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Board and Management - Mission Statement - Events - Film - Destino Jazz - Publications-Creative Collaboration>> Education

 

Trinidad Quartet Productions
EDUCATIVE CREATIVE OUTREACH (ECO) PROGRAMMES

 

©Destino Jazz

2007 - Trinidad Quartet Productions conducted multi-arts workshops for secondary school children at the Umana Yama Arts Centre in Guyana, and for The Cotton Tree Foundation in Port of Spain.

2006 - Beckett designed an Educative Creative Outreach (ECO) programme which won a BPtt Soca Award for the Cotton Tree Foundation, a charitable institution dedicated to providing opportunities for disadvantaged youth in the community. This programme is now established as an ongoing course ‘The Cotton Tree Pioneers, for young people in the borough.

2005 - In collaboration with Pamberi Steel Orchestra, Beckett conducted ‘Paint & Pan’ workshops for students in the San Juan district.

PROJECT 2010

GENERATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY  – Planting seeds for the future

Rural Outreach Educative Creative Programmes

© Sarah Beckett

Traditionally, schooling rests on a method of teaching whereby all subjects are separated, with a particularly fierce division between the sciences and the arts which tends to preclude the wonderful ‘what if ?’ of  imaginative journeys and/or lateral inspiration, which can be nurtured and developed through music, painting, sculpture, dance and poetry.

In many ways our education system is still stuck in an outdated nineteenth century structure that was geared for the industrial revolution. It is almost entirely predicated on mathematical skill and literacy with all the arts way down the bottom of the league table  as a sort of also-ran if you’re no good at anything else.

The immense and extraordinarily rapid advance in technology is so all encompassing that none of us really know where it will lead within say five or ten years, so the ability to think laterally and creatively should be a priority in our education systems.  

In fact, by stifling the creative process we stifle the the ability to dare to do something new and to be  unafraid to get it wrong the first time round and  we arrest the full potential of our children who will grow into adults with the attitude that the arts are useless out there in the “real world”. This attitude is way out of date. 

Firstly, the aim of  this Creative Outreach programme is to enable the students to transcend limiting habits of thought, think laterally, and traverse the ‘boundaries’ of different disciplines/cultures which hedge the development of the imaginative process.

Secondly, the teaching methodology is based on the principles of Gardner’s  ‘Multiple Intelligences’ whereby, for example, maths is illuminated through music or the rhythm of poetry; spatial awareness through dance, and the science of colour/ principles of light, through painting.

We are launching this project in Trinidad, with the view to ultimately making connections with other countries both in the West Indies and Europe.

 

The Workshops

Relevance for NGO’s

Sadly, many children in our society fall into a kind of educational limbo, either through economic hardship, unstable family situations or undetected dyslexia. These workshops are designed to slot into NGO programmes in helping to offer those children a way out of the limbo, by providing both a creative learning process to acquire a skill and a way of thinking to help them in the wider context of their lives.

The initial workshops are designed for the 11 – 18 year old students, the age group so often in a muddle of complexity and frustrated potential. Studies show that young people who become actively involved in creative production are less vulnerable to being seduced into a life of crime. Gradually the workshops will be developed appropriately to suit all age groups. 

 

Relevance for Schools

The main schools in Port of Spain and San Fernando generally do have good musical and art departments. However, there are many schools in the smaller towns and rural areas that have little in the way of facilities, or even the teachers available, for creative tuition.

We see our mission as taking our Rural Outreach Travelling Workshops to these schools and or village halls and community centres to offer the children the opportunity to meet and talk and participate with professionals in the different artistic fields.

 

Adult Education

Many adults, having had their creativity firmly  “educated” out of them,  arrive at their adulthood convinced they haven’t a creative bone in their bodies. The experience of teaching adult creative workshops over the years has convinced me that this is patently untrue. The TQP Atelier workshops are designed for professional adults and are geared to provide a forum where people can discover their creative potential, not just through painting, writing, making music but also to discover how creativity thinking can provide a seam of innovative solution finding in the business place. All that is needed is a place to explore their creative potential.

 

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