Page 59 - DNBI_A01.QXD

DEVELOPING NEW BUSINESS IDEAS36

education kills creativity Almost from the moment we enter

school, we are trained to think convergently, to find the single correct
answer by following a logical train of thought. Lewis articulated the
powerful role which education systems play in reinforcing the
analytical over the imaginative when he wrote:

‘In class, students are expected to acquire knowledge one step at a time,
adding methodically to their storehouse of facts until they have sufficient to
pass an examination. This demands left-brain skills. The problems students
are given to solve more often demand an analytical than an intuitive
approach. This, too . . . is a task for the left hemisphere. Written work, by
which ability is chiefly evaluated, must be organised, well argued and
logically structured . . . all left-brain skills. The students considered most
intelligent and successful are those who strive after academic goals, can
control their emotions in class, follow instructions, do not ask awkward
questions, are punctual and hand in class assignments on time. Goal-
setting, emotional restraint, time-keeping and matching your behaviour to
other people’s expectations are all left-brain skills.’27

Given the extent to which the contemporary education system is target-
and performance-driven, it is little wonder that children are trained to
seek single correct answers in all that they study. The skills of
imagination and intuition risk being lost from an early age.

What would you expect a group of four-year-olds to think the following
small shape on a whiteboard represents?

Typical answers might include a squashed beetle, an upside-down fried
egg, an eskimo’s fishing hole, a flower, a black cloud, the top of a pole, a
cigarette butt, a pen leak, a hole in a tent, a wine spill, an island and so
on.

Ask the same question of a group of 14-year-olds and you would be
lucky to be told it was a black blob – the unremitting search for a single
right answer has closed off any search for other and more imaginative
answers.

Even business and management course at universities and business
schools contribute to the stifling of creativity, often favouring the logical