Creativity Education Developing Countries

[RRKrishna]

I think dedicated and focussed attention must given to teaching creativity tools at the school level in developing countries for exmaple - Edward debono - Cort Tools.

i think all develpoing countreis being high in population will be forced to look " formal " eduation forcing to keep crearivity in the back burner.

[Chris Barlow]

People in these economies do not lack what we normally call creativity.

Some have a learned helplessness that is an accurate reflection of reality. The success of Grameen banks in unleashing success by making microfinancing available demonstrates that it is often the reality that is blocking success.

We see others are "blocked" by certain culturally defined beliefs and values. It is not trivial for them to abandon these realities.

I heard a recent presentation about work in Mexico to help pottery makers improve their markets and productivity. Not much impact because enlarging the business to meet opportunity would require hiring non-family members, which they were not willing to do.

So a quick training in brainstorming and the like is unlikely to have much impact. Personal and cultural transformation may be much more the issue.

[RRKrishna]

Chris Barlow thanks for the reply. but i think enhancing "self Esteem" at the school level through creativity eduaction would help in developing better citizen ....

[Chris Barlow]

Maybe the real word is leadership, not self esteem.

As people shift from one set of beliefs to another, transformational leadership is a great help.

To be creative, people often need to change the habits and attitudes of those around them, to raise acceptance and find co-creators.

Fortunately deliberate leadership, like deliberate creativity can be taught to those with the hunger to make change.

[RRKrishna]

Chris Barlow, the discussion is becoming even more intresting. " Transformational Leadership" Wow that is the word. Jaques work on cpability is classic work on transofrmational leadership. Jaques concept of capability being inherent cannot be developed. May be we could challenge this by teaching the "Attention Direcitng tools" of edward debono to amnay people and this could hopefully enhance thier creaivity - leading to cabability - leading to Tranrsformational leadership - please comment

[Chris Barlow]

Jaques work is one of my favorites and I was fortunate enough to get to know him before he passed away suddenly. He even joined one of my MBA Org Design courses by Internet chat to discuss things.

Elliott reported that people who had tried training to accelerate growth to higher levels of "requisite variety" of thinking had failed. My argument was that thinking tools enable people to function at higher than their natural levels. This may be all that most deliberate creativity is.

For example, time line is a key dimension in Jaques model. But a facilitator can ask, what about next year, what about the next ten years...

[RRKrishna]

it is becoming very intresting now. let us take Jung MBTI model where we have the " N's " and ths "S's". it is also reported "N" childrens have better understanding in school comapres to "s" children- to me if we expand this concept "N's " would jaques varity and "s " not. but if "s" can be thought creativity tool they may become a delibaarte "N"- i am aware they wont be the most productive "n" but some helaltyh "N" is possible with creativity tarining leading to devlopment of capability as deifned by jaques - what do you think !

[Chris Barlow]

If you think about behavior, not style, it can be seen that most facilitation techniques simply ask people to talk and think for a few minutes as if they had another style.

This is the essence of deliberate creativity.

Understanding the style of others IS helpful when you are trying to figure out how to influence them, how to "invoke their followership", which is the essence of deliberate leadership.

[Robert Alan Black]

This is very interesting - can you explain some of the references or authorities you are citing with a URL so we can explore the references?

Thanks!

[RRKrishna]

I understand.

But when i use the CoRT tool od Dr.Debono with school childrens they have reported higher self esteem ....

[RRKrishna]

Tom,

did you mean the MBTI link or did you mean the CoRT in School education

[Robert "Alan" Black]

Paul Torrance, Morris I. Stein, JP Guilford, Sid Parnes, Dorie Shallcross, Dorothy Sisk and many other American researchers, authors, professors and teachers spent much of the past 50+ years trying to integrate creativity training, creative thinking and creativeness into classrooms from K to Graduate schools. Much has been accomplished yet still in the typical elementary through high school to university classroom creativity is missing. My understanding from sharing with many people around the globe the results have been much the same except for short periods of time.

Creativity is needed more today than ever before in the history of humankind yet the leaders tend to still 'PUT CREATIVITY ON THE BACK BURNER'.

Alan

[Robert "Alan" Black]

RRK

Please share the type of work you do in the Chennai schools.

I visited Chennai for 4 days in 2003.

Alan