March 20, 2005

• Topic: Ready for print

  
  

  Well…I’ll admit, I haven’t had difficulty writing an article on education in a while.  But…I was trying to tackle a new angle, less personal venting.  A bit more abstract, but still trying to push people in the direction of contemplation, and ultimately, I would hope, action.  Well…here she is:

  
  

  Lateral Thinking – A Laxative for the Constipated Mind

  
  

   

  
  

              I’m staring at the blinking dash on the screen, indicating, “keep typing you son-of-a-bitch.”  Writers block, or rather, writers flood?  Scratch that… “thinkers flood.”  We’re thinkers first; writing is just an extension of the mind.

  
  

             

  
  

  A friend of mine once commented on how my writing had improved since college.  Strange I thought, considering I hadn’t benefited from any writing classes since college, the workshops, or the red pen.  I don’t believe my knowledge of writing, or my writing “skills” have actually changed since college.  What has changed, however, is my thinking, which is therefore reflected in my writing.

  
  

             

  
  

  I have discovered (a personal discovery that may not apply to any world outside of my own), that there are no rules to writing.  No rules to thinking.  There’s only tools and strategies with different goals in mind.  For example, we’re taught tools of logic, of emotional persuasion, of structure and organization, and above all, we’re always reminded to consider our audience.  For example, as students, we often insert a student voice to appeal to a professor’s ears.  As academics, we tend to focus on data and technical language, removing our personal lives and experiences from the equation.  In this sense, while college provides us with certain tools, we sacrifice freedom in both our thinking and writing in the process.  We build a bubble in the mind. 

  
  

               

  
  

              In my last article, “Washington University: In St. Louis, or an island of its own?” I noted how several national organizations that study higher education have revealed disconnect between what colleges teach, and what students need for their lives.  These organizations affirmed the general feelings amongst students nationwide, that college is often a collection of disjointed classes that tally up to a diploma.  Only on a small scale have they begun to address the missing connection between higher education and its relationship to the community.  While simultaneously preaching the need for higher education because of what students are learning, and the urgent need for reform because of what they’re not, the leaders in higher education fail to make the blunt conclusion, that colleges are bubbles to the real world. 

  
  

   

  
  

              It’s this idea of the bubble that we’re after.  But, what does it mean, really?  Perhaps we can better understand the bubble by considering its opposite, “a bubble burst.”  After bursting the college bubble, we’re flooded with concepts like “thinking outside the box,” or “lateral thinking.”  These are the ideas I want to explore. 

  
  

   

  
  

              Born in Malta in 1933, Edward de Bono is credited with coining the term lateral thinking.  With a background in psychology and physiology, he has written extensively about deliberate thinking tools that can be used to actively produce creativity in people.  As an applied psychologist, his interests include the numerous human and political problems our societies face, however he is less interested in their causes than our inability, or perhaps our unwillingness, to question the primary assumptions in any given situation, thus freeing ourselves to think our way through problems with lateral thinking. 

  
  

   

  
  

              De Bono explains how lateral thinking is necessary to provide something our society has generally lacked – a method for changing ideas.  Articles upon articles have been written addressing various problems regarding the college bubble.  I’ve been responsible for many of them.  Ultimately, the failure of these articles to be more than food for thought, demonstrates another bubble.  The bubble of being a critic.  The essence of being a critic is not in the criticism, but in the desire for the criticism to go away.  For example, I was told a story of a young girl who volunteered one day in a soup kitchen.  She enjoyed the experience very much, and remarked, “I hope there are still soup kitchens to volunteer in when I have kids.”  Obviously this young girl did not mean she wanted there to be a perpetual need for soup kitchens, but this example reflects the need for lateral thinking to address the numerous sicknesses of our modern society.  It’s not enough to change minds, if the writing on the page always looks the same. 

  
  

   

  
  

                 As Edward de Bono once wrote, we can use lateral thinking as a laxative for those who have constipated minds that they wish to free.  We have plenty of meaty ideas to chew on, what we now need is the fiber to loosen those ideas from dogma and rigidity.  Or, to propose a de Bono-esque slogan that expresses the need for lateral thinking:

  
  

  A lot of ideas doesn’t mean shit.

  
  

   

  
  

  So, let me offer something new, something lateral.  For the many out there who I know want to discuss this, I believe a solution may lie for us in the internet.  Blogging may be the key to bursting through all sorts of bubbles, and addressing all sorts of problems.  Thanks to the internet and weblogs, we have a whole new way of collectively addressing these issues.  We can quite literally read minds, having conversations with people we’ve never spoken to and tapping into their ideas.  We can build relationships with strangers, post thoughts on a whim, and have an audience that comes and goes as it needs, but keeps a continuous conversation going. 

  
  

             

  
  

              to add some fiber to this conversation, visit: www.xanga.com/abetterwashu

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  Dan Lilienthal

  
  

  Class of 2003

  
  

   

  • 9:42 pm
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