As I read emails about improving customer service with better software and similar things, I am coming to agree with the conventional wisdom (though it’s not phrased this way) that the more algorithmic your work is, the more likely you are not to have a job in the coming years unless you work for really cheap with few benefits. That observation in turn suggests that the hoopla about innovation and creativity probably has some merit to it. Which in turn causes me to ask why, if such is the case, there are still so many multiple-choice tests? Why is there still algorithmic or pseudo-algorithmic teaching? (That’s only semi-rhetorical…)
A bigger and more difficult question is the appropriate mix of “traditional content” and “creativity.” It’s certainly true that one can’t teach people to “think outside the box” if they don’t know where the box is. It’s also true that you can’t be creative without a solid base. The real question, it seems to me, is what the base should be.
One thing I can tell you from personal experience. It does not work to have an algorithmic base and assert that creativity can be “added later.” Creativity is, I suspect, a process or habit of mind, and you can’t simply tack that on easily when the mind has been trained for years to think in different ways….