Throughout the length of this paper, I have talked about meaning and the construction of meaning, first from a cognitive perspective, then extended this to a social dimension. Moving from the theoretical and abstract to the practical and concrete, I then talked about the meaning of being a Singaporean, the meaning of human existence in this country from a general social perspective as well as from an educational view. In the previous section I tried to tie everything together by arguing that art education has an important and crucial role in nursing the unhealthy creation of meaning within our society and education system. I argued that apart from the intellectual, meaning construction in schools must involve the emotional and affective aspect of human existence, and art is an obvious answer to such a need.

Having talked about the emotional aspect of meaning construction and creativity, I'd like to develop this just a bit to bring a crucial conclusion to this paper. Let us first watch this video, again of Dewitt Jones, talking about creativity.

Dewitt talks about a very important aspect of life and creativity - love, care, concern and passion for what you do. As a teacher I have found that I have grown somewhat from someone who sees students as numbers and statistics, to someone who has begun to see students as individual students. Being unable to see much meaning in the system generally, I have begun to realise that the meaning of being a teacher is a personal understanding of his students. This is my final conclusion - that the intellect cannot be separate from the emotion, and that love itself is one of the most important aspect of a human existence. This is my meaning, my Lebenswelt, as a teacher.

May all beings be well and happy.

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