The word innovation comes up a lot in educhatter these days. Entire books are written on the subject. We have apparently already closed the door on the information age (can we really call it an "age" if it only lasted 20ish years), and are now told that we live in the innovation age. Educational literature abounds with a push to produce innovators in my country and abroad. But what is the big deal with innovation anyway? How many people in a society do we really regard as being "innovators?" Sure Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg did some pretty spectacular innovating, but there's only so much room for the Apples and Facebooks of the world right? We can't ALL be innovators, can we?
Before making a case for innovation and practices that generate more innovation in our schools and more innovators from them, we should make sure we're on the same page with regards to what innovation IS. Innovation often gets mixed up with creativity, and I think the two words are used almost interchangeably. This isn't that big a problem. Personally, I think both matter, and the two concepts interact with one another in many ways. That being said...
Innovation is the act of changing something that already is (methods, practices, policies, products, etc.). It is fundamentally an alteration of what currently exists.
Creativity is the act of creating something that never was.
The distinction isn't tremendously important, and the two words are typically listed as synonyms of one another in the thesaurus. For whatever reason, however, it's "innovation" that seems to get more play when we hear about the kinds of people society apparently needs more of. You see this word routinely in business circles. Where creativity often gets ascribed to artistic practices, innovation is apparently the quality that we need to cultivate in our youth if we are to stay competitive in the global economy. Personally, I think the two concepts are tightly intertwined, and the common distinction of creativity (art) and innovation (practical stuff) is a false dichotomy. Whether creative or innovative, our next generation is well served if they are either or both.
So why then should innovation matter so much in our classrooms? I once had a lengthy discussion with a colleague where he asserted that most kids don't really need to be innovative, and that the notion distracted from their real needs. He argued that the skills most of them actually need are learning how things are currently done in a particular field so that they can get a good job in that field, do what is needed of them by their employers, and thus, stay employed. Innovation was for the elite few students capable of making it in the world "on their own" and that these kids will likely emerge regardless of the system they are educated in. Suffice to say, we disagreed. If he had made that argument in 1967, or even maybe 1986, I think he would have had some data to support the argument.
In 2015, however, that just doesn't hold water. Businesses and corporations have come and gone for decades. That's nothing new. What IS new is the pace at which new processes, new technologies, and new markets emerge, both on local scales and on global ones. Microeconomic platforms such as Esty, Kijiji, and Teacher Pay Teachers multiply daily. The appetite for all things "new" and "improved" around the globe grows unabated. The world of work today is not what it was 20 years ago and is almost unrecognizable from the economies of our parents' generation from which it has evolved.
There is a prevailing myth circling the internet that some large percentage of jobs that our kids will hold 10 years from now will not have been invented yet. This same ridiculous claim was made 10 years ago, and other folks who are much better at research than I am have demonstrated that this is very likely to be false. The trend, however, that isn't being talked about in seminars your school's career counsellor is attending is the growing rate of contract work over traditional employment. In Canada, the US, and other developed nations the shift toward temporary contract work is unmistakable. More and more people are having to market themselves as a brand throughout their adult lives over selling themselves as employees a few times throughout a career.
This reality requires that a much greater percentage of the working public needs to have the ability to stay abreast of their fields, whether they be in software development or spot welding, without the support and ongoing training of an employer to spur on innovation and growth. Contractors must continuously learn and adapt as they transition between contracts and markets in order to stay employed.
And in economies that are narrow the need for diversity, innovation, and skill agility is more apparent than ever. Albertans should be clamboring loudest for changes in our educational systems. Our ability to train future oil executives and future righands is pretty well established. But in the bust times of our boom-and-bust economy, the level of panic and stress in this province is palpable. Do Albertan parents really want their kids to be subject to the same rollercoaster rides the majority of our economy lurches through roughly every seven years? And this doesn't even touch on the notion that one day, perhaps a day closer than we might want to imagine, we could be facing a global reality where oil simply isn't the thing we use to power the planet any more. This could arise because oil becomes obsolete or because the damage that is done by the practice of burning hydrocarbons becomes so glaringly atrocious that we have no choice. What then of our need to innovate when we must reinvent an entire provincial economy?
When we couple this reality with that of exponentially increasing computational power in our technological systems, the future looks even more uncertain. In the mid 20th century, automation replaced millions of middle income blue collar jobs, transitioning the middle class into predominantly white collar careers. Today, technology is replacing many of those white collar careers as well. For instance, computers running AI software can now take the place of journalists in preparing news copy, which represents only the tip of a very large iceberg. Even teachers may be subject to the shift towards automation. A teacher who acts only in the capacity of Information Dispensary is already long past obsolete, with MOOCS and YouTube able to easily and at least as effectively (if not more so) take the place of the average Stand-and-Deliver-er. We too are not immune from the need to innovate and adapt.
Albertans, and Canadians in general, can continue to trundle along riding the rails of our resource-based economics that have driven our nation since its inception. If we're smart, however, we will recognize that a changing world will offer changing opportunities. We have as much at stake in keeping our planet humming along productively as any other nation on this planet. Globally, we must eventually figure out how to feed and water tens of billions of people, provide energy to all of them, keep disease at bay, and find harmony and happiness in a global village that is cramped and angry in many of its parts. We are long past the point at which turning the environmental ship entirely back to a sustainability setting is realistic. We must invent ways to reverse inevitable damage being done to our atmosphere, oceans, and land.
And all of this will require innovators.
So why not us? Why would we leave this to other nations to shape? My answer is a simple one: we shouldn't.
Instead, let's teach our kids how to DO things again. Let's give them an opportunity to work on problems that matter in their lives and in the lives of the world around them. Let's show them that trying something, failing at it, going back to the drawing board, and trying again is worth it. Don't think they can? Just watch your kid try to nail a trick on his skateboard. Iteration is ingrained within us.
Perhaps we should reconsider the question we ask of every young person regarding what they want to do when they grow up. Maybe it's time to start asking them what they want to do right now. Yes, many of our kids will say "play hockey," or worse: "play Facebook games." Heck, most days I want to play hockey and Facebook games! But if, within our schools, we foster cultures of creation, of innovating and generating solutions to compelling problems, we'll also get to hear them reply with things like "write a story," or "build a robot," or "make a difference to people on the other side of my school's walls."
We need innovation right now. Not sure how to start? I'll recommend Tony Wagner's Creating Innovators as a great place to begin. Then the next step is to get some dialogue going in your school and in your community. We need more people starting and engaging in these conversations with urgency and agency. And then we need to get moving on that revolution.
How do you foster innovation in your own classroom? How does your school encourage innovative practices in its students? Its staff? Comment below or Tweet me your thoughts!
TL;DR: Creating innovators gives our kids and our economy the best chance for a bright future. Being innovators gives us teachers that chance as well.
Vive la revolution!
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