Creativity, Diversity, and other Creativity, Diversity, and other ConundrumsConundrums

TGIF Apr 20/06TGIF Apr 20/06

On Stage and OffOn Stage and Off

Connected Visual world Partnerships Accountable Complexity Rate of change High expectations Cultural diversity

Non-linear Quantum literacy shift Multilingual Synthesis Instant communication Volatile Performance accent Global Ecology

ISSUES AND TECHNOLOGYISSUES AND TECHNOLOGY

POVERTY POLLUTION POPULATION AGING/HEALTH ENERGY KT BOUNDARY EQUILIBRIUM

GENOMICS INFORMATICS NANOTECHNOLOGY MATERIALS CITY OF CANADA EQUITY CULTURAL CLASH

Problem Solving/Human CapitalProblem Solving/Human Capital

• the health/ wealth of organizations, cultures, cities, provinces, nations is embodied in human capital and idea generation

LEARNING IS THE KEYLEARNING IS THE KEYKnowledge is the key factor in production, innovation, amelioration,social and political development . Learning is as essential to capitalformation in the knowledge age as steel making was in the industrial age.Declining productivity ( or the wrong kind of learning )in education is a serious brake and barrier to growth in all other areas.

CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

Creativity Involves cognitive activity that results in a new way of viewing some problem or situation, and which is not necessarily restricted to practicality. Creativity = Idea + Action

Innovation is the successful exploitation of new ideas. Innovation = Creativity + Productivity

=

Ideas, Ways, ValuesIdeas, Ways, Values

Creat

ivity

Productivity

Innovation

Balance / Optimize

“Transforming Culture”

FACTORY OF EDUCATION FACTORY OF EDUCATION ÁÁ LA LA MODE 2005MODE 2005

Consumerism/fashionableUtilitarianism/P.O.U. (personnel office)Specialization ( experts on less)Dumb down: Intellectual welfare The Myth and Reality of TechnologyLacking esthetic/art/mavericityHoning Creative Thinking Tools NOT

THERE ARE FOUR EDUCATIONS:ONE SHOULD TEACH YOU HOW TO KNOW, ONE TO TEACH YOU HOW TO LIVE WELL, ANOTHER HOW TO MAKE A LIVING AND THE OTHER, HOW TO LIVE WITH OTHERS .

Creative Thinking ToolsCreative Thinking Tools

Observing Imaging Abstracting Recognizing patterns Analogizing Transforming

Body Thinking Empathizing Dimensional thinking Modeling Playing and copying Synthesizing

Impact yearsImpact years

O-5 THE time of your life

K-8 The Tools 9-12 Hormonal Tribes University/College Tool refinement /How to Know On the Job Applied Life R Organized/homogenized/Diet regime

0-8, Ms Miller’s Creativity Soup0-8, Ms Miller’s Creativity Soup

Painting Drawing Reading and

Figuring out

Musical

Instruments

Recitation Time Alone

“Contemplo”

Singing Ball Games

Poetry Story Time The Green Hornet

Choir

Cutouts and

Putty

Dreaming Newspapers History

TruthsTruths

Einstein didn’t use flash cards

Less not more is useful

Listening is job 1.

Being alone and fending for oneself

“Practica” in the world

Value ChainValue Chain

Data information

knowledge

understanding

wisdom

Technology Driven Shift @Technology Driven Shift @Ways of Knowing Ways of Knowing

TEXT/VERBAL

VISUAL/ICONONICGRAPHIC/ANIMATE/SIMULATION

(GUTENBERG)

BRAIN/MIND RESONATING

PAST 1980s 2020

 “To envision information and what bright and splendid visions can result is to work at the intersection of image,word, number, and art.”

Edward R. Tufte

CreativityCreativity

Leibnitz

To 3K

Arts/humanitiesSciences/

engineeringliterate/

innumerate

illiterate/numerate

Future creativity requires a complete literacy

- Numeracy

- Literacy

- Document/Graphical/Sensory Integration

Lateracy ?

Creativity Assumes a Diverse LiteracyCreativity Assumes a Diverse Literacy

Leibnitz

To 3K

Arts/Humanities Sci/Engineerin

gliterate/innumerate

illiterate/numerate

A complete new literacy includes competence in:

- Language - Kinesthetic skills - Mathematical analysis - Understanding others - Spatial representation - Understanding self - Thinking musically - Document/Graphical/

Sensory Integration

Something from Nothing NotSomething from Nothing NotIdeas to Profit: Paul Romer’s “Endogenous Growth Theory”i.e. BIOTECHNOLOGY

Creativity assumes a fundamental knowledge content. You can’t get from nothing to something. Hence the importance of a broad general education across “the Language Divide”…..sharpening the 9 pillars of intelligence.

Unification of Knowledge/Unification of Knowledge/ConsilienceConsilience

Subjects are dealt with by a specialist here, a specialist there, who can't talk to each other, and so we need really to deepen knowledge, and as we deepen knowledge of these subjects, find a way of connecting them up so that when you or I debate these subjects, we can link them up in a sensible, meaningful way in order to arrive at wise judgments.This is consilience at work.

Goal is Organic Integration?Goal is Organic Integration?

Integration of Knowledge: memory, knowledge, imagination,Feeling……..this unified understanding linking, mind, and body, sense and sensibility is called SYNOSIA.

“To the extent that languages, music, the visual arts, and mathematics may represent different views of some shared deep structure, it can be saidthat each represents a distinct interpretation of that deep structure.Each language medium is different. It expresses aspects that cannot be captured in other interpretations. As a result, none of them achieve absolute truth.”

Steven R. Holtzman, in Digital Mantras, 1996

Creative CanadiansCreative Canadians A survey of 2000 adult Canadians

found that forty-five percent of respondents said that there was too much dependence on science and not enough on faith. Another twenty-two percent felt it wasn’t important for them to know about science, while forty-one percent considered that scientists have powers that make them dangerous.

25 percent believe lasers are focused by sound waves

86 percent believe that the greenhouse effect is caused by air pollution

33 percent believe that the earliest humans lived at the same time as the dinosaurs (20 percent don’t know)

15 percent believe that the sun revolves around the earth (6 percent don’t know)

18 percent know that the earth goes around the sun, but think that this occurs once a day (13 percent don’t know how long it takes)

25 percent do not agree that human beings developed from earlier groups of animals (17 percent don’t know)

9.6 percent think that radioactive milk can be made safe by boiling (29 percent don’t know

Engineering digest, 1990

HOPEHOPE

Pathways, plasticity np 3 X 109 ( 5700)

100 X 1012 nd

dynamic environmental change

accelerates as a function of complexity.

rate of change . and rising expectations.

Adaptation and DIVERSITY

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes and looking at the world from diverse viewpoints.” LPV

Meaning and Language

Language Mathematical analysis

Spatial r

epresentat

ion

Thinking musically

Kinesthetic

skills

Understanding self

Textual / Graphical / Sensory Integration

The path to understanding is constructed / found / discovered using human tools and intelligences.

Feeling

Creativity/Innovation/GeniusCreativity/Innovation/Genius

Correlation of creativity/innovation/genius: mavericity, the tendency to think and do the unexpected: original and useful but not obvious