, “Is art not a subject? Is it? Well, probably not in the sense in which English, Maths, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Geography, History and Computers are. And that is the fundamental flaw in our inherently burdensome education system which leaves absolutely no space for nurturing of creativity. Instead of letting our children grow into artistic creativity, it more often than not, stifles any spark of originality and creativity that children intrinsically possess. Albert Einstein had said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is the faithful servant.

We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.” Indeed, how did we create such a society? Sir Ken Robinson, British author, speaker and international advisor on education, whose TED Talk “Do schools kill creativity?” was the most watched TED talk of all time, with 66.3 million views and was translated into 62 languages, argued as follows: “Our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability. And there’s a reason. Around the world, there were no public systems of education, really, before the 19th century. They all came into being to meet the needs of industrialism.