Expressive Arts and Religious Education

Classrooms in Papua New Guinea (PNG) have supported this view that since all human beings have a head (intelligence) each person should be able to with precision (logically) acquire knowledge. Logic has been equated with intelligence. Areas of knowledge that were built on logic have been given significance in the curriculum while those that seemingly have little to do with logic have been pushed aside in the curriculum. The enterprise of education- processes of knowledge acquisition and creation- needs to move beyond the confines of logic as being equivalent to intelligence. To claim that all logic is intelligence is at best illogical and at it’s worst irrational. There is a need to recognise that the human condition does not learn and live on logic alone. Emotions, or matters of the heart, have long been seen as the enemy of logics or good effective thinking. The two – logic and emotions- have been separated as entities. In my paper I propose that there is a need for a major shift away and beyond this mind set. If education in PNG and around the world is about Integral Human Development and is based on knowledge from within our own cultures as much as from without then the move to go beyond logics and sensibilities as separate entities or domains of knowledge is paramount