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CONNECTED MINDS
- NOW THERE’S A GOOD IDEA!
Everyone, it is said, has their own private
weakness: Those blissful little moments
of self-centred indulgence when the trivial
becomes all-consuming and important
matters fade into irrelevancy. For some, it
might be watching the latest episode of
Shortland Street, while for others it could be
a riveting Harry Potter novel or maybe even
a wee dram of fine old malt whisky!
For me, it is words. I have a deep and
abiding interest in unusual words, some of
which will stick in my head, well after their
‘use by’ date. Forty years on, I still remember
my joy at reading Ben Johnson’s Volpone
and discovering that ‘shambles’ was actually
an old Elizabethan word for an abattoir’s
establishment! Remember that antiquated
semantic fact, the next time that you tell
your children that their bedrooms look like a
shambles!
Another word that I rhapsodise over
(quick, there goes another one!) is the
word serendipity. This word is one that
we are probably all familiar with, meaning
a happy or fortuitous discovery. Think of
that gleaming gold coin on the footpath
or that stick which just happens to be an
ideal shape for a digging tool in the sandpit!
Adults and children alike know the joy of
finding something unexpected and delightful,
which lifts the spirits and excites the mind.
While we tend to associate serendipity
with objects and things, it is also true
that we can serendipitously stumble onto
stimulating thoughts and ideas. There is also
an intriguing argument that we can actually
increase our chances of finding good ideas,
by using a few simple strategies.
As educators, we probably all appreciate the
value of good ideas to stimulate learning, to
engage effectively with our learners and to
get better educational outcomes. However,
the value of good ideas doesn’t stop there.
Good ideas are the things that help us to
solve difficult problems and to make sound
decisions.
Well-known popular science writer Steven
Johnson has some interesting thoughts
about good ideas and where they come from.
Johnson suggests that good ideas don’t
happen in isolation from each other and
that the popular picture of a genius having
a sudden stroke of inspiration, or a blinding
revelation, is inherently flawed.
At face value, Johnson’s claims might
seem somewhat counter-intuitive. After
all, we can probably all think of instances
where we have woken up at 3:00am with a
brilliant idea or when we have had one of
those sudden ‘Eureka!’ moments. However,
Johnson’s interest is in what lies behind, and
leads up to, these moments of insight.
In Johnson’s view, good ideas can take a
long time to come together. He talks about
‘slow hunches’, which need time to mature
and develop. These hunches are based on
lots of other ideas bumping against each
other until the right ones literally collide
together, creating that Gestalt-like moment
of triumph, when the whole becomes more
than the sum of the parts. Visually, this is
almost like seeing a child taking a simple
set of wooden building blocks and then
turning them into a fantastic and futuristic
cityscape!
Johnson also suggests that it is unusual
for only one person to have all of the
hunches needed to form a really good idea.
It is through the collision of smaller ideas,
contributed by other people , that more
significant ideas can develop. So, it follows
that if we are looking for good ideas, then
we need to expose ourselves to as many
other ideas as we can, by exchanging our
insights with those around us.
BY PHIL SALES
December 2017
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