Last week I was invited to give a talk about Learning for the Young Creative Mind at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC).
The event aimed to promote cre-ativity, innovation and imagination not only for our new generations, but also to motivate adults - namely teachers and parents - to understand the creative mind in order to set up appropriate activities for their pupils or kids.
Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra also has a mission to promote Bangkok as a creative city. Two museums for children are part of it. One has been renovated in Chatuchak district, and another one has been test-run in Bangmod dis-trict. Both aim to provide a learning space for cre-ative activities for our youngsters.
The main focus of activities is based on dis-covery learning.
Moreover, the environment seeks to encourage children's individual creativity. That is, courage to think on entirely new lines, with daring to question established theory, and innovative combinations of insight from different fields, as characterised by the Nobel Foundation.
Activities have been set up to encour-age children to develop creative minds via learning by doing, curiosity, from imagination to reality, association and integration, competition and cooperation, construction and modification, variety and possibility, show and share and then motivation and inspiration.
Generally, creativity is the ability to come up with unique ideas or information that is of personal or professional advantage. Importantly, it is a mental and social process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative, in between existing ideas or concepts. It is fuelled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight.
Creativity needs human involvement. This is extremely important, as the econ-omy today needs interplay with scientific ideas, technology, culture and economic inputs.
Apart from playgrounds, museums, art galleries and libraries, the Bangkok gov-ernor should keep in mind that various creative spaces already exist, which both the public and private sector, have set up around the city.
I think the governor should work col-laboratively or even support private sec-tor or industrial groups in various creative moves, since there is a value chain for creative investment, with technological spin-offs, entrepreneurship and trade, as suggested by UNCTAD.
In regard to UNCTAD, the creative industries are classified as traditional cultural expression, performing arts, audiovi-sual, new media, creative services, design, publish-ing and printed media, visual arts, and cultural sites.
How can we entice support from various areas?
I suggest creating activities and oppor-tunities in which people can engage in learning as a constructive dialogue rather than as a passive process of transmis-sion. Moreover, the museums or learning spaces should provide a free-choice learning environment that permits a plethora of pathways and possibilities to think and learn.
According to the classic book by Holmes, he affirmed that a "Creative Mind" cannot force itself upon us be-cause we have the power of self-choice. |It recognises us when we recognise it. When we think that we are limited or |have not been heard, it must take that thought and bring it into manifestation for us.
In short, the learning space of the future should be a place of exploration and discovery, embedded in the process of self-choice, empowerment, and inquiry and of learning itself.
PRIYAKORN PUSAWIRO
Learning Scientist , Computer Engineering Department
King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi