Writer Tony Wagner argues that in the past, innovators were discovered by chance. Today, it is institutions that create innovators.
In his book (Creating Innovators: Raising the Generation That Will Change the World), Tony Wagner reviews the most important methods and methods that help new generations to create and innovate. Below I present an overview of the most important items in this book based on his summary published in the series "Book in Minutes" published by the Foundation Mohammed bin Rashed Al-Maktoom.
Is innovation learnable?
The author believes that the family, school and community institutions have a great role in developing the abilities, skills and habits required by creativity. However, this requires a breakthrough in family educational methods, the educational system and the business world that takes into account the nature of this electronically connected and socially intertwined generation, as this made this generation new incentives, the most important of which It does not work for financial achievement only, but also for a purpose, goal, message and social return.
Where does innovation begin?
1- Gameplay:
Human beings have a love for exploration, experiment and imagination, meaning innovation, and this is achieved by providing children and adults with the opportunity to play. It is noteworthy that the founders of Google, Amazon and Wikipedia joined the Montessori School, where education was through play.
2- Passion:
Passion is an innate incentive and an internal drive that encourages exploration and pushes to learn something new or master a certain skill. It made him spend more than ten thousand hours to master the skills and gain the experience that made him such a creative person.
3- Purpose:
The writer believes that despite the importance of passion, it cannot be creative. It is necessary for a goal or goal to reach a result. The common goal of all creative people is the desire to make a positive change in the world, and Daniel Pink wrote in his book (Motivation) about the importance of independence, mastery and purpose as necessary motivators for the human being, because human beings naturally search for a goal they achieve or a cause that will perpetuate them.
Here the author referred to the (pyramid of needs) developed by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow, which expresses the hierarchy of the importance of human needs, starting with physiological needs such as food, housing and sleep, then the need for safety such as physical and family safety and property security, and then social needs such as family relations, friendship, and then need At the top of the pyramid comes the need for self-realization, which is the greatest motivation for creativity and innovation.
4- Parental compass:
Encouraging one or both parents is one of the most important reasons a child can learn to explore and build self-confidence. The writer praised the experience of (Kirk Phillips), who made the first iPhone produced by Apple, thanks to his parents for encouraging him to explore and innovate since childhood.
5- Empowerment education:
Traditional education is one of the most important obstacles faced by creative people because it molds the minds of learners and treats them as the production line. Therefore, it must be replaced by empowering education that is based on exploration, experiment and learning from mistakes, and focuses on team spirit, problem solving and internal incentives. It is noteworthy that many of the creative people did not excel in school and university, and most of them followed an academic curriculum that differs from the famous traditional curricula.
Here, the author refers to the experience of creative universities that depend in evaluating their students on an appreciation of collective achievement, unlike traditional universities that evaluate the student on the basis of his individual effort. Collectively as well as upon graduation, as the primary goal in this college is not the acquisition of knowledge, but rather the development of core skills and competencies by solving problems and designing innovative products, so the owners of companies evaluate the level of graduates from this college equivalent to five years of experience.
6- Innovative education:
The expansion of the volume of knowledge, its availability to all, and the ease of access to information led to the diversity and depth of knowledge that can be acquired by the individual, as mastery of one area and specialization in it did not keep pace with the new digital age, which made it necessary to reconsider the role of the teacher and traditional methods of education. In this regard, the author reviews the experience of (Khan Academy), which began with Salman Khan publishing a video to explain some mathematical concepts on YouTube to one of his relatives, then the idea expanded into an academy that published about 3000 free lessons and became a tool that helps teachers and students in schools and homes.
7- Creativity and work environment:
The work environment contributes to encouraging or discouraging innovation. Environments with strict regulations and rigid rules stand in the way of creativity. On the other hand, an environment open to change and acceptance of new ideas and creative initiatives helps creativity, and here it is necessary to change the traditional form of leadership that depends on the administrative hierarchy and career ladder. Leadership today is done in a horizontal manner, and the main role of the leader is not on stage but behind the scenes.
8- New horizons for innovation and success:
The tremendous information and communication flow deepened the understanding of the children of this generation of the surrou nding environment, its needs and problems, and allowed for an increase in their positive interaction with it, which provided many creative opportunities for the children of this generation regardless of the level of school achievement and traditional communication and persuasion skills, for example the American (Zander Srudz) Who discovered his passion for turtles by chance when he was eleven years old, after a fleeting altercation with an environmental guard that led to him introducing him to the importance of preserving turtles from extinction.
Then he launched his campaign to protect water turtles through social media and by using illustration methods to become one of the few famous in this field, as he received the support of specialized societies and won many international awards, and he now possesses communication skills that he did not possess before, which helped him by providing hundreds of lectures and participating in International conferences.
Accordingly, the author reviewed these methods and means that encourage innovation, and presented the experiences of a number of creative people who benefited from their surroundings, information flow and communication empowerment, and were able to overcome the obstacles of traditional education in order to reach success .. As a result, this leads us to seek ways of creativity and innovation in our environments, and that. It is the responsibility of individuals and institutions at the same time, especially since the size of the problems around us makes it easier for us to find opportunities to create solutions and search for ways to succeed.
About the author: Tony Wagner works in innovative education at Harvard University's Center for Technology and Enterprise.
