Essay: Development of children's creativity to foster peace

Abstract

Peace-making as merely a subdiscipline of statecraft has little value when any small group can cause unimaginable destruction, and violence becomes a socially accepted response to perceived threats. For a global culture of peace to be built, the next generation must be imbued with new systems of thinking and feeling. Such approaches are the domain of cognitive science, translated through practice into perceptual and behavioural change. This essay describes an art-based programme to develop creativity and empathy in young people living in a confl ict zone. Research suggests that creativity can be nurtured by a holistic approach to child development encompassing cognitive, physical, and emotional capacity. Heilman and colleagues wrote that “although extensive knowledge and divergent thinking are critical for creativity, they alone are insuffi cient for allowing a person to fi nd the thread that unites. Finding this thread might require the building of diff erent forms of knowledge ... through coactivation and communication between regions of the brain that ordinarily are not strongly connected.” The arts can aid a child’s holistic development, especially empathy, which is defi ned as the ability to identify and express one’s own emotions and to read another’s emotions correctly and comprehensively. A RAND study noted that the communicative and personal nature of creative expression, accentuated through collective arts activities, can forge social bonds while supporting identity formation and cultural transmission. The power of the group transcends the sum of individual eff orts. A working hypothesis is that the arts stimulate a problem-fi nding attitude that can be used in non-arts areas, including confl ict resolution. David Perkins of Harvard Project Zero has argued that the arts provide a sensory anchor, are instantly accessible, and engage and sustain attention, thereby encouraging rich connections. Such beliefs are supported by testimonials from children who have taken part in creative arts programmes developed by the International Child Art Foundation (ICAF): creativity “leads us to innovation”; “lets me express what I think and feel in diff erent ways”; and “decorates the artwork with a sense of uniqueness”. ICAF has developed methods to nurture the innate creativity and intrinsic empathy of children and young people. With nearly a decade’s experience, ICAF programmes initiate a developmental and sequential process of healing, creativity, communication, empathy, and cooperation. This progression is illustrated in the Peace through Arts approach, developed after the attacks in the USA on Sept 11, 2001. The initiative was spurred on by the spontaneous artistic expressions of sadness and support from children in the USA and around the world who sent ICAF their unsolicited works. The approach aims to diminish the transgenerational transmission of trauma and hatred, and draws on the creativity and imagination of young people in teaching them the ethics of responsibility and mutual respect. It fi rst helps children to recognise their responses to trauma, then to understand the reasons for confl ict and how artistic expression can reduce tensions. Subsequent modules impart confi dence and develop empathy through the experience of collective creativity and provide action steps for children to apply their creativity toward building a vision of peace in their communities. The Cypriot Peace through Art project is a good example. The 3-week programme in Washington DC involved ten Greek-Cypriot and ten Turkish-Cypriot children, then aged 14–15 years, who had grown up on opposite sides of the “green line” that partitions Cyprus. Participants were selected on the basis of an art competition organised by the Cyprus Fulbright Commission. Before going to Washington, each participant constructed a poster board titled “Myself”, describing his or her home and family, hobbies, pets, and favourite things to do. At the fi rst meeting, the poster boards served to overcome the teenagers’ natural hesitation in introducing themselves. They continued to explore issues of self-identity and “the other” in their fi rst activity, which was to produce artistic impressions. For Ashfaq Ishaq is Executive Director of the International Child Art Foundation, which uses the arts to enable children to lead us to a better and safer world by developing their innate creativity and intrinsic empathy.