Last week, our thinking skills lecturer distributed some exercises. One of them was a sheet containing 16 cryptic clues to well-known phrases – this sort of thing (answers at the end of the post):

esroh riding

9ALL5

DO12″OR

The other was a series of 9 dots, laid out in a 3X3 grid, which we had to try to join up using only 4 lines and without lifting pen from paper (answer at the end of the post, as before):

I was at a table with a biology teacher and a dance teacher. The dance teacher gave it a go, but was struggling to get to grips with the objective. She found that her mind wasn’t wired in a way that made sense of the cryptic exercise, but she managed the 9 dots just fine. The biology teacher was totally disgruntled by the whole thing and, as she herself said afterwards, folded her arms and sulked until someone showed her the right answer. She found herself to be very competitive and not prepared to try if she didn’t have the tools to win.
I had no trouble with either exercise. I’m not quite sure why I didn’t have any trouble with the 9 dots exercise, perhaps it’s because I have done similar things before, and I’ve sussed out the pattern. As to the cryptic clues, I put it down to the fact that I am a sad cryptic crossword puzzle geek. But the lecturer challenged this. Why can I do cryptic crossword puzzles? And then she said the magic word: analogies!

I’ve said it before: I think in analogies and allegories. Everything I learn reminds me of something I’ve learnt before, (almost) everyone I meet reminds me of someone I have met or seen before. I have used this thought technique to enable me as a teacher/trainer all my life. Providing people with knowns to use as a springboard to conquer unknowns. This is like that in such and such a way, but it differs here and here. So and so has eyes just like George Clooney/Bush/Washington. It all fits together.

How constructivist of me!

But in every learning environment, there are people like the three of us. People for whom it just clicks and the light goes on. People for whom the knowledge that there is an answer makes for an interesting exercise – a creative approach, the willingness to make a few wrong suggestions on the journey to the right answer. People who resent being asked to complete a task without being given the tools and a workable (for them) set of instructions from the outset.

Whirling around in my head are thoughts along the lines that our K-12 curriculum no longer allows students the space to be wrong, to have a few creative stabs at finding a solution. There is the requirement to hone in on the right answer like a heat-seeking missile. Where’s the room for creativity there? Surely we are excluding all but one type of thought process from our quest for answers?

I think there is a chance I will be posting more on that point in the near future.

Okay, so here are the answers – how did you do?

horseback riding

all in a day’s work

a foot in the door