Teaching Tip #78

Teacherscribe’s Teaching Tip #78

Students today have to think outside of the box.  But how?

One of the books from my summer reading list a few years ago was Generation iY Tim Elmore.

This generation is also great at thinking outside of the box.  Because of the digital tools they have been raised with, they excel at what Thomas Friedman calls “creative mixing.”  They can take one idea and apply it to a totally different area to create something that never existed before.

Friedman gives an example of this from one of his talks at MIT.  To illustrate the concept of “creative mixing,” Friedman, who writes for the New York Times, said to the MIT students that the Times has given him permission to accept resumes from them because the Times is looking for engineers.  However, Friedman warns that they shouldn’t think of applying if they don’t read at least three old-school newspapers a day.  Why?  The Times can easily outsource engineering talent from India at a fraction of the cost of what American engineers cost.  What the Times is really looking for – and really needs – is someone who can take their engineering expertise and apply it to the newspaper industry so that they create something that has never been created before.  

And that is what this generation excels at.  Or at least according to Elmore.