Podcast Discussion

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Permalink Reply by Pat Buoncristiani on March 21, 2009 at 0:24

As an educator I am deeply disturbed by the grip that high stakes testing has taken on American schools. I watched the breadth and depth of curriculum and learning shrink as the focus was more and more relentlessly on the raising of test scores. This was particularly true in so called low achieving, low socio-economic schools. I am presently in Australia and fear a similar trend is developing here. Learning how to think takes time. How do we protect thinking time and creativity in our schools when our teachers are anxious and fearful about the next round of test scores? We work with schools introducing and implementing Habits of Mind and I am conscious that the schools that seek our help are typically schools with middle class populations, where parent involvement is acceptable, where there are books at home and time for conversation. How do we ensure that the teaching of thinking is central in the schools where most of the kids come from single parent families, where the breadwinner holds down two (and sometimes three) different jobs, where there are few or no books and where fatigue makes conversation a chore rather than a pleasure. These schools struggle with test scores and the pressures on teachers are huge. Communities of generational poverty will perpetuate if we cannot break the cycle and help them become thought filled, creative communities.

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Permalink Reply by Administrator on March 21, 2009 at 10:17

Hi Pat, thanks for your great contribution. To give it the attention it deserves I've created a new post here.

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Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on May 16, 2009 at 11:32

Listening to the second podcast I got a bit frustrated. When Edward de Bono announced several valuable new ideas to the group, the other participants seemed to find them too radical for immediate appraisal so they used them as launching pads to talk about related ideas. I guess these fellows had an excuse - a conversation, especially when there is a microphone in the room, leaves little time to evaluate and comment meaningfully on an idea that you've never spent time thinking about before. Nevertheless it is a shame to see such good ideas wasted.

Here at the de Bono Society we have no such excuse. Dr de Bono has posted ideas (Fics, Positive News Agency) and then rather than evaluate and work with them members have used them as launching pads to tell everyone what they know.

I can think of better ways of responding to original ideas, but is anyone interested?

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Permalink Reply by Ana Cristina Ballesteros on June 24, 2009 at 1:14

I would like to know your opinion on how the creativity is important on crisis (of all kinds) and also to increase the productivity of people and companies.

Regards, Ana Cristina

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Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on June 24, 2009 at 10:33

Ana,

A short answer to your questions:

How is creativity important in a crisis?

Almost by definition, a crisis is an unusual situation, so standard answers may not apply. There is a need to think creativly about what is required, what are the priorities, what are the dangers, what are the remedies.

How does creativity increase the productivity of people and companies?

For the same reason that tennis players need to change their style of play to stay ahead of the competition. I would say though in business, most companies wait for others to try out new ideas: then laugh if the idea fails and copy it if it succeeds.

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Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on July 18, 2009 at 0:01

As a direct example of "creativity required in a crisis":

Six months ago here in Victoria, Australia, we had our worst bushfires ever.

When the fires approached their house, everyone phoned the emergency number. But because there were so many fires, most people (including those having heart attacks in suburbs far away from fires) could not get through to emergency services.

The standard solution of "call the fire brigade and they will help you" did not apply - you had to think of the best alternatives yourself.

Of course it would not have hurt emergency services to use their creativity to explore the possibility of a big emergency beforehand...

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