We are in the 21st century and globalization is on the rise. Globalization brings about a wave of innovation, advancement in technology, more entrepreneurs setting up businesses and barriers in communication being broken down. There will be greater competition between countries and cities. It will be a no holds barred competition. Whichever country that retains its competitive advantage edge will survive.
Knowledge and innovation will be important. The recent development of a computer programme called Deep Blue which beat Gary Kasparov in chess was a great achievement in human innovation. Companies use the latest technology that is available to them to their advantage and organize themselves in a way that their workers can use their creativity in order to accomplish their task. In this way, they can be more competitive and survive for a long time.
Our future will be a changing one. There will be rapid changes. New technology will come and go at a blink of an eye. The cycle will continue until the world cease to exist. As these changes can be unpredictable we must prepare ourselves for the future.
An Education and training culture must be created for us to prepare for the future. How countries and communities will distinguish themselves from the rest will be how well their citizens can learn and adapt to changes. Therefore the main task of education is to provide the fundamental skills and knowledge for our youths to survive in the future. It is also to help them to cultivate the habit of learning and how to be more creative.
Some people are more creative than others. The same goes with intelligence. People with good imaging abilities tend to be more creative. In being creative, people can be good at solving problems. There are various ways in solving problems. One of the common ways in solving problems is by trial and error. In an era of high speed computers, many trial-and-error solutions are best left to machines.
Another way of problem solving is by understanding the problem. Even if one discover the general properties of a correct solution, it is still not enough to guide further action. It could be followed up with other methods of problem solving like trial and error methods.
Some people solve problems by recollecting pass solutions. They have insightful knowledge on how to solve the problem. Therefore the ability to remember is very important. One good way of developing a good memory is by doing mind mapping. By mind mapping the solution you will be able to recollect how to solve the problem in the future.
The saying easier said that done is quiet true when it comes to problem solving. Some people have problems in problem solving. The problems are due to emotional barriers, cultural barriers, learned barriers and perceptual barriers.
Emotion barriers are inhibition and fear of making a fool of one self, fear of making a mistake, inability to tolerate ambiguity, excessive self criticism. For example, an architect is afraid to try an unconventional design because he or she fears that other architects will think it is frivolous.
Some people hold certain values like being playful which is only meant for children. Pleasure and humour are bad or have no value in serious business planning. Therefore when a corporate manager wants to solve a business problem, he becomes stern and angry when members of his marketing team joke playfully about possible solutions.
Learned barriers. They are conventions about users, meanings, possibilities and taboos. A cook doesn’t have any clean mixing bowls and fails to see that he could use a frying pan as a bowl. Their thinking is fixed. They cannot find alternatives. This is bad for problem solving. There must always be alternatives to problem solving.
Some people have habits that lead to failure to identify elements of a problem. For Example : An artist concentrates on drawing a vase of flowers without seeing the empty spaces around the vase are part of the composition.
Children with high IQ are considered to be smart, socially matured and well –adjusted. They tend to be very successful in life. However, most do not make genius-level contributions because these depend on a combination of intelligence, creativity and motivation.
Some research emphasizes the role of training and hard work to achieve eminence, but many theorists are reluctant to dismiss the importance of innate talent.Even the brightest may make wrong decisions. This is due to his or her experience thinking rationally. Their emotional intelligence is low. Some people might be high in Intelligence quotient but low in emotional quotient.
Thinking schools need to be developed in order to educate these youths to be leaders and harness their intelligence. They must learn how to put their intelligence into good use.
To learn something and applying it to life are two different things. Schools must develop future generations of thinking and committed citizens, capable of making good decisions to keep their country vibrant and successful in future.
Schools must develop a curriculum where thinking skills and learning skills are more emphasized. Students and teachers must spent more time doing more projects in order to help them develop these skills.
Lessons must be taken beyond the class room. On the job training is required for the students to gain insightful experience. Getting good grades in school is one thing but if they graduate with good grades but are unable to think and make good decisions than they might as well not study. In reality we only use 15% of what we learn in school when working in the outside world. The rest is by gaining experience by making good decisions and on the job training. Thinking schools must encourage more innovation.
A country must be a learning nation in order to cultivate a learning culture in the country. It must go beyond schools and educational institutions.
Learning goes beyond simply maximizing an individual’s potential. A nation’s culture and its social environment will shape what learning means. Environment does play a part in developing one’s own intelligence.
The other part is heredity. Researches have done experiment on the intelligence on identical twins. They have discovered that identical twins that develop from the same egg have identical genetic inheritance. Therefore if IQ is influenced by genes than the identical pair should have similar IQ compared to fraternal twins.
Other experiments were done on twins that were reared with different backgrounds. One being looked after educated parents and the other being looked after the orphanage. It was discovered that the one who was looked after by educated parents had greater IQ than the other one. I would say that genes and environment both are responsible for one’s intelligence.
A learning nation must begin by recognizing that education is a continuum, starting with the early pre-school years and continuing throughout life. Research on brain development in the last decade indicates that the early years in a child’s life are critical for developing the foundations of future intellectual and social development. The nation must train parents to provide their children with rich experiences to help them develop during their initial pre-school years.
There must be innovation at every level of society. Companies need to encourage innovation.
If students are encouraged to innovate in schools and later join a company that encourages innovation, they can apply their knowledge in innovation. It is a win-win situation. We acquire more skills and the company prospers.
Governments must get companies to be more involve in the educations of the young as part of a total environment. Many of the leading American companies have invested significant amount of their professional employees’ time in educational outreach activities – taking students from schools and giving them hands-on experiences and interesting them in real world technologies.
In encouraging creative thinking, we can change our mindset that only the top should be thinking and the job of everyone else is to do as told. By applying creative thinking to our work, we can do our job better. We can always think of improvements and better ways to accomplish our jobs.
Therefore developing one’s own intelligence and thinking is very important. It would lead to innovation and we will be to able adapt with society better. We as humans are constantly learning. Our brain is continually developing and growing more neurons!
Intelligence and creativity can be developed. We need not have to be born with it but those are that born with, well, it is a blessing. With the right teaching policies we can develop our intelligence and creativity. Therefore I hope all of you out there will use your intelligence and creativity more often.
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