Sometimes the processes are important, particularly for the people involved. As a teacher, Neil, I'm sure you've often experienced situations in which people needed to re-invent the wheel themselves in order to really grok what it can be used for - and to get a sense of their own worth ... and their own creativity. And thus discover the frisbee!
Much of schooling has to do with teaching children to conform - neccessary in many ways but not always conducive to encouraging creativity. Really good teachers are able to square this circle; they are, unfortunately, as rare as hens' teeth. And priceless, particularly if they manage to survive in the system - which most of them don't. In working life, the process of stifling creativity goes on - a modern method is often forced on people under the name of Quality Management. It can frequently be renamed "enforced mediocrity." And all the time, "there are so many colours in the rainbow ... " http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeJJOjb7fj4&feature=related Francis On 28 Feb., 13:37, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > Academics generally hold that your average plonker is about as likely > to come up with anything original as a Pope is likely to be non- > Catholic (Francis will no doubt tell us some were!) - this actuality > runs somewhat in contrast with learning organisation myths and so on > that stress that we are all originals and it's just school that beats > it out of us. Quite why a bunch of inveterate plagiarists should hold > such views on other people's originality, I'm not sure. I seem to > have wasted much time discussing originality amongst people utterly > devoid of it. I have a sense of what it might be and that we ascribe > it to individuals falsely, as whatever we are as individuals is > clearly linked to culture and groups. The literature on creativity is > so boring and upitself as not to be widely accessible, but some facts > are about in it. In teaching I haven't been able to do much more than > offer people the chance to get into projects and self-expression and > not drop on them for re-inventing wheels and so on - along with some > nurture-criticism. I suspect something deeper than schooling (they > school horses don't they?) is afoot in our not trusting to community > creativity or allowing its greater expression. I find the notion of > innovatory entrepreneurialism particularly suspect here, but there are > no doubt babies and bathwaters. > > I wonder if we have any anecdotes or historical notions of innovation > and its role in a more creative consensus on human living and what we > are about or want to be about? I'd start by saying the powers that be > are so frightened by innovation that they have shown and used > instruments of torture. Descartes quipped somewhere that they had > done dreadful things to Galileo - and he was an Italian - what might > they do to a Frenchman? Locally, I have found that a range of > votaries and bureaucrats quickly try to humiliate dissenting voices, > rather than get at the real evidence of a situation. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
