IMAGINATION, CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

Catch a man a fish and you feed him for a day.   Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Chinese proverb Catch a man a fish and you can sell it to him.   Teach a man to fish and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity. Karl Marx Catch a man a fish and he eats for a day.   Teach a man to fish and he has no time left to do his day-job. Mark O’Neil Three contrasting views of the world.   Let’s look at what these might be taken to mean in the context of a teacher, and teaching. There is a lot being written out there in cyberspace right now about how the digital revolution in the classroom spells the end of the textbook.   In Australia, for example, there are state and federal government initiatives to collect vast amounts of discrete digital content so that teachers can search for content and build their lessons for a new curriculum from the ground up.   The principle is that teaching a man to fish feeds him for a lifetime.   The

Learning is not something that is ‘done’ to a student by a teacher. Learning only happens when a student chooses to engage with what is being taught. But, obviously learning can also happen without a teacher. Regardless of how old we are, whether we ‘succeeded’ in school or not, learning is what humans do. As long as we live, learning is a choice. Traditional schooling was (is?) about a teacher imparting knowledge perceived to be useful to a group of students. This happened in an enclosed space, for a fixed time and with no outside influence or interference for the duration of the ‘lesson’. Exams, assignments and essays were, and often still are, done alone. In the industrial society where these students left school and entered factories, this was good preparation for their lives as adult workers – performing repetitive tasks, probably alone, in an enclosed space and under supervision and with little or no outside interference. So does traditional schooling as described st

In a previous post Managing Change I wrote about two ways that change can be affected – forced change (F-Change) and nurtured change (N-Change).   The role of management for each of these is vastly different.   For anyone seeking to instigate change the polar opposite approaches might be: F-change N-change Demand insist on perfection Listen to staff opinion and objections and follow up Lead from the front, because no-one else has the required vision Deliver resources, feedback and follow-up in time Direct decide who is capable and who does what by when Arrive to key meetings and show willing to engage with staff Assert assert your authority to make change See for yourself Dictate the way things are done Encourage learning, ideas, creativ

A quick search on Google Images can throw light on how technology has changed our lives. (@abdulchohan, Festival of Education 2012).  Try this for yourself – search for Google Images for 19 th century surgery and 21 st century surgery.  In typical images of 19 th century surgery you will see men in suits operating on a patient lying on what looks like the kitchen table.  In the 21 st century image you will see surgeons in a clean environment surrounded by technology.  Try the same for printing, or banking to see the impact technology has had on our lives. But when the same search is done for education, there is a difference.  Pictures of 19 th century schoolrooms – of children sat at desks in rows facing the teacher – are not so dissimilar to some 21 st century pictures.  There are exceptions, but it is clear that technology has not yet made an impact on all classrooms.    In recent years the rise of the ebook and the ebook reader has

‘Change Management’ is generally seen as a process of transition from a current state to a desired new future state.  Change management can be affected for groups from individuals to organisations.  Some even attempt to affect change in a whole industry – the International Teacher Development Institute ( itdi.pro ), for example, is changing the way English language teachers develop teaching skills by creating a dedicated community that provides support, encouragement and leadership. Broadly speaking, change can be affected in 2 ways.  It can be forced (F-change) or nurtured (N-change).  A quick search online throws up three distinct meanings of ‘manage’.  They are: 1. Part of Speech: verb.   Definition: be in charge, control, dominate. 2. Part of Speech: verb.   Definition: survive, get by , cope, endure. 3. Part of Speech: verb.   Definition: achieve, bring about, conclude. It is how the process is managed tha

At a recent meeting at my daughter’s school involving representatives of the teaching staff, the school’s council and some parents, I was struck by the school’s determination to offer a program that encouraged its pupils to be both creative and remarkable.   This school is one of many who are questioning the role of education and aligning themselves to 21 st century needs.   This is a necessary endeavor and one that all schools should be undertaking and it has led me to question what schooling is actually for, and the needs of society schools should be addressing.   There is, I think, a disjoint between what schools have traditionally offered and the needs of society. Education produces adults who are: Economies need adults who are: obedient compliant homogenized consumers aware independent creative improvisers caring 19 th century industrialization, which led to the creation of universal education was based

This is the third post, and last for now, looking at ways that a business could be blocking its own potential and making suggestions for unblocking the ideas, creativity and innovation that fuels future business success. 3. Arrogance ‘Innovation is this amazing intersection between someone's imagination and the reality in which they live. The problem is, many companies don't have great imagination, but their view of reality tells them that it's impossible to do what they imagine.‘ Ron Johnson All businesses have, or should have a business plan.  This plan represents the strategic vision of the organization and its goals over the next three or five years.  Some companies take this plan altogether too seriously and. by sticking too rigidly to plan, stifle creativity and innovation and miss opportunities for growth.  There are some tell-tale signs that the company has arrogantly assumed its plans are close to perfect and should not be strayed from a

This is the second post where I am looking at ways that a business could be blocking its own potential and making suggestions for unblocking the ideas, creativity and innovation that fuels future business success. 2.      Internal risks ‘Safe is risky’ Seth Godin Business Intelligence has become big business.   Companies, quite rightly, want to analyse data they collect from customers, suppliers, distributors and employees so that they make informed decisions about investment in products and services and sales and marketing strategies.   Business systems age and are replaced b ever more sophisticated and expensive back-end software that integrates everything from financial reporting to inventory control. Some businesses spend so much time and effort focusing on improving business intelligence systems and analyzing data to within an inch of its existence in order to try to reduce or even eliminate risk in decision ma

Over the next few posts I am going to be looking at ways that a business could be blocking its own potential and making suggestions for unblocking the ideas, creativity and innovation that fuels future business success. 1.      Aversion to risk In an episode of ‘The Big Bang Theory’, Sheldon learns to swim by studying techniques on the Internet.  He does not see the need to test these in actual water, preferring to claim that the skills he ‘learns’ in his living room are transferable should he ever need to actually swim!  Those of us who can swim know this to be nonsense, and that learning to swim involves learning by doing.  In the process of learning it is likely that we will swallow some water, flail about helplessly and maybe shed a few tears before we finally work up the courage to take the risk and trust ourselves not to drown. In business we have to go through similar steps to success.  Granted, knowing your market and analyzing trends and competitor activity are a

   “Give them a mile and they’ll take an inch”     Seth Godin   It would be hard not to contend that technology is having an impact on how we communicate, how we interact with content and how we learn. Businesses across the globe race to keep up with advances, use social media to market their wares and hire armies of technology and information specialists. Yet despite the rapid growth of the technology available to enhance education many businesses complain that they find it hard to find truly innovative staff. Why is that?  For 150 years, education systems around the world have worked like a production line. Children are fed into the production line based on the date they were born – or date of manufacture. They move from year to year and then from classroom to classroom having ‘knowledge’ poured into their heads by ‘experts’. Some children have room in their heads to take in more ‘knowledge’ than others and these are sent off to university to be future ‘leaders’. They have