Ready to Innovate: A Good Resource for the Innovation Corps

A March 2008 report sponsored by the Conference Board, Americans for the Arts, and the American Association of School Administrators makes some interesting points about 21st century skills that I would definitely make required reading for the Innovation Corps I fantasized about.

Ready to Innovate: Are Educators and Executives Aligned on the Creative Readiness of the U.S. Workforce? compares the views of business executives and school superintendents regarding creativity and innovation.

First, when asked which school experiences were most important indicators of creativity, both employers and superintendents cited study in the arts. (Business ranked it second, superintendents first.)

Second, when asked about specific skills and patterns of behavior that indicate creativity, employers and superintendents differed in some areas. The chart below (taken from an article by Stacy Teicher Kadaroo in the Christian Science Monitor) shows a couple of interesting differences that should be further explored.

Based on the rankings, employers and superintendents agree that "ability to identify new patterns of behavior or new combination of actions" and "integration of knowledge across different disciplines" are highly indicative of creativity.

But perhaps schools that are interested in developing innovative thinkers should discuss the three areas ranked high by employers (most indicative of creativity) but significantly lower by superintendents:

• Problem identification or articulation.
• Comfort with the notion of no right answer.
• Fundamental curiosity.

My reactions: I wonder whether some of the areas ranked lowest by employers (less indicative of creativity) are perhaps areas they take for granted—areas where schools have excelled. However, two of those areas—communicating new ideas and problem-solving—may be deceptive. Communicating new ideas is dependent on having them first, which requires the other skills and behaviors. That ranking may be more reflective of thinking sequentially. Solving problems is much broader than some of the other items and can be said to include some of the more highly ranked skills. I wonder whether superintendents were thinking of students or teachers when they were ranking. Some of the items they chose as the top five—problem-solving, integration of knowledge across disciplines, originality, and communications seem to suggest the types of criteria that would be used to judge student work or that would be found in education reports about 21st century skills.