Page 18 - Microsoft Word - Thinking like a wallaby 14DEC16.doc

Step 3: Choosing the best solution

Wallaby-thinking

This is the exciting, creative bit of problem-solving – letting your mind leap about -
jumping from rock to rock, from one possible solution to another - crazy, zany, and

extraordinary as well as obvious and simple ones. Bounce some ideas around. Set your

imagination free!

As well as having great
bounciness, wallabies

have large ears (have

you seen how they turn
their ears towards

sounds, like radar

antennae?). So, while

exploring the possible
solutions, keep listening to what other people say about them. Sometimes other people

say useful things, sometimes they don’t, so use those ears carefully and decide what is

important. Sometimes the ideas you come up with are good, sometimes not, but don’t

ignore any idea until you’ve explored it. That’s partly how this book was written, leaping
from one idea to another, listening to what other people had to say, and then deciding

what was the best ‘rock’ to settle on.

Caterpillar-thinking

Will you create a butterfly? Caterpillars are butterflies-in-waiting [OK, teachers, they can

be moths, too, but butterflies have a better reputation, so I’m sticking with them]. So

caterpillars would not want to do anything that might harm their future or that might
affect their ability to transform into something delightful and beautiful that can fly, not

just crawl.

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