Intellectual partying: The skills, not only the knowledge

AMAXIMUS - Association for the development, creativity and the environment organized "intellectual partying" on the theme "Creativity: skill, or a gift?" at the Cultural Center in Sarajevo (Jelićeva 1) on November 21st. The lecturer was the Professor Kasim Tatic, Ph.D., from the Faculty of Economics, University of Sarajevo. On this occasion, we talked with this prominent professor.

AMAXIMUS – Association for the development, creativity and the environment has been established in September 2012. It currently has twenty experts from different fields: economics and management, psychology and pedagogy, computer science and the arts. It will soon publish the website of the association.

Many people are not even aware of the available potentials of their minds. If these potentials are not used appropriately, there are tremendous reductions of individual efficiency. All of this is reflected in the personal and professional life of a man. In our society, it has been neglected or not sufficiently observed the importance of personal development (understood as a real, balanced and comprehensive development of the individual, but also of the legal person, or economic or social organization), creative thinking, management, leadership and approaches to dealing with individual and organizational problems, their connection in terms of the necessary preconditions for the achievement of sustainable development (which more closely must contribute to achieving a balance among the four components: environmental, economic, social and cultural). All of this was the main reason and motive for the establishment of the Association for the development, creativity and environment, named AMAXIMUS, as an association of citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

„Scientific studies confirm the fact that the level of utilization of the mental potential of an average person is about 3-5 percent. Thereat, the right side of the brain is much less developed and almost unused, compared with relatively more developed and used the left side of the brain. Bearing in mind that the right side of the brain is responsible for emotion, imagination, intuition, systemic thinking, creativity, etc., it is clear that compliance with the requirements for expressing significant creativity, a high degree of emotional intelligence, the acceptance of a holistic approach in science, systemic thinking, that the modern business world sets before all of us, requires remedying the current imbalance in terms of significant development of the right side of the brain,“ said prof. Kasim Tatic, Ph.D., explaining that the aim of the Association is to encourage a large number of individuals and organizations to think about the necessity of a single, significantly innovated and modified approach of personal, organizational, communal and global development.

An awareness of the necessity of coordination of both sides of the brain is crucial, because only with the use of both sides, it is possible to reach the desired goal.

Professor, what is meant by "intellectual partying"?

The aim is to connect learning and fun, break the stereotype that learning can't be fun, provocative and entertaining. In this way, "intellectual partying" is designed, as a creative way to overcome existing boundaries between entertainment and acquiring useful knowledge. "Intellectual partying" is conceptually designed as a multimedia performance for a period of two hours. It always has a specific topic (for example, "Creativity: skill, or a gift?") where present "party people" (in Bosnian „derneklije“) will hear interesting, engaging and, hopefully, useful and positive way provocative scientific information.

About a third of the time is planned for the musical, dramatic or poetic program, that needs to relax and entertain. The goal is to involve all of the participants in the realization of program content, in some way, to make them satisfied and relaxed after leaving the partying, and at the same time to inform them about the manner in which they can speed up their intellectual and spiritual development, to awaken the dormant creativity and establish a much better communication with themselves, with other people and with the environment in which they live.

So far they have organized several „thinking workshops“ and workshops for teachers and students in secondary schools in Sarajevo, particularly in the School of Economics, Electrical Engineering School, the Second Grammar School, Dobrinja Grammar School, Gazi Husrev beg madrasa, elementary school "Musa Cazim Catic" as well as in Sarajevo Insurance and Agency Sine-Qua-Non. The aim of the Association is to promote and develop all four types of intelligence (physical, rational / intellectual, emotional / social, and spiritual), but also contribute to improving the way in which participants think, getting to know and use specific tools for the acquisition of operational skills of thinking.

What about our formal education, does it include activities to encourage creativity at all?

I will give you an answer to this question using the title of my lectures I have held at the Chamber Theatre in May this year. The lecture is named "3D education", but I did not use this D as a dimension that we have, but as something we do not have. Education is uncreative, decontextualised and unconceptualized. Therefore, we have no clear concept of what we want when students complete their studies. We do not have a clear context because these students do not fit into the world in which everything takes place rapidly and in which the emphasis is on skills, not just knowledge. Also, we have a complete absence of encouraging creativity in education, because they insist on memorizing facts, their presentation and so on.

Classical lectures at universities are often boring and uninteresting. Is it time for teachers to find additional contents to be better prepared for teaching?
Teachers should not only have a graduate certificate if they want to be teachers. They need some knowledge of psychology, pedagogy and so on. Formal or informal, it does not matter. For things that you do, you need love and an opportunity to show your best side. Students simply can recognize this. Things they hear only from the head, they quickly forget it, but, when you are speaking from the heart, it gets into their heads and reaches the heart. Then lectures are not boring.

One of the problems of young people in BiH is that after graduation they are not trained enough to meet the challenges of the labor market. They have a lot of information in their heads, but they do not know how to manage in practice. How to solve this problem?

Also, this problem was present at the University of Manchester. They have realized that people in business have knowledge but lack the skills. So, now when enrolling at the university they evaluate your overall skills, that develop over time, and, what is interesting, when looking for a job in Manchester, employers, apart from formal diplomas showing the marks of your knowledge, also require an additional diploma showing the marks of your skills. This is perhaps one of the responses: it is necessary to replace a complete education based on dull information with contextual learning (using a variety of information in contexts that require certain skills).

There are five basic skills that everyone should have: skills of learning, thinking, problem-solving, decision-making skills and creative skills.
The academic community and running the country?

Politics has isolated itself very successfully from the academic world, unfortunately, to be able to do things it has been doing, and lead the country as it is leading now. We are in a classic situation where those who have authority do not have a knowledge, and those who have the knowledge, they don't have the authority to do anything. The State of BiH should find models and methods to financially stimulate research that would be the basis for economic, social and other policies.

Source: Novo Vrijeme