Let's Steal Some Ideas

Lifehacker points readers to Austin Kleon's "How To Steal Like An Artist (And 9 Other Things Nobody Told Me)."  I like stolen ideas.  I've mention stealing them here and here.

Among the gems that Kleon lists,

1. Figure out what [idea] is worth stealing.  Move on to the next thing.
2. An artist is a collector. Not a hoarder, mind you, there’s a difference: hoarders collect indiscriminately, the artist collects selectively. They only collect things that they really love.
3. Side projects and hobbies are important.
4. The secret: do good work and put it where people can see it.
5. Be nice. The world is a small town.
6. Be boring. It’s the only way to get work done.

New York Times columnist David Brooks devotes two columns to stealing ideas from science.  The first discusses Steven Pinker's question:  "What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit?"  Brooks links to an Edge online symposium that features 164 thinkers' answers to the Pinker's question.  I'm usually leery of putting science on a pedestal, but Brooks, in this instance, put my mind at ease when he contends "new discoveries about the brain don’t explain Macbeth."

Brooks's follow-up column lists a few of his favorites.  He lists the Pareto Principle, the idea that 80% of the results are produced by 20% of those involved.  Of course, results might be negative as well as positive.  For example, 20% of the discipline students cause 80% of the discipline problems in a classroom. He also lists Douglas T. Kenrick's "idea that we are not just one personality, but we have many subselves that get aroused by different cues."

Nosing around the Edge site, I came across a few other interesting ideas.  Mark Pagel suggests that everyone should remember "there will always be some element of doubt about anything we come to 'know' from our observations of the world."  Pagel closes,

No other system for acquiring knowledge even comes close to science, but this is precisely why we must treat its conclusions with humility. Einstein knew this when he said "all our science measured against reality is primitive and childlike" and yet he added "it is the most precious thing we have".

Douglas Rushkoff suggests that "technologies have biases."

People like to think of technologies and media as neutral and that only their use or content determines their impact. Guns don't kill people, after all, people kill people. But guns are much more biased toward killing people than, say, pillows — even though many a pillow has been utilized to smother an aging relative or adulterous spouse. 

Our widespread inability to recognize or even acknowledge the biases of the technologies we use renders us incapable of gaining any real agency through them. We accept our iPads, Facebook accounts and automobiles at face value — as pre-existing conditions — rather than tools with embedded biases.

 Some of the answers seem a bit esoteric, but as a teacher, I have the job of preparing students with a cognitive toolkit.  Granted, they're not going to fill that kit with only the items that teachers give them in the classroom; they're going to have borrow, steal, and adapt tools from a variety of places.  They will, however, need to be exposed to ideas that outside the mainstream to survive in the world they're going to inherit.  The more ideas teachers can expose them to, the better off they will be.

One principle I'd nominate for every student's toolkit is "Simplify."  In Walden, Thoreau writes,

Our life is frittered away by detail. .  . .Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify.

If I'm really simplifying, I suppose I should cite Ockham's razor: "of two competing theories, the simplest explanation of an entity is to be preferred."


I'll open it up to readers.  What's the best idea you've stolen?  What should be in every student's cognitive toolbox?

Sacred Zombie Cows: An Idea I've Rustled

I came across this little piece of art work while renewing my acquaintance with Gaping Void.

Hugh MacLeod created this artwork on the back of a business card as one of his Cube Grenaede commissions.  This piece was done for David Gamel at Orpreneur.  Gamel explains the zombie cow as follows:

Enter the sacred zombie cow. Sacred zombie cows are the purest manifestation of crap within an organization. These are programs, products and services that are a net negative to the company and yet are incredibly hard to kill. They no longer have a strong sponsor on the scene but still they shamble along, eating up resources.

People tend to walk around sacred zombie cows like they are just a piece of furniture, ignoring how utterly dangerous they are.

Peter Drucker, the godfather of business strategy, said that the most innovative companies are those that are ruthless about stopping things. They maniacally root out and destroy sacred zombie cows, like a Van Helsing in Dockers.

Education has so many sacred zombie cows that we need Van Helsing to lead a posse of Heracles, Thor, Batman, Captain America, Wonder Woman, and She-Hulk to deal with a herd that size.  Hell, we might even need a young John Wayne, a young James Arness and the whole cast of Silverado to round up the zombie doggies and send them to slaughter.

Even more frightening than cows that have returned from the dead and refuse to die again is the fact that we keep adding more of these undead hamburgers on the hoof.  We want standards, but the evidence that standards work is hardly conclusive.

Further, education does a better job of organizing circular firing squads than it does of organizing an effective posse.  National politicians, state and local politicians, school boards, administrators, high school teachers, junior high teachers, elementary teachers, and students of all ages can see the zombie sacred cows in other constituencies.  Everyone is willing to turn others' beasts in to zombie beef, but they will get in the way of every silver bullet aimed at their own undead bovine.

MacLeod doesn't like "endless droning on about nothing, the endless tedium that is your career…," and I think he's right; therefore, I'll look at the crap in the way I teach and try to kill a few of my own zombie cows instead of worrying about things I can't control. Lord knows, I've probably got a corral full.

A Five Step Plan

I remember when the USSR used to announce 5 year plans.  Seth Godin has a simple five step plan for just about everyone and everything.

The number of people you need to ask for permission keeps going down:
1. Go, make something happen.
2. Do work you're proud of.
3. Treat people with respect.
4. Make big promises and keep them.
5. Ship it out the door.
When in doubt, see #1. 

I think Seth is right, but I don't think he's ever taught in a public school.  Steps one and four get teachers in trouble,  It's tough to do number two if the boss cares only about teaching to a test.