Creativity – The big apple

An Inspector of Schools was about to undertake inspection of a nursery class. The class teacher was preparing children for the impending visit, so that he can earn a good name as a teacher. He gave one child an apple, and asked her to bring the apple to the class on the inspection day, and be reminded of the apple when he would ask her “A for?” With similar instruction, he gave another child a banana, and asked her to be prepared to respond to “B for?” A third child was given a chiko, with similar instruction for “C for?” So on, up to Z, with one object or other. On the Judgment Day the Inspector of Schools arrived, and asked the teacher as to how he had taught the children. “Oh, very well!” replied the teacher, with a smile on his face and a spark in his eyes, and for a proof, queried the child holding the apple, “A for?” Looking at the apple she was holding, pat came the reply from the child, “Apple!” The Inspector was pleased, and threw the next question to the class, “B for?” The teacher called out the child holding the banana, and signalled her to look at the fruit she was holding. Now, the child did not like banana, and was pitifully looking at the apple which the other child was holding! No response, and the Inspector was not pleased with the performance now. The teacher got restless, and shouted, ”Come on, B for?” The poor child was greedily staring at the apple, and after repeated calls, shouted back, “B FOR BIG APPLE!” The Inspector was not totally pleased, though the reply set him thinking. After the Inspector left, the class teacher thrashed the child with the banana who said “B for Big Apple”. Why? “B for Big Apple” is creativity, while “B for Banana” is run-of –the-mill stuff! The child, in fact, had to be appreciated, she had saved the situation! This is where elders go wrong. The teacher, inspector, parents and the society at large, expect a reply on the lines of “B for Banana”, not able to digest a creative throw, “B for Big Apple”! Buckminster Fuller puts it, “all children are born geniuses. 9999 out of every ten thousand are swiftly, inadvertently, degeniusised by grown-ups!” They are taught to answer questions, and frowned upon when they question the answers! As we grow older, we are conditioned and stereotyped by social thinking. Creativity takes a back seat from then on. With such expectations, we are all happy to merge with the collective consciousness, losing our identities, so that, in that safe haven, we are repeatedly protected! On the lines of educational institutions, our work place creates pressures for performance, and does not give space for innovation. Those who have the impulse to soar are compelled to creep! Consequently, our homes are over ‘managed’ and under ‘led’, to prepare our children for such education and work! The tragic fallout is that we never open our birth-gift – our individuality – God has given us. Thomas Gray bemoans: “Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bare: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood!” ———- elegy written in a country churchyard. The culture we live and work in has “softwired” us for mediocrity, to fall woefully short of our potential. But we do have the “hardwired” power to rewrite that software, and people who use that power effectively emerge as great leaders. Others, content in being good, have not taken the step ahead to greatness. Good, thus, is the enemy of the great .If we do not create, but fall in line with the simple ‘good’, we would be eating out of the social corpus which is fast depleting, and walk into the trap of the “Tragedy of the Commons” enunciated in Game Theory. “Creative thinking involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way” says Edward De Bono, M.D., author of Lateral Thinking. Why go in for banana when we can have the Big Apple? (The writer is the CFO of Loktak Downstream Hydro Power Corporation. He is also a poet, motivational speaker and soft-skills trainer. 

This write-up is an extract from his book “CREATIVITY-THE BIG APPLE”)
(The writer is the CFO, Loktak Project of NHPC Ltd., a poet, motivational speaker and social scientist. He can be reached on e-mail: poetbeerangi@gmail.com, beerangi@ rediffmail.com or on mobile : 91-9419255856).
Printed in The Sangai Express
M Sadagopan