Counteracting “Greed is Good” ethos with "Catalysts of Creativity"
Broadcaster, Philip King, presented an insightful conversation at the Glucksman Gallery, Cork Thursday afternoon, 6th May 2010, focusing around the question of how Ireland can re-imagine itself in the midst of this current recession. He spoke about the transmission of music and its potential to engage with a living tradition, which can be transmitted and, in turn, can lead to personal transformation. King encouraged engagement with the arts as tools of critical reflection. Are we doing enough to encourage this process? How should we go about fostering it?
The 1987 film Wall Street is best remembered for Gordon Gekko’s “Greed is Good” monologue. This is the predominant ethos in Western culture. The current economic crisis has shown that free market capitalism is not working for the majority of society. Yet failure often provides opportunities for re-thinking action. This crisis offers the perfect opportunity to reflect on how the dominant ethos can be questioned and re-assessed. Education plays a significant role in fostering creative thinking in society. Creativity and innovation are generally recognised as occurring in Irish higher education sector, but what about primary and secondary schools? By the time students enter into the workplace or college, in their late teens, their attitudes and assumptions have largely been formed. Entrepreneurship needs to be fostered earlier than post leaving certificate in the education system – ideally in primary and secondary schools where its benefits can have a maximum affect for all Irish citizens.
There are three important scaffolds for innovation I like to call “catalysts of creativity”:
1. Fostering creativity: the term “creativity” is too narrowly understood as just applying to the arts. We need to expand our meanings of creativity to include creative thinking that informs social action. Problem-solving, information evaluation and lateral thinking are tools of creative thinking. The educational system fosters, above all, ability to communicate in written and spoken forms, but it does not give as much focus to fostering how to listen or how to negotiate. It is assumed these skills can simply be “picked up” at school, but often these skill-sets need to be openly expressed through teaching and learning as they are not instinctive.
2. Making connections, or “linking learning”: good decision-making is not an action it is a process. An informed decision arises not just from knowledge, but also awareness. As an “information society” we are too closely focused on developing specialist knowledge and skills. We need to invest more effort in finding opportunities to promote problem-solving. We can only begin to engage in this process if we enhance knowledge-building through opportunities to encourage “linked learning” where meaningful connections are made between subject knowledge and application performed in a “real world” situation.
3. Framing ethical minds or what are the implications of actions? Educators like Howard Gardner from Harvard University are currently interested in the need to encourage students in schools to think ethically or rather think about the consequences of their actions both for themselves and for others. It has been argued by Chris Lowney, writer and former Managing Director of J.P. Morgan & Co., that the climate facilitating the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States was conditioned by young professionals educated in the “Greed is Good” ethos. Lowney and Gardner both argue that educators have a duty to promote citizenship and guide right thinking whereby consequences to actions are explored, discussed and thought about. If we are to foster a more just society then this factor needs to be fostered early on in our educational system.
The 1987 film Wall Street is best remembered for Gordon Gekko’s “Greed is Good” monologue. This is the predominant ethos in Western culture. The current economic crisis has shown that free market capitalism is not working for the majority of society. Yet failure often provides opportunities for re-thinking action. This crisis offers the perfect opportunity to reflect on how the dominant ethos can be questioned and re-assessed. Education plays a significant role in fostering creative thinking in society. Creativity and innovation are generally recognised as occurring in Irish higher education sector, but what about primary and secondary schools? By the time students enter into the workplace or college, in their late teens, their attitudes and assumptions have largely been formed. Entrepreneurship needs to be fostered earlier than post leaving certificate in the education system – ideally in primary and secondary schools where its benefits can have a maximum affect for all Irish citizens.
There are three important scaffolds for innovation I like to call “catalysts of creativity”:
1. Fostering creativity: the term “creativity” is too narrowly understood as just applying to the arts. We need to expand our meanings of creativity to include creative thinking that informs social action. Problem-solving, information evaluation and lateral thinking are tools of creative thinking. The educational system fosters, above all, ability to communicate in written and spoken forms, but it does not give as much focus to fostering how to listen or how to negotiate. It is assumed these skills can simply be “picked up” at school, but often these skill-sets need to be openly expressed through teaching and learning as they are not instinctive.
2. Making connections, or “linking learning”: good decision-making is not an action it is a process. An informed decision arises not just from knowledge, but also awareness. As an “information society” we are too closely focused on developing specialist knowledge and skills. We need to invest more effort in finding opportunities to promote problem-solving. We can only begin to engage in this process if we enhance knowledge-building through opportunities to encourage “linked learning” where meaningful connections are made between subject knowledge and application performed in a “real world” situation.
3. Framing ethical minds or what are the implications of actions? Educators like Howard Gardner from Harvard University are currently interested in the need to encourage students in schools to think ethically or rather think about the consequences of their actions both for themselves and for others. It has been argued by Chris Lowney, writer and former Managing Director of J.P. Morgan & Co., that the climate facilitating the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States was conditioned by young professionals educated in the “Greed is Good” ethos. Lowney and Gardner both argue that educators have a duty to promote citizenship and guide right thinking whereby consequences to actions are explored, discussed and thought about. If we are to foster a more just society then this factor needs to be fostered early on in our educational system.
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