Last month I attended a two day workshop on Critical Thinking and
have been doing some work on innovation and fostering change so I thought I
would comment on several recent non-fiction books which touch on these topics
from a variety of perspectives.
THE POWER OF LITTLE IDEAS by David Robertson, a
professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, presents a "low-risk, high-reward approach to innovation."
In this book from Harvard Business Review Press, he argues that there is
a third way to approach innovation beyond incremental (small) or disruptive
(big). Robertson uses the examples of successful businesses like LEGO and Disney
to illustrate his points, stressing these three key elements:
-- Creating a family
of complementary innovations around a product or service....
-- [Using] complementary
innovations [which] work together as a system to carry out a single strategy or
purpose; and ...
-- Innovating around
a key product does not change the central product in any fundamental way.
While focused on the business environment, I am curious to
see how Robertson’s "third way" for innovation might apply to an educational
setting - perhaps in conjunction with The Third Teacher which discusses how design and space can impact teaching
and learning.
Mindfulness – being fully in the present moment – is a topic which also stretches across the fields of business and education. THE MINDFULNESS TEACHING GUIDE by Rob Brandsma (from New Harbinger) is intended to help teach mindfulness and offers a series of practical examples and suggestions. Brandsma writes at length about mindfulness teaching as more a way of being versus a way of doing, referring to the important question: "What does this specific learning moment ask from me?" Like Learning to Breathe, Brandsma’s work could potentially be adapted to fit with exercises for advisory groups or Kinetic Wellness classes. I have posted on this important and complex topic before and am looking forward to learning more prior to sharing thoughts on mindfulness based stress reduction and resources like these in November at the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) annual conference.
RADICAL HOPE from Knopf Doubleday and edited by Carolina De Robertis is a truly unique text that aims to address collective concerns about the policies and changes in the United States. As the subtitle notes, it contains "letters of love and dissent in dangerous times." These letters were created post November 8, 2016 and many of the authors (like Lisa See, Junot Diaz, or Celeste Ng) will be readily recognized by our students. Editor De Robertis has skillfully organized the contributions from award-winning novelists, poets, political thinkers, and activists into three sections: Roots, Branches and Seeds. Although many are angry and some use offensive language, the letters in RADICAL HOPE are clearly heartfelt and full of emotion whether addressed to Harriet Tubman, present day protestors or children in the future.
One more way to stretch your brain can be found in THE SHAPE OF IDEAS by Grant Snider (published by Abrams). This book is full of illustrations that explore questions about creativity and what makes an idea. Snider divides his drawings into sections with titles like Perspiration, Improvisation and Daily Frustration, ultimately ending with Pure Elation. He notes that since 2009 his goal has been to create at least one full-page comic strip per week. His drawings are definitely entertaining and thought-provoking; they frequently involve wordplay. For example, there are pages on phrases like “Trains of Thought,” “Opportunity Knocks” and “Negative Thinking.” I also especially liked “Monday Morning” which visually tells a story of taking a dip in a cup of coffee and re-emerging ready for the work week. This is a fun book to pick up to get your brain moving in a new direction.
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