Fostering Creativity

With math and science so much the focus, efforts are underway to include more fine arts in school curriculums across the country By Tang Yuankai

EXCHANGING IDEAS: Professor Xiao Wenling (center)from Tsinghua University talks with students from Xinhualu Primary School

A group of children with a flair for the arts took the unusual step of attending an event at Tsinghua University that could one day impact the way primary and secondary education is taught in schools across the country.

The students are from Xinhualu Primary School in Xinzheng, central China’s Henan Province and are skilled at the art of engraving—or carving or etching a design into a piece of wood or metal plate using a chisel or chemicals.

Under an education system focused on preparing for exams and little else, these artistically inclined children illustrate what could be the future of education in China.

The event—an alumni association ceremony co-established by the Academy of Art and Design at Tsinghua University and Kopenhagen Fur, an international fur skin provider—was aimed at accomplishing one thing and one thing only for Cui Zhaokun.

“In the future, we will invite these students to come to Tsinghua University to work on cultivating a sense of creativity through a fine arts education,” Cui, Director of the fur house’s Beijing of fi ce, said.

Accomplishing such a feat may be easier said than done.

Fine arts dilemma

The students attended the event to receive a special fund set up by Kopenhagen Fur to help disadvantaged students from Xinhualu Primary School. The school has established a long-term cooperative relationship with the academy.

“I hope that in 10 years, you can come to study in our department,” Professor Xiao Wenling, Director of the Department of Textile and Fashion Design at the academy,told students at the event.

“These children have huge potential. If we guide them properly, their talent will certainly be brought into full play in the future,”Xiao toldBeijing Review.

Schools in Xinzheng began teaching engravings and promoting the artwork to the public in 1984. Although the local government has allocated funds to build a children’s engraving museum—the only one in China—for this school, it still lacks funds for teaching equipment, teacher training and academic exchanges.

The dif fi culty faced by the school in carrying out art courses is common across the country. Art courses in many schools are often canceled because students are not tested in the arts on thegaokao—the national college entrance examination that all high school students who wish to attend university must take. Many parents believe fi ne arts skills are irrelevant to a topgaokaoscore, expecting their children to focus on building their math and science skills and expanding their English vocabulary.

“Many teachers in China believe that they need to cultivate creativity in young children. However, only university students with majors in artistic design can receive systematic creativity training,” said Yang Hong,head of the Yang Zhiguang Fine Arts Center in Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province, a children’s fine arts training school. “We should improve the nation’s creativity by strengthening creative education for children.”

Experts have repeatedly stated that if China wants to continue developing, it should foster creativity. However, the present educa-tional system focuses more on memorization and less on creative thinking.

A Tour at Tsinghua University,made by 12-year-old Zhao Yuqi

Benefiting from engraving

Xinhualu Primary School started to offer engraving and physical education courses in 1994 to increase extra-curricular activities for their students. In the process of teaching engraving,teachers realized that it improves children’s aesthetic taste as well as their creativity.

Zhao Jianyong, head of the fi ne arts teaching and research group at Xinhualu Primary School,hopes to expand his students’ creativity by teaching them how to engrave. He said he encourages his students to think outside the box.

“Compared with other forms of painting,the process of engraving is more complicated,” Zhao said.

“In addition, it takes a longer time to make an engraving, which trains the students to be patient and persistent.”

He added that making engravings enables different parts of the body to coordinate better with each other and creates more dexterous hands and sharper eyes.

Furthermore, engravings arouse students’curiosity and build a sense of teamwork. Zhao once organized students of six classes to work on one engraving. During the process, every child did his or her share of work and cooperated with each other, realizing both their individual value and experiencing the pleasure of teamwork.

Nurturing creative thinking

At an exhibition held at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in October, factoryproduced products based on paintings created by children were on display.

Yang of the Yang Zhiguang Fine Arts Center said that the youngsters’ paintings look naive and perhaps foolish and are easily ignored by their parents. However, once turned into a product those perceptions could change.

Yang’s father, Yang Zhiguang, a renowned contemporary Chinese painter, said,“Many years ago I lived with my daughter in the United States after retirement and saw ‘made in China’ on many products. I wondered why these products were ‘made in China’ instead of ‘designed in China.’ Then I made a decision to come back to China with my daughter and started this center to train children in creative thinking.”

“Fine arts education today is aimed at cultivating creative thinking, and in order to achieve this goal, we should develop the observational, imaginative and creative abilities of the children at an early age,” the 82-yearold man said.

Dialogue, a wood engraving piece,made by 11-year-old Li Xinyu

Yang’s fine arts center has opened dozens of branch schools in China and has been widely praised by parents and educators alike.

The younger Yang said the purpose of a fi ne arts education is not to improve, for example, drawing skills, but to train children to think creatively. Children could draw a beautiful painting with consummate skills, but this kind of painting may not have much value if no creative ideas are involved.

She pointed out that children whose parents encourage creative thinking will be much more fully developed.

“The exam-oriented education has evaluated students by their scores, overlooking their creativity,” Yang said. “Our purpose is to make their extra-curricular lives more colorful to complement the current education.”