CREATE, INNOVATE, ENTREPRENEURSHIP … are words that we constantly hear around us: in the labor and professional world, “entrepreneurs” are asked and encouraged, “innovators” are needed, but we forget that the ability to innovate comes from a way of think and see the world that does not arise overnight, or that everyone has, or at least practices.
If we talk about CREATIVITY, it is not only that we do not find educational or training projects dedicated to stimulate and enhance creativity, but what is even more serious, as Sir Ken Robinson says : ” Schools kill creativity”, because they follow the the same scheme that the creators of educational systems came up with in the 19th century, in the middle of the era of industrialization. We are no longer in the industrial age, and our children continue to study and learn in a way based on the principles that were necessary at that time.
In this framework, Essay Writing Service UK said, logical or vertical thinking has been the predominant type of thinking in education: the thought that allows us to reach a conclusion of absolute validity through a series of phases where the erroneous procedure is discarded.
It was in the seventies of the last century when the psychologist Edward De Bono began to claim the importance of creative or lateral thinking in education, not in an exclusive way, but complementary to logical thinking, since both are necessary.
Creativity, divergent thinking, lateral thinking, ability to solve problems, breadth and mental flexibility … all are concepts that experts in education consider key in the skills and competencies that 21st century learners should develop.
Unfortunately, they are not priorities in our current educational system, which shows the lack of adequacy of the basic principles that underlie it with the basic principles that our present and future society needs.
First distinguish between the two concepts:
CREATIVITY : focuses on the description of a creative result, which is admired.
SIDE THINKING : focuses on the description of a mental process, which is learned.
Therefore, they are not synonymous: PL is closely related to the processes of insight, creativity and ingenuity, but it describes a series of defined mental processes that optimize the use of information stored by the brain and reduce the restrictions that this storage causes. .
Principles of Lateral Thinking
- The PL aims to change models or orderings of the information that the mind elaborates.
- In an optimizing memory system, a permanent ordering of information is always inferior to the best possible arrangement.
- PL is both a mental attitude and a method to use information.
- The PL dispenses with all forms of prosecution or evaluation.
- The PL is based on the characteristics of the manipulation mechanism of the information of the mind.
The mind handles information effectively through its organizational models of information; However, this operation also has some limitations, mainly the difficulty to restructure its models of ideas in response to new information. These limitations require the application of lateral thinking techniques to overcome them.
WHAT IS THE SIDE THOUGHT FOR?
- For the creation of new ideas: creativity .
- To solve problems from different perspectives: resolutive capacity .
- To intervene in the process of selection of stimuli in the perceptual process: sensitivity .
- For the periodic revaluation of accepted issues and concepts: critical attitude .
- For the prevention against dividing mental attitudes and polarization of ideas and knowledge: openness and mental flexibility.
The PL can be taught from the age of 7 , and De Bono considers it very important to reserve a definite and isolated period of time for his teaching, in order to reinforce its specific character, since its function is different from that of other intellectual processes. Learning PL for one hour a week develops creative activity in children.
SOME WAYS TO TEACH SIDE THOUGHT
Explain to students the characteristics of logical thinking and lateral thinking, their differences and their complementary.
- Raising situations in the classroom where they learn to find the greatest number of alternatives for a given situation and enhance the habit of restructuring models.
- Explore the ability to free thought from rigid assumptions that limit its field of action.
- Accustom the students to suspend the judgment and evaluation of ideas and explore their possibilities to lead to other ideas. The concept of “erroneous” is discarded and changed to “not useful” or “not practical” at that time.
- Use the ability of drawing as a means to exercise lateral thinking.
- Teach to decompose a situation or problem in smaller units that allow to reorganize it in a different way.
