Generativity Stimulus Package:
5. The Generative Thinker
The fourth most important plank in the presidential platform is producing generations of generative thinkers:
- Generative Thinkers must be dedicated to thinking outside the box and creating new ideas.
For America, this means building upon the authoritarian Standards of Learning (SOL) systems and elevating up to the freeing Generative Thinking Systems (see Figure 5). It means building upon Probabilities Schools to implement Possibilities Schools which culminate in Freedom Schools.
Figure 5. Generative Thinking Model
As may be noted, The Generative Thinker is a product of both Human Capital Development or HCD and Information Capital Development or ICD. The HCD Functions emphasize developmental and cumulative processing systems:
- S–R Conditioned Responding
- S–O–R Discriminative Learning
- S–P–R Generative Thinking
- S–OP–R Generative Organizational Processing
- S–MP–R Generative Marketplace Processing
Clearly, the higher levels of Generative Thinking build upon the lower levels of conditioning and learning.
In turn, The ICD Functions emphasize developmental and cumulative levels of Information Representing:
- S1 – Sentences or Concepts
- S2 – Systems or Operations
- S3 – Schematics or Dimensionality
- S4 – Social Schematics or Vectorial Images
- S5 – Spatial or Phenomenal and Changeable Images
Once again, the higher order representations of information build upon the lower levels of sentences or conceptual information.
It is only in interrelating () the differentiated levels of HCD and ICD that we generate new and more productive ideas. In other words, it is when HCD and ICD relate interdependently and synergistically that they think generatively.
The institutions that convert the raw materials of human and information resources into HCD and ICD may be identified as follows:
- Probabilities Schools emphasizing S–R Conditioned Responding;
- Possibilities Schools emphasizing S–O–R Discriminative Learning;
- Freedom Schools emphasizing S–P–R Generative Thinking.
Clearly, the overwhelming numbers of our schools are Probabilities Schools. A rare few operate as Possibilities Schools. So far, none exist as true Freedom Schools.
In summary, The Generative Thinkers are dedicated to thinking “outside the box†to create new and more productive ideas. In this manner, they implement the Productive Organizations and the Prosperous Communities to accomplish The Generativity Mission.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Dear Bob,
This article represents the source cell for all your previous blogs. The only way we can get out of the hole we have dug for ourselves is to think our way out. We can’t spin our way, work our way out, or lie our way. Generative thinking is the key to make it all happen. Unfortunately, this solution requires a substantive, systematic and deductive approach – the very ingredients that are lacking in education, health care, the economy, and foreign relations. Generating innovative solutions at the highest levels of marketplace processing and changeable images requires differentiated HCD and ICD. If we can think ourselves into that space, then we can promote an interdependent, enlightened, free enterprise system, so that we create productive organizations, prosperous communities, and a peaceful world. Your words provide a critical shock to our system. We need to make the effort to impart the required skills in our homes, schools, businesses, and governmental agencies. It’s not too late, but the clock is ticking.