Where Do Great Ideas Come From?

I stumbled across a great video the other day and was really drawn to it as I feel that it matched up perfectly with what we are doing in our schools with Professional Learning Communities.  The video speaks to creativity and ingenuity and how great ideas form. The speaker, Steven Johnson, really stresses that great ideas are rarely that “eureka” moment we think they are, but are simply hunches that take years to really take shape. He stresses that in order for great ideas to take root, often the best place is in community.  It is why the coffee houses in the Age of Enlightenment and the Parisian Salons of Modernism developed so many great ideas. These were places where great minds could get together and share ideas, building on each other and creating a synergy or sorts.

That’s what Professional Learning Communities can do for our schools, be safe zones of professional dialogue. These safe zones hopefully become places where professionalism thrives and we share our practice for the betterment of the students in our care.

Let’s even go a step further, is YOUR classroom a breeding ground for great ideas? Do your students have the ability to dialogue about concepts and work together to problem solve and create original thinking? If not, why not? If so, are you sharing your thinking with your colleagues? Take a look at the video link below. What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU&feature=related

 

 

Dave

 

Interesting Reads

Mindsets - Carol Dweck
Teaching Boys who struggle in School - Kathleen Palmer Cleveland
Drive - Daniel Pink
Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell

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