Cockle Bay School

Developing an Inquisitive and Inventive Mind


This article is a summary of a presentation given by the author at the National Child Education Conference held in Singapore, June 2010 (www.nationalchildeducation.com ) The title of the article is a major aim of his early childhood thinking program JLTP ( www.jltp.net ) that is now in over 100 schools in Singapore. www.nationalchildreneducation.com


Inquisitiveness and Inventiveness are vital for success in today's world. This is a claim of more and more business, political, and educational leaders around the world. And yet, most school systems assume that these two abilities develop naturally without specific instruction. Inquisitiveness and inventiveness need particular mindsets or attitudes that many students and adults simply do not have to any degree. These mindsets can, and should be, shaped in early childhood. The older a person's emotional memory, the more difficult it becomes to modify the emotional skills and mindsets that are embedded in it. Memories in the young brain are still flexible and capable of being modified while brain cells are connecting at a very rapid rate.




Let's start with inventiveness. Brain scans show that creative ideas form in the frontal lobes of the brain. These creative ideas cannot be plucked or recalled from the correct answer language memory in the temporal lobe. Learners have to do some mental work by asking themselves some "processing questions". These questions allow them to make new connections with existing content stored in a memory. If these ideas are to be novel and unusual the brain has to be forced to think in opposite ways to how it usually does. In other words it has to flex. By usual I mean that we have to break away from the usual, common, or dominant patterns the brain stores for us. Yes, the brain remembers, and strongly holds onto, recurring characteristics of things, usual ways of doing, making, and using things, and even usual opinions of the group.




In order to make the brain more flexible or risk taking we can ask it special questions- "pattern flexing" questions, that it is not used to answering. These questions make it search for answers that simply are not in its correct answer memory. The brain is forced to make new, unusual connections for the new ideas.




The first "pattern flexing' question type is reverse questioning. For example...

What can't you photograph? What won't you find in Sydney? Where won't you find birds?

The brain stores what or where we CAN but not can't. New flexible connections are forced to form.


The second type of question is creative similarities. For example.. How is a horse and a chair the same? How is a road and a river the same? The brain stores different things in different categories or groups within memories. Here it is forced to look for similar properties of quite different things. It has to flex.


The third question type is creative consequences. For example.. What if there were no more birds in the world? What if there was no longer a moon? What if there was no longer any clouds or computers .....in the world? The brain stores real but not unreal situations. Once again this question type forces the brain to flex and form new connections.


The fourth question type is creative uses. For example...What are some quite different uses of a bottle, a feather, a newspaper, a brick, a car tyre, or some other simple object? The brain stores the common or usual uses of something but not unusual or novel uses. This question type is found in tests of creative thinking. A strategy called attribute listing triggers some unusual uses. By listing the characteristics or attributes of the simple object other uses that rely on these attributes become obvious. For example, a brick is rough ( a pencil or knife sharpener) , it is heavy ( a door stop, a paper weight ) , it has holes ( an umbrella or pencil stand ) and so on. In a creativity test, the greater the number of categories of ideas suggested by a student the greater is his or her flexibility of thought.


The fifth question type, also used in tests of creative thinking, is visual creativity. For example, a simple line drawing is provided and children are asked what does the drawing remind them of. The brain initially sees the line drawing as a common, familiar object. But then it has to flex or show imagination in order to see other quite different objects.


The sixth question type is analysing creative designs. For example....

Why does a horse have 4 legs and not 6 like an insect? Why do horses have blunt teeth? Why are flowers coloured? The brain senses characteristics but is rarely asked why something has these characteristics. Everything has a design that fits a particular function. A personal acronym SCUMPS helps stimulate questions about the design of simple objects. The questions "Why does this thing have this size, colour, use, material, parts, and shape rather than other possibilities? SCUMPS provides endless questions about the creativity of designs around us. This question type doesn't force opposite or unusual thinking but rather it sensitises learners to the creativity about them- a well known characteristic of creative thinkers.


Older students might try creative problem solving or creative designing. The acronym CREATE might help. It triggers questions like " What novel combinations, reversals, eliminations, alternatives, twists, and elaborations can I use to make this product or solve this problem"? Younger children simply have fun trying to show their flexibility of thought in solving simple problems. These might include "How would you get off the back of an elephant if it won't sit down"? or "How would you get an elephant out of a deep hole if you don't have any machines"? or "How could you open the pages of a book without touching them with your hand"?


How do you use these pattern flexing questions in order to develop a risk taking mindset?


You don't use them in a formal test for marks due to the wide range of answers students will offer. However, parents and teachers can use one of the question types at a time in short mini competitions. Here is an instruction. " In 2 minutes write down (or tell me) all the ways in which a chair is the same as a horse." The child with the most categories of ideas ( not examples of the same category) wins. By varying the topic and the question type used endless brain flexing exercises can be created.


The six question types described in this article have to be used with children over a long period of time. Three years ago I developed a thinking program for early childhood students in Singapore( www.jltp.net ). The brain flexing question types were woven into the conversation of characters in 16 stories stored on CD-Rom. Because the questions are funny and have more than one possible answer children don't feel threatened. They have fun thinking for themselves. Children are prepared to "give it a go" by sharing their ideas in front of the class. The aims of JLTP are to encourage question asking and to develop a risk taking mindset needed to do this. Older students who are beyond stories can try these same question types given at the end of a topic description in a book ( Langrehr , 2003)


Now for a brief look at inquisitiveness.


Most young children are good at asking adults those Why? Why? questions. The acronym SCUMPS is also good to link with Why . For example, if you show a child a picture of a pyramid it may just store the picture in the visual memory and the word in the language memory. No new connections linking pyramid with another concept will form. However, the child who asks him or herself some 5WH questions.( Where? Who? Where? When? Why? and , How?) will form many new connections. For example.. " Where do we find pyramids? Who were they for? Why were they built ?When were they built? How did people lift the heavy stones so high? Now 5 new connections have formed in the brain to help future thinking.


The 5WH words can each be printed on 6 cards. A child can pick an upturned card and then be asked to make up a question about a given topic starting with this word. The competition is to see who can make up the most questions in a given time using the word on their selected card? Other competitions could involve groups of students trying to make up questions about a given topic using all six words. Older students might try similar competitions but this time with another pack of cards with the words Is , Did , Can, Would, Will, and Might. Thirty six question starters can now test older students to ask questions starting with the 2 words.


In summary, inventiveness and inquisitiveness can, and should be, developed in young children. They need constant practice searching for ideas and reasons to multi answer questions that force them to break away from those dominant brain patterns. Hopefully this article has provided some model questions for you to use in regular fun, mini-competitions. .


John Langrehr Ph.D

June 2010. .


Thinking lessons: creative thinking for the middle years, Curriculum Corporation, Melbourne, 2003