Category: Culture
Creativity and Problem Solving
I am lucky, blessed to have several peers in ministry that are friends. Between us we read many websites each day and come across interesting articles. We are an eclectic group. My thanks to Randy for the forward of this article from Newsweek online. It highlights the need for a liberal arts education, but moreover a change in the educational standards that are devolving in the public school system. If teachers are judged, promoted and salaried based on how well students do on standardized testing, then one day teachers will be removed from the classroom altogether. There is more to teaching than memory work and more to being a grounded, educated person than a score on the SAT. I took the SAT once. My score was 770. I am lucky that the TCU admissions people read my references and looked at whatever else they did beyond my SAT. Our culture, government and denomination needs divergent and convergent thinking right now.
The Creativity Crisis
by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman | Newsweek.com | July 10, 2010Back in 1958, Ted Schwarzrock was an 8-year-old third grader when he became one of the “Torrance kids,” a group of nearly 400 Minneapolis children who completed a series of creativity tasks newly designed by professor E. Paul Torrance. Schwarzrock still vividly remembers the moment when a psychologist handed him a fire truck and asked, “How could you improve this toy to make it better and more fun to play with?” He recalls the psychologist being excited by his answers. In fact, the psychologist’s session notes indicate Schwarzrock rattled off 25 improvements, such as adding a removable ladder and springs to the wheels. That wasn’t the only time he impressed the scholars, who judged Schwarzrock to have “unusual visual perspective” and “an ability to synthesize diverse elements into meaningful products.”
The accepted definition of creativity is production of something original and useful, and that’s what’s reflected in the tests. There is never one right answer. To be creative requires divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result).
No More Fear
Candidate Obama spoke of being or becoming post-partisan in leadership and governing. His first 18 months in office has surely taught him that Congress is not interested in governing. They are, as a lot, more concerned with keeping power or regaining power. Congress didn’t get the memo about being post-partisan. President Obama has made attempts, however limited they may be for my Republican friends and peers, to reach out and provide the minority an opportunity to govern with him and it appears to me that they have more often than not the Republicans have swung back with a fist. Congress is no longer governing alongside the Executive branch and they have not do so for a long, long time. Our practice of capitalism has given way to a ‘lords and surfs’ entitlement in our nation. We have more of a caste system rather than a class system. We all participate in it in some fashion. I’m not sure what will become of our nation if the citizens cannot find a way to elect persons above power, money, and politics whom wish to serve the common good for us all. The Republican party are not the party of ‘No” so much for me as they are the party of “narcissism”. They are doing a great job of assigning blame and pointing the finger at any number of “others” and not doing the self-reflective work to think through their own policies to determine how they assisted in creating this financial mess and how the policies could be better. They are overtly protecting their caste and no one seems to be calling them on it. Enter our post-partisan President. I don’t know if politicians can be shamed into doing the right thing, but it seems that this is the last thing to try. The problem, the President’s team is trying to determine how they will keep power and are acting out of fear. President Obama appears to be a good non-anxious presence, but those around him are afraid of loosing power. I continue to need a President “doing the job” rather than worrying about “keeping the job.”
Fear Factor: What’s keeping the President from Picking the Best Person to Protect Consumers
Arianna Huffington | July 27, 2010 | The Huffington PostThe same fear-based approach that caused the administration to throw Shirley Sherrod under the bus before her name had even been uttered on Fox News is once again rearing its head in the decision-making process over Warren.
This time, it’s not the ire of Glenn Beck that has Team Obama’s backbone turning to mush — it’s the fear of angering the bankers by appointing a consumer advocate who might actually advocate for consumers (the same consumers who, in their role as taxpayers, have spent hundreds of billions bailing the bankers out).