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CREATIVITY IN STEM EDUCATION THROUGH
INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS: CHALLENGES
AND PROSPECTS
Okechukwu S Abonyi and Gabriel Okafor
Department of Science Education, Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki
Abstract
Although scientists quite appreciate the need to develop networks and
institutions of excellence as well as the need to valorize indigenous knowledge in
maximizing creativity for sustainable living, the development, incubation and
proper institutionalization of indigenous knowledge system still face great
challenges. This paper is an articulation of creativity from indigenous
knowledge perspectives and challenges that we must jointly surmount so as to
move the nation ahead in sustainable development.
Introduction
ICASE has a formidable record of considering the meaning of science and technology
education and its implications for sustainable development. It must be recalled that the
Manitoba Protocol, which evolved in 1990 after the partnership conference between
ICASE and Canadian Association for Science Education acknowledged that the earth is
one but the world is not. It also recognized that indigenous people the world over are
willing to aid in the process of sustainable development by sharing both their wealth of
wisdom about nature and their special spiritual relationship with the earth. The Manitoba
Protocol finally declared that it is our commitment to listen, to feel, and to act.
In 2009 the organizers of African Regional Conference of ICASE also signed a script that
emphasized among others:
placing a system of values and ethics on the centre of a society’s concern
advancing new conceptions rooted both in traditional scientific rationality and in
popular beliefs and consciousness, drawing on these as a source of human
understanding and a pointer to collective wisdom
encouraging the refinement of locally based processes of change and integral
community advancement, one not marked by a passive receptivity to or mindless
repetition of homogeneous development models.
All these point unmistakably to the indispensability if indigenous knowledge systems in
ensuring sustainable science education for the acquisition of the 21st century skills.
Although a lot of emphasis has been placed on indigenous knowledge systems and
development the issue of creativity through indigenous knowledge systems and
institutions in STEM education has not been appropriately addressed.
Indigenous Knowledge system and the Creative process
Indigenous knowledge deals with the distinct body of knowledge that relies mostly on a
balanced interaction of the community with the inherently rich domains of the natural
environment. According to Warren, Slikkerveer and Brokensha (1995: xv) indigenous
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knowledge is “the local knowledge that is unique to given culture or society – contrasts
with international knowledge which is generated through the global network of
universities and research institutes”. Indigenous Knowledge is the knowledge that is
peculiar to a particular culture. It approximates or reflects the natives' own thinking about
how their physical world is to be classified. It is also the tool with which man learns
about his environment, its resources and problems and how to control and utilize them
both productively and sustainably. Indigenous knowledge (sometimes referred to as
ethnoscience) embraces a number of disciplines namely ethnobiology, ethnochemistry,
ethnophysics, ethnomathematics, ethnomedicine, and an array of indigenous Agricultural
practices and food processing technologies. The fundamental principle in these aspects of
indigenous knowledge system is that the basic concepts and practices are enshrined in
environmentally dependent and culturally reinforced knowledge, myths, and supernatural
(Abonyi, 1999; Abonyi, Achimugu and Njoku 2014).
Abonyi, Achimugu and Njoku (2014) identified a number of internationally
unified indigenous programmes. They include Toman Obat Keluarga (the indigenous
Indonesian medicine for self reliance), Philippine On-Farm experiments, Kpelle
Steelmaking, Igbo black soap technology, and the CTTA concept and the Niger study.
Indigenous knowledge systems also encompass indigenous decision making systems and
local/ traditional and community forestry management and environmental conservation
technologies.
Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity
therefore is viewed from two principal perspectives: thinking and producing. Creativity
is a crucial part of the innovation equation. Creativity requires whole-brain
thinking; right-brain imagination, artistry and intuition, plus left-brain logic and planning.
The creative processes include convergent and divergent thinking. There have been
much empirical studies in psychology and cognitive science of the processes through
which creativity occurs. Finke (1992) proposed a model which viewed creativity from
two perspectives. According to him creativity takes place in two phases. They are the
generative phase and explorative phase. In the generative phase an individual constructs
mental representations called pre-inventive structures while at the exploratory phase
those structures are used to come up with creative ideas. In creative cognitive approach
both Convergent and divergent thinking are utilized. Convergent thinking involves
aiming for a single, correct solution to a problem, whereas divergent thinking involves
creative generation of multiple answers to a set problem. Divergent thinking according to
Finke (1992) is sometimes used as a synonym for creativity in psychology literature.
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Challenges of IKS in Achieving Creativity through STEM Education
Western Science and its method
As far back as 1980, Boulding noted that one illusion held by many within the western
scientific community is that there is a single scientific method, “a touchstone that can
distinguish what is science and what is not”. As Boulding rightfully pointed out, one of
the problem which science has to face is the development of an appropriate method
corresponding to different epistemological fields. As he pointed out, the alchemists had
experiments, the astrologers had careful observation, the geomancers and diviners had
measurements, the theologians had logic and these methods are not peculiar to science.
A great historian, Arnold Toynbee, wrote that in his search up to the present point, he had
been experimenting with the play of soulless forces – vis inertiae and race and
environment and has been thinking in the deterministic terms of cause and effect. Now
that the maneuvers ended one after another, that in his drawing blank, he is led to
consider whether his successive failures may not point to some mistakes in method. He
rightfully admitted that he may have fallen a victim to the apathetic fallacy against which
he sought to put himself on guard at the onset of his inquiry.
Toynbee went ahead to point unmistakably to errors arising from non appreciation
of individual cultural differences and also errors arising from looking at the world of
physical reality as solely a function of a unified method. The question is: how do we
learn from our day to day interaction with nature? Must all knowledge be brewed in a test
tube? Shall we dispose of intuitions and day to day experiences? He wrote:
I will now look at my problems with new eyes. I will see persons where so far I
have been seeing forces. I will picture the relations between persons as being
challenges that evoke responses instead of causes that produce effects. I will
follow Plato’s lead: I will turn away from the formulae of science in order to
harken to the language of mythology. Pp 97.
We may have also forgotten that the earlier societies had broken away from the routine –
perhaps, by then, half a million years old – of making lower Paleolithic tools and had
invented the much more competent upper Paleolithic technique. Sarles (1996) presented
a similar argument that “nothing in the world is intrinsically a computer program except
as applied, described or interpreted by an observer”. Let us take for example the case of
Albert Einstein and the theory of relativity. He wrote after his famous equation (E =
MC2) that imagination is more important than knowledge.
A concise analysis of Whorf’s hypothesis informs us that there are differences
across culture in the ways by which people categorize their physical world. The Chinese
alchemy arose from traditional belief shared by all Chinese thinkers that earths mature
within the terrestrial womb. This thought held by the Chinese thinkers made it possible
for them not only to shrink the dimensions of the universe to fit their four walls but also
compress time to make the duration of the manipulation feasible. Through this process
they were able to force ordinary metal into maturity to gold. In other words, without
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distorting the cognitive structure of an individual, ethnoscience permits total exploration
of one’s environment using cultural background.
Further, since ethnoscience deals with knowledge indigenous to culture, it serves
as a base for construction of reality by linking culture to advanced knowledge of the
universe. The most interesting aspect of ethnoscience according to Achimugu and Abonyi
(2010) is that the intellectual unity which they confer on experience is derived from
reflecting on the nature, power and effect of culture. Every child is born into a culture and
as he grows up the intellectual unity of the culture is imprinted and hardwired in him/her.
It is particularly important to note that these cognitive wiring are supernaturally
reinforced and does not easily submit to external influences. Any attempt at rewiring the
cognitive structure through strange methods, equations and procedure will generate a
cognitive failure in the learner just like a fish drawn out of the water.
Territorialization of knowledge
The second challenge is that of territorialization of knowledge. This is the false belief that
only autochthonous people who are physically living in Africa can produce, within a closed
circle limited to themselves alone, a legitimate scientific discourse on the realities of the
continent (Mbembe, 1999:3). This is the most criminal assumption of the opponents of
cultural constructivism i.e. that the generation of knowledge transcend cultural boundaries.
As far back as 1953 Cassirer warned against the idea that science concepts are formed from
differing environmental perspectives. Cassirer (1953:14 –15) wrote that:
The concept of the manifold species and genera are supposed to arise for us by the
gradual predominance of the similarities of things over their differences, i.e. that
similarities alone by virtue of their many appearances imprint themselves upon the
mind, while the individual differences which change from case to case fail to attain
like fixity and permanence.
Cassirer (1953) did not appreciate the fact that concept development and utilization is
environmentally dependent. He argued that every problem must be viewed from a unified
perspective even when those problems are culturally and environmentally dependent. It
must be understood that each culture has its own peculiar problems and institutionalized
approaches through which those issues have been resolved from ages. Creativity entails
turning new and imaginative ideas into reality irrespective of the territory from where the
imagination came from.
Poor interpretation of globalization
Finally we have the challenge arising from poor interpretation of globalization in scientific
enterprises. Constructivists misconstrue giving networks priority over structures not as co-
construction of knowledge but as nativism. Global networks ensure unification of science
through interaction and exchange of ideas, innovations and skills among experts and
organizations scattered all over the world. It does not urge individuals and research units to
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be localized and be restricted by cultural boundaries. Competition should be encouraged and
the circulation of intelligence should become the rule (Mbembe, 1999). With the current
restriction of knowledge base in our science education programme we are faced with the big
challenge of capacity building, establishment of research networks and dialogues with both
the various African indigenous people and with other worlds.
Prospects of IKS in sustainable Development through STEM Education
(i). Hybridization of Indigenous Knowledge through Linkages
Transfer should be seen as an interlocking set of communication/information/Education
processes rather than as the exclusive activity of a few formal structures or entities
(Constance et al 1995). STEM education should be designed to ensure hybridization of
concepts and processes across cultural boundaries. This involves establishment of linkages
with international institutions on indigenous knowledge like the Centre for Indigenous
Knowledge for Agriculture and Rural Development (CIKARD), The Leiden Ethnosystem
and Development Programme (LEAD), Centre for International Research and Advisory
Network (CIRAN), Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic research (NISER), Regional
Programme for the Promotion of Indigenous Knowledge in Asia (REPPIKA) and a host of
others. Linkages between school and these bodies will ensure information flow,
documentation of indigenous knowledge across culture and encourage research on their
hybridization with other advanced scientific knowledge. By so doing science classroom will
become creative, technology incubators and pioneer innovations for sustainable
development.
(ii). Standardization of anthropological data
Indigenous knowledge systems exist in cluster across communities. These knowledge are
sometimes enshrined in rituals and traditions which are sometimes esoteric. Through a
thorough analysis of these knowledge systems, the creative potentials in them could be
properly isolated and standardized for onward transmission to institutionalized bodies
that should be entrusted with their incubation and hybridization. It, therefore, becomes
indispensable that STEM Education should recognize the importance of anthropological
data and the need to harness them in ensuring creative outputs.
Conclusions
International Council of the Association of Science Education recommended in 2003 that
“science education should be made more relevant to the perceived needs and interests of
the students, reflecting a balanced vision of the importance and socio-scientific
functioning of industry plus relevance for preparation for, and awareness of student
careers, and meeting the needs of the society and culture. By implication there is an
emphasis on creativity through indigenous knowledge systems of development. In
addition the ICSU regional office for Africa on its reports on associated events at the
29th general assembly noted clearly that incentives were required to stimulate brain gain,
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in addition to promoting indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) development and
prioritizing research to target Africa’s needs. In the same vein the UNESCO perspective
on STI in Africa is that there is a need to identify clearly the kind of science and
Technology that Africa requires; the need for African scientists to establish their own
agenda and adapt education and training to focus on specific country needs. Again this
boils down to the issue indigenous African knowledge in the creative enterprise. Africa
must identify their resources and creatively utilize them for sustainable development. Our
STEM education must devise appropriate channels of exploring indigenous knowledge
and utilizing them creatively in a way that will ensure maximum utilization of our
abundant natural resources. The principal focus of science is creativity and utility, not
methodology.
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