Patrick Oke: Perhaps to wonder (30 Days, 30 Voices)

Patrick Oke

Does our education allow us to wonder? Does it allow us question the nature of things ? Or are we conditioned and restricted  to think within certain parameters?

In 2002 William Kamkwamba became a self taught engineer when he built  a solar powered windmill to pump water on his parents farm in his village in Malawi. He built it without any supervision, all he had was a book for a manual. Mr Kamkwamba told the BBC News website: “I was very interested when I saw that the windmill could make electricity and pump water. He had dropped out of school because his parents couldn’t afford the fees which were the equivalent of £80 per term. If Necessity is the mother of invention, then imagination is the womb in which it develops.

Does our education allow us to wonder? Does it allow us question the nature of things ? Or are we conditioned and restricted  to think within certain parameters? The ancient scribes and scholars did not have as much information as we do, yet they were able to make astounding discoveries in science and timeless innovations in the art. I’ve always wondered what inspired the ancient Egyptians to build pyramids or how Amenhotep happened upon a singular deity or astronomy. Or how Aristotle contemplated vast topics from philosophy to art and medicine. Or even how Isaac Newton deduced the concept of gravity by a mere apple falling on his head from a tree. This inquisitiveness that leads one person to ask; what is the cause of lightning? As opposed to fearing it as just a phenomenon and relegating it to a divine occurrence that cannot be fathomed.

Perhaps my question here is why aren’t we taught to imagine and why aren’t we taught to wonder? These are usually the first steps to world changing ideas and breakthroughs. Neil Armstrong had childhood dreams of travelling to the moon. Einstein’s theory of relativity started from imagination. It is from wondering and letting our minds wander carefully that we start to truly understand the nature of things.

Studies have shown that the brain solves problems better through play and associative reasoning it would be helpful if we can cultivate alternate ways of learning that focus more on creative processes of learning.

Certain innovations in science such as nanotechnology and video calling claimed to have been inspired by star trek. Star trek was the brain child of Gene Rodenberry; he imagined what it would be like to have sliding doors, spaceships traversing the vast reaches of space and time.

Jules Verne wrote 20 000 leagues under the sea about captain Nemo and his underwater vessel years before the submarine was invented. Leonardo Da vinci had sketches of a helicopter like device and an airplane like device through studying birds, he also proposed a system of how the circulatory system of the human body worked by observing the flow of a river. Marie Curie renowned physicist, the first woman to win a nobel prize hypothesised that the atom could not be the smallest indivisible unit, she contemplated this while observing certain emissions from a uranium compound. This led to the discovery of Polonium and Radium. The common thread with these stories is that these men they allowed their imaginations soar to untold possibilities and they were in societies that encouraged or had the means to bring these mental pictures to reality.

So perhaps we should have classes on imagination and educate people to think for themselves, because it is only by harnessing these individual worlds of wonder and imagination that we can collectively benefit and improve as a people.

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.”
Albert Einstein

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Patrick Oke is an aspiring director, actor, poet and time traveller. He has a BA from creative arts UNILAG, a masters degree in film and T.V production along with diplomas in screen writing, directing and VFX animation. He is a sometimes a misguided genius who spends time between family and friends. he loves scrabble, footy, writing, drawing and generally causing mischief in between time travelling and space exploration.

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30 Days 30 Voices series is an opportunity for young Nigerians to share their stories and experiences with other young Nigerians, within our borders and beyond, to inspire and motivate them.

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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