Education Reform & Techniques To Become More Creative
Seth mentions that education should be taught differently, Estaban shares some great tips on being more creative, and Glappitnova’s educational panel is open.
Seth Godin on Education Reform
Do you agree with Seth? Glappitnova will be having an educational driven forum to challenge this way of teaching, and thinking. Education, and educators are evolving. Is it more about learning, or is it about getting a job? How can we combine these view points to help spawn a better society for the future of education. Make sure to attend our “The Battle of Learning vs Job Placement in Education” forum. More information can be found here.
It may seem like some people with good ideas are divinely inspired.
They are hit with a flash of inspiration of the creativity gods deliver a million-dollar idea. Thankfully for the rest of us, science shows that the creativity gods don’t work in that way. In fact, coming up with new ideas is a straightforward process involving techniques, time, and patience. Below are three techniques to help you come up with more creative ideas…
Juxtaposition
Creativity is often seen as connecting two seemingly unrelated concepts. Henry Ford created the assembly line (which already existed) and applied it to making cars (which also existed). Reese’s brought together chocolate and peanut butter…and the rest is history. Creating connections between two technologies, concepts, products, or ingredients can result in radical innovations.
The first technique to come up with ideas is called juxtaposition. It’s simple: take two unrelated words and create something new. The more you do it, the easier the ideas will come. Side note: the more time you spend on it, the more creative the ideas will come. Let’s try it right now…look around you, what do you see?
“On my desk right now I have tape and my cell phone. Let’s see if we can juxtapose those and create some sort of innovation.”
I’ll start with what comes to mind right away: a cell phone case that also serves as a tape dispenser. How about tape that covers the cell phone to keep it clean or safe? Decorative and protective cell phone tape? What if you could take a picture of something you need to tape and it gave you perfect dimensions for how long to cut a piece of tape? What if a roll of tape had the same function as a cell phone? Like a mini-computer you can put anywhere… it’ll look like the scenes from Minority Report?
Outside of wanting to rewatch Minority Report, I think we’ve come up with a few ideas that might have some potential. Connecting two concepts/services is a cornerstone of creativity and practicing juxtaposition will build the mental muscles that make connections which will result in more creative thinking.
Exaggeration
This one is fun. Like the name suggests, you will take an idea and push it to it’s silliest most outlandish limits. For example, I’m a teacher, so selfishly I want to brainstorm about becoming a more effective teacher. A normal (and stale) brainstorm session might start with writing down words a good teacher is, we would receive suggestions like “passionate” and our discussion would end with no new insights. Instead, today we will exaggerate and welcome wild ideas, especially in any direction knowing insights can come from all sorts of places.
“Did you know the name Glappitnova was inspired by Pac-Man?”
For example, what does the worst teacher look like? They ignore kids completely, they speak in monotone, and their lessons make everyone go to sleep immediately. Let’s go further: the worst teacher would fail everyone, would teach inaccurate information, and would make kids hate learning and never wish to learn anything inside our outside the classroom every again.
Now, what does the best teacher ever look like? Try not to place any limitations on your ideas yet. For example, my best teachers in life have been mentors and friends. What if every student had a friend-teacher, a friend that patiently walks you through learning. Or in the classroom, a teacher would instill such a love of learning that students continue reading, learning, and growing outside of school. From there, we can pull away some take-aways or ideas for better instruction. It’s a start but at the very least, we expanded our original ideas and considered different approaches to teaching.
Empathy
It’s nearly impossible to come up with a good idea if you’re only viewing the world through your set of eyes. Empathy is the ability to picture the world from another point of view, and the best ideas come from an empathetic view of the world. Let’s think about a phone again. From a senior citizen’s point of view, how would a phone be designed? Simple. Big buttons. How about from a child’s point of view? Durable. Spill-proof. Colorful. Loaded with games. Let’s go back to the teacher example.
We can gather insights about teachers this way. What would a principal want from a teacher? High test scores that make the school look good. What would a student though? Realistically (unfortunately)…probably an A or to have fun in class. Right there, we look at the problems in a different way. How to make school compelling for kids, while designing around the pressures put on the principal. Those multiple points of view offer a more holistic (and creative!) view of teaching.
There you have it. Three exercises that will help you come up with better ideas. If you’re interested in learning more, the team I work with (whom are smarter and better writers) at the University of Illinois wrote a workbook on creativity and it is available here.
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