Creativity is the key to the arts and the sciences

With reference to your editorial (Creativity must make a comeback in schools – and not just in arts lessons, 19 October), as someone who was discouraged at school from studying art with mathematics and sciences, I agree that,“creativity is not something that should inhabit the school curriculum only as it relates to drama, music, art and other obviously creative subjects.”

The philosopher Henri Bergson and psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist recognised two profoundly different ways of knowing, the method of analysis and intuition.

The first is about differentiation, classification, modus operandi, of getting things systematised: it gives rise to the sciences and society. The second is about integration, holism, empathy, of trying to get to the very essence of something: it gives rise to the arts and culture. Our educational institutions need to embrace these two perspectives, together as holistic “creativity in education”, not subjugating intuition and imagination to analysis and academic discipline.
Trevor Jones (Architect)
Sheringham, Norfolk

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