Creativity and Education

Based on the author’s experience with children and teachers as a teacher of art at the Nayee Talim Educational Institute, Gadhiji’s ashram at Sevagram, the book is a pioneering study enunciating the essentiality of art as the basis of education.

An excerpt from the book
The artist is not a special kind of man but every man is a special kind of artist.

I had my primary education in a school which was a typical example of one of the most anti-education educational systems created by colonial rule in nineteenth century India.

The most vivid memory I have of that period is that for some reason or another, or perhaps for no reason at all, our teachers never hesitated to give us corporal punishment, which made us hate the school. There was nothing in the school that could create in us an interest in any subject or activity. I do not remember enjoying even a moment of my time in it.

Later, I was moved to the primary section of an intermediate college founded on the Aryasamaj ideals. Luckily, this school had a carpentry class as an extracurricular activity.

The family moved to a new house situated in open and better surroundings. The new place was partly renovated before we moved in and partly afterwards. I was almost nine at the time and was fascinated by the work the craftsmen were doing.

Both the head mason and the carpenter, were very good craftsmen and tolerant people. They did not mind my sitting and watching them work and meddling with their tools.

This experience was enough for me to take an interest in carpentry at school. So much so, that I gradually collected enough tools of my own, bought with my pocket money, to be able to make things for the house.

I also became interested in keeping the wood work of the house-especially the doors and windows-clean and well painted. Later I even became interested in drawing and painting, a subject which I took for my college education after finishing school.

In spite of a boring, nay hateful, primary education I think I had a more or less happy childhood although I was not conscious of it at the time. It only became clear to me, during my student days in the art college at Santiniketan, when I saw the happy faces of the ashram school-children and later when I did my teaching/research work as a part of the educational scheme initiated and guided by Gandhiji in Sevagram.

I realized that if during my childhood I had not had the opportunity to "meddle" with the tools and the raw materials of the craftsmen who renovated our house, I would not have developed the taste for "making things!" Without this experience would I have understood children’s nature, as I think I did in later life, I often wonder!

The principles of education worked out by Tagore had totally rejected the notion and practice of teaching based on textbooks. For Tagore, education was a process of learning rather than a mechanical method of thrusting information into, what are supposed to be, the empty minds of children and adults.

According to Tagore, the best textbook is life itself, and nature, of which we are an integral part; so also our cultural heritage and its significance in the ongoing processes of our lives. To put it in a nutshell, there are three centres of education: mother-tongue, nature and creative activities.

The system of education the colonial rulers had developed in India not only ignored these elements, it totally ruled out their place in the processes of education at all levels.

Next Page

Excerpts from 'Art: the Basis of Education' by Devi Prasad; Illustration by Shiju George