July
2007
Creativity, critical thinking and play-time0
Critical thinking and creativity are the common themes among a lot of the Web 2.0 reading I’ve done in the past two days. The National Educational Technology Standards for Students: The Next Generation could be summarized as creativity, communication, collaboration and critical thinking. David Warlick on his 2cts blog discusses a variety of books that educators are reading that are specifically about education — Reading and Becoming — but focus on communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking. Wesley Fryer to the discussion with an article about the importance of free play in developing the skills of creativity, communication, collaboration and critical thinking — Unstructured practice can be a key to excellence — and he even quotes Angus King. 
These themes resonate with me because of synchronicity with several other books I’m reading (or have read) and other projects in which I’m involved:
I recently returned from Haiti where I was working with a non-profit group that sends teachers to train other teachers (Project Teach/Konbit Pwof). The program focuses on promoting new pedagogy and teaching styles beyond the standard lecture model. In other words: creativity, collaboration (engagement) and critical thinking (beyond rote memoratization). The major difference is that in the Web 2.0 model the focus is on using new and emerging technologies, whereas the Haiti model was about how to develop engaging, creative, collaborative teaching methods with almost no technology or supplies. It occurs to me that many of the same conversations we’re having in class this week are strikingly similar to the conversations among the volunteer teachers in the Haiti project. It’s all about becoming better teachers and finding ways to promote critical thinking.
During the school year, I work with two men (both retired lawyers) to moderate a seminar on Corporate Ethics and Leadershing. (I know: “Corporate Ethics isn’t that an oxymoron?” — it might be right now, but it shouldn’t be). During the seminar, we give the students a case study — a scenario like “you’re the board of directors of Company X, the CEO wants a 10% raise and more stock options, the stock price is down 5% and the CEO wants to invest in outsourcing instead of fully funding the pension” — and then the students role-play as the board of directors and come up with a decision. This year, we added some improv theater exercises to the seminar as a way of breaking the ice and getting them to think about how people communicate. We emphasize active listening, respect for all ideas, and collaborative problem-solving. The kids have a ball and don’t even think of it as “working” and they learn a lot without “studying.”
Like the Haiti program, the seminar is a decidedly low-tech method of promoting creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking. And it includes some “play time” too.
It all reminds me of a discussion of “intelligence” from The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson:
The Diamond Age
“I think I have finally worked out what you were trying to tell me, years ago, about being intelligent,” she said.
The Constable brightened all at once. “Pleased to hear it.”
“The Vickys have an elaborate code of morals and conduct. It grew out of the moral squalor of an earlier generation, just as the original Victorians were preceded by the Georgians and the Regency. The old guard believe in that code because they came to it the hard way. They raise their children to believe in that code–but their children believe it for entirely different reasons.”
“They believe it,” the Constable said, “because they have been indoctrinated to believe it.”
“Yes. Some of them never challenge it–they grow up to be small-minded people, who can tell you what they believe but not why they believe it. Others become disillusioned by the hypocrisy of the society and rebel–as did Elizabeth Finkle-McGraw.”
“Which path do you intend to take, Nell?” said the Constable, sounding very interested. “Conformity or rebellion?”
“Neither one. Both ways are simple-minded–they are only for people who cannot cope with contradiction and ambiguity.”
From The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. (Page 355-356 of my Bantam Paperback)
(copied from http://mlaroche.blogspot.com/2005/05/diamond-age.html)
I’d add to that sentiment by saying that critical thinking requires the thinker to find the connections between ideas, see the patterns, draw their own conclusions. The Did you know? video posited that we have to educate students for jobs that don’t even exist yet, which sounds like a daunting task. But if we teach critical thinking (and creativity, communication and collaboration), the rest will take care of itself.
