Re-Thinking Education: Can We Produce The "Global" Creative Student?

Panel Chair: Dr. Kirpal Singh
Singapore Management University
90 Stamford Road
Singapore 178903 (65) 6828-0207 Office
(65) 6828-0833 Fax
kirpals@smu.edu.sg

Dr. Kirpal Singh for many years started and facilitated the Creative Thinking Program at the newly established Singapore Management University where this is a "core" subject to be taken by every student regardless of discipline pursued. His own thinking on the subject of Creativity was robustly presented in Thinking Hats & Coloured Turbans: Creativity Across Cultures (Prentice-Hall, 2004), a book which sold out within months of its appearance. Though hailing essentially from a literary background (Dr. Singh is an internationally recognsied writer and in 1997 was Distinguished International Writer at the world-famous Iowa International Writing Program), Kirpal has more recently come to be recognised as an international creativity "guru" -- his ideas being the focus of discussion and debate by several thinkers in the field. He is now constantly sought after by universities, government bodies, and large (and small) corporate organisations to conduct Creativity workshops -- especially in terms of Creativity in Leadership -- and he has been a trainer/consultant for such big names as Loreal, IBM, Rosche, & Stan-Chart Bank. Kirpal has been a Board member of ACA since 2005.

Re-Thinking Education: Can We Produce The "Global" Creative Student?

One major concern about Creativity -- both the teaching of it as well as the practice of it -- is its diversity of meaning and significance in different cultural contexts. In many cultures, Creativity is seen as being "disruptive" and hence de-stablising and therefore unworthy of real support, especially by educational organisations and government. In other cultures, the opposite seems to be true. As the economies of the world become truly "globalised" it becomes incumbent upon us to revisit the CULTURAL context of Creativity vis-a-vis its educational value. All of us involved in education know just how beneficial a course on Creativity can be for our students, no matter what discipline/subject they may want to pursue or specialise in. This Panel will provide 4 interesting perspectives on this topic and we hope that through the Q & A which follows we will all be able to take away some real and engaging ways of promoting Creativity in our own organisations.