Manama: The importance of placing creativity at the heart of education has been highlighted by a leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation.
“Children have tremendous depths of creative power; we just have to understand it, recognise it, and compliment it,” Ken Robinson said. “It is there. The aim of education is to enable students to understand the world around them, and talents within them, so that they can become fulfilled individuals and active, compassionate citizens.”
The internationally recognised leader in education development said that people today lived in revolutionary times in education and that many values taken for granted over time no longer apply.
“If we are to meet this revolution, collectively, globally, then we have to question these values, think differently, behave differently, and we have to run our institutions differently, especially our education institutions,” he told the Second Annual Teaching and Learning Forum held in the Qatari capital Doha and which brought together 1,000 teachers from across the country.
“Most of our institutions were designed, invented, conceived of in other times for other purposes. Simply attempting to tighten up or make more efficient a model that is past its expiry date will not work. We need a different way to do things. The symbol of Qatar Foundation is the Sidra tree, and its ability to live in the desert, to take the nutrients it needs from the earth, and to use this beautiful plant to provide shade for everybody else. I love this metaphor. We are of the earth, we are part of the cycle of things, and we have become detached from it over the past 300 years. Education has that strategic mission, to reconnect us to each other, and to the planet, and to the benefit of the earth we live on.”
Robinson added that many of the problems people face had been created by people.
“If we double our creative powers, we can find new solutions to them. This is the mission of the education, which is why teaching is so important.”
The event, organised by the Education Development Institute (EDI), part of Qatar Foundation’s Pre-University Education, was attended by Shaikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF).
In her opening remarks, Shaikha Noof Ahmad Bin Saif Al Thani, Head of the Teaching and Learning Forum 2015, said the Education Development Institute had grown significantly and that the number of teachers who attended the forum had grown from 200 last year to 1,000 this year while the number of workshops went up from 30 to 80.
“To improve education and develop the skills of teachers, we have also agreed on several partnerships and agreements with the Supreme Education Council, the International Baccalaureate, Georgetown University in Qatar, Qatar University, and Harvard University, and there will be more in the future,” Shaikha Noof said.
The workshops focused on critical issues that will promote innovative instructional practices in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), on Early Childhood Education (children from the ages of six months to five years), and on Arabic Language Teaching and other subjects taught in schools.
