Rethinking Innovation

Perhaps in Jo's world of cognitive bias, some things simply do not appear as appealing to her as they are to others. Having completed a 5-day Innovation workshop at a primary school in the west, I was more than convinced that this initiative is just not my cup of tea. In fact, not only is it not my type, I also remember being skeptical about it when it was first introduced in full hype in the early 2000s during the start of the Thinking Schools Learning Nation era.

Ideally, this initiative would bring forth a new, and creative, blood in sterile Singapore and perhaps too, a new niche beyond our renowned reputation of being safe, and safer. But somehow, as if in an attempt to jolt me out of the idealistic world, I found myself dismayed at what I saw and heard. Evidently, schools engage educational service providers with the unspoken rule (and in some cases, in your face) on winning that coveted award at a particular national competition and a tacit understanding to feed the students with ideas, literally, if they can't think of one themselves.

Have the students become pawns in a game of power and reputation? Do they really benefit from something like this? Ironically, my skepticism was once again reaffirmed when several 11-year-olds submitted their evaluation forms that wrote "the facilitators should give us the ideas" and that the 10-hour workshop has served nothing innovatively useful in their everyday lives.

Of course, with all due respect, it is only reasonable for these schools to expect some form of tangible results to access the effectiveness of a certain programme. But a more critical question remains to be answered: Is this means simply a decoy to an end? If yes, what then has become of education?

But at the end of the day, I couldn't help but wonder, am I the one who needed a paradigm shift instead?