From knowledge to know-how

"The purpose of the curriculum is not to cover but to uncover" - Anon

As in previous years, the St James Centre for Creativity in Valletta is providing an opportunity for students from the MCAST Institute of Art and Design, to exhibit some of their end of year projects. Many today may have grown indifferent to the name of Malta's millennium project: 'Centre for Creativity'. Not so for the young students setting up their work however. For them this exhibition space, gains in significance and helps to endorse the emphasis the Institute lays on the creative aspect of design education.

At the Institute of Art and Design, the term 'creative attitude' is among the most commonly promoted phrases. It implies that exploring towards an answer is more educationally valuable than the answer itself. The learning is in the journey. For all intents and purposes the items on show at St James are final pieces. Yet, because they are final pieces, they can only reveal the end part of a process which would have started much earlier with learners generating their own design briefs and developing ideas. This is an important clarification and a token of the students' preparatory work may be gleaned from the accompanying images displayed on boards at the Upper Galleries.

There are numerous issues relating to our understanding of the term "creativity" and its association with human intelligence, with which it is fundamentally linked. Divergences in the interpretation of the term do exist. From an educational point of view, the common, but erroneous, perception that quality controls relating to creative processes are too vague and impossible to pin down, or that creative ideas and outcomes cannot be scientifically measured or 'benchmarked', raises reservations and uncertainties.

An equally common fallacy sees creativity as a classified privilege reserved for a select few. Albert Einstein's advice to educators is an eye-opener: "It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge".

Forty years ago, with the help of a group of educational psychologists, Bloom developed a classification of levels, a taxonomy or hierarchy of six intellectual behaviour patterns important in learning. Bloom found that, over 95 per cent of the questions children are asked in schools, require them to think only at the lowest possible level; viz., the recall of information or straightforward recognition of facts.

To use Bloom's terminology, creativity encourages and develops 'higher-order thinking'. The emphasis of the curriculum (not the 'virtual' performance indicators, but the tangible outcomes, the curriculum, that is, as it actually manifests itself in our classrooms) is still on the lower levels of Bloom's hierarchy, namely recalling something previously 'learned', repeating it parrot-like to create a façade, an appearance of comprehension: how well I remember getting the right answers without really understanding!

It is a fact that employers worldwide are increasingly looking for more than just the functional skills of literacy and numeracy when they recruit workers. Creativity and problem-solving skills now top the list of other equally important employability attributes and are certainly regarded as indispensable faculties for any successful venture.

In Malta too, without always understanding why or what evidences to look for, it is at least fashionable now to exalt the relevance of creativity, not just for the success of the individual or the enterprise, but for the benefit of contemporary society in general. Let us hope that in this regard our young creative designers are able to exploit the headstart provided by the international programmes of study delivered at the MCAST Institute of Art and Design, where 'high-order' thinking is supported by self-belief and commitment.

The St James exhibition is open until July 30.

Donald Friggieri, BA (Hons) 3D Design (Middlesex), Dip. in Educ. Mgmt and Admin, is director of the MCAST Institute of Art and Design