SKILL FACTOR # 1: WHAT SCHOOL DID NOT TEACH ME THAT I CANNOT DO WITHOUT
SKILL FACTOR # 1: CREATIVE THINKING
What the mind can conceive the earth can
mould and make a reality because whatever you see was once a thought which was later clothed by Mother Earth and her children
- Coach Tarie: Wisdom Garden
 |
| What the mind can conceive the earth can mould and make a reality because whatever you see was once a thought which was later clothed by Mother Earth and her children - Coach Tarie: Wisdom Garden |
Whenever you want to take away someone's
creativity and ability to come up with creative solutions make them think that
their destiny is in the hands of someone. Education and Religion, the kind that
we have received, have managed to convince us to think that someone outside
ourselves is totally in charge of our destinies. Someone is in charge of making
our lives better, fixing our economy, providing employment, resuscitating our
industries and we believe they will come up with the solutions and will work to
make the ideas a reality: this is the thinking of the majority.
Others think differently and have been taken by religion and are looking for a deity or God or anointed man of God to be the one who will determine their destiny. They pray for change and think prayer will do all the work and fail to remember that God has given them the power to create and is there to help and assist on what they can do. He will not do it for us. The continents who realised that, were architectures of their destinies and are now developed as they did not wait for miraculous interventions of prayer but used creativity and work to be where they are. Only Africa expects a better future without harnessing the creative power of its people.
Others think differently and have been taken by religion and are looking for a deity or God or anointed man of God to be the one who will determine their destiny. They pray for change and think prayer will do all the work and fail to remember that God has given them the power to create and is there to help and assist on what they can do. He will not do it for us. The continents who realised that, were architectures of their destinies and are now developed as they did not wait for miraculous interventions of prayer but used creativity and work to be where they are. Only Africa expects a better future without harnessing the creative power of its people.
The first and most fundamentals life skill
that I have chosen to talk about in this series of 'what the education system didn't
teach me that I can not succeed without', is what I have called Creative
Thinking. Why is it that we have been cultured in a way that creativity and
arts are not really rewarded. Young children are taken in a system that does
not rewards arts, creativity and imaginative prowess but rewards memory and
representation of facts that have been used in the past and shaped the world to
be what it is.
We are trained to study history and historical success stories, theories, tools, models, approaches and methods, memorise them and find how we can apply them in our daily living. Those who mastered this skill are rewarded highly and we neglect those who have creative and imaginative skills. This approach shuts creativity and imagination out of the picture and labels the creative child who cannot follow this system as dull and dumb. Creativity is not rewarded but the world today is in the hands of those who not only thought out of the box but moved out of the box and used the SKILL OF CREATIVITY like the Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg. Strive Masiiwa and many like such. What made them outstanding is not taught in school and it is the skill that has to be developed if Africa is going to pick itself out of the dungeon and that skill is called Creative Thinking.
We are trained to study history and historical success stories, theories, tools, models, approaches and methods, memorise them and find how we can apply them in our daily living. Those who mastered this skill are rewarded highly and we neglect those who have creative and imaginative skills. This approach shuts creativity and imagination out of the picture and labels the creative child who cannot follow this system as dull and dumb. Creativity is not rewarded but the world today is in the hands of those who not only thought out of the box but moved out of the box and used the SKILL OF CREATIVITY like the Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg. Strive Masiiwa and many like such. What made them outstanding is not taught in school and it is the skill that has to be developed if Africa is going to pick itself out of the dungeon and that skill is called Creative Thinking.
Sometime ago as I was browsing through various
social networks I came across the story of a young man from one of our
Zimbabwean schools who got 35 points at A level. That is real intelligence at
the highest level but one question came to my mind. What is that young man going
to do if they get to University? Either they will get a scholarship to learn
abroad or they will enroll at our own local universities. What programs are at
his disposal? It was in seeking answers to these questions that I discovered that
someone designed our education system so as to keep us down and dependable.
The brightest students from our High Schools are taken into fields which are second choice to our development. The best students go and do Medicine, Law and Accounting all of which are service provision fields and none of them are creative and foundational in the success and development of nations. Issues that are crucial to industrial build up and that harness creative ability are relegated to polytechnics which generally take those who have not made it for the prestigious degrees in universities. We are committing the brightest minds to service provision and not channel them to systems and fields that maximize on their creativity in a way that is developmental. Creative thinking is the biggest skill that you need for success and the system does not want you to know it.
The brightest students from our High Schools are taken into fields which are second choice to our development. The best students go and do Medicine, Law and Accounting all of which are service provision fields and none of them are creative and foundational in the success and development of nations. Issues that are crucial to industrial build up and that harness creative ability are relegated to polytechnics which generally take those who have not made it for the prestigious degrees in universities. We are committing the brightest minds to service provision and not channel them to systems and fields that maximize on their creativity in a way that is developmental. Creative thinking is the biggest skill that you need for success and the system does not want you to know it.
When we are in the survival mode and the
system that has been running our lives is not giving us the kind of outcomes
that are good for our development, creative thinking is the skill needed.
Mankind was created in the image and likeness of the creator and given
everything raw or in its seed form. The
kind of results and lifestyle he would get was not going to be a product of
prayer alone or asking the creator but using his creative ability which was just
like God's to responsibly work the environment to get what he wanted. There
were and still are no limits to what you can
get.
The Education system that we have been
using has not taught us how to use the creative thinking skill and neither has
it taught us how to develop it. It is a skill because it can be deliberately
developed like any other skill like sporting skills. To get what you want you need to get out of
the box of how everyone is living and create new products, ideas, models,
solutions or new ways of doing things.
The good news is that Creative Thinking is
a skill that can be cultivated. Whilst we await on using the skill to come up
with Educational Models and Curriculums that work on this skill which will take
long, we can learn more of this skill and quickly apply it at individual and
corporate levels. Moving from survival to success is not possible without
creative thinking and for your success as an individual, be it Spiritually, Emotionally, Relationally, Financially, health wise, career-wise or in any facet
of your life you have to learn this skill and use it. Every new thought or idea
or that insight that comes to your mind is the sign of the seeds of creativity
that are in you ready to be harnessed. The same can be applied at corporate and organizational levels if we want to see creativity at work in our organizations
or in any other field.
If you have success in mind then Creative
Thinking is a must have skill and in all your getting get this skill. With so
many resources in Africa the reason why we remain poor and dependent is our
inability to create a culture that fosters creativity. It's those without the
resources but the creativity skill that get the most out our resources. The
richest places in Africa are not the soils and minerals, but are small pockets
between the ears of the vast millions of Africans. Mining is the answer to
Africa's problem but we are mining the wrong minerals. Africa needs miners who
will dig deep the human minds and souls and extract and develop the treasures
of Creative thinking. With these treasures we can get the best out of our deep
and rich natural heritage.
As a
life Coach I have come with many concepts that many wonder at in the form of
the organizations I lead and the approaches that we used to do our programmes
and projects. Our way of doing things is unique. I have taken the lead in
beginning to teach individuals and organizations on how to develop this
priceless skill of Creative thinking and we use many approaches and tools like, The 7 step Creative process, Diverging
thinking, Smart Questions Approach, Neuro Linguistic programming, lateral
thinking, six hats thinking and many other tools that suits your liking and
personality. Coach Tarie Coaching and Consultancy (COTACC) in partnership with
the Arise Africa Cause is determined to work and see the master skill of
Creative Thinking together with many other skills to be highlighted in this
SKILL FACTOR series developed in the African.
Coach
Tarie-Pastor|Life-Executive-Entrepreneuship Coach|Consultant|
LeadershipTrainer| Speaker| Blogger| www.coachtarie.com| coachtarie@ gmail.com| facebook/twitter/linkedin @
Coach Tarie| +263773 301 267/
+263 712 106 415
