At de Lange has virtually taken the words right out of my mouth. It was
probably the missing link in my thinking process. What is lacking is not
competition or altruism, but creativity. Now that I have read his mail, I
find myself agreeing with him completely. The inherent premise in any
model -- be it socialism or capitalism -- seems to be that humans are
creative and they know how to solve problems.
In one of my earlier posts I had talked about self-actualization being the
driving force. But yes, I don't see any way in which a nation of
self-actualizers could be created; but probably creativity could be
nurtured at such levels too.
At, can you provide me with the complete reference for Coggin's book?
Coggin seems to have identified a very important caveat in technology
education. Most of us knew it intuitively, but were never able to place
our hands on it exactly. For instance, some time back I was proposing an
idea called "Informal Research Networks". In trying to motivate some of my
friends towards research networks, here is what I had written--
"...Technology, as I see it is the bridge between abstract mental ideas
and concrete reality. It is the tool which we use to implement all our
ideas. While technical education provides a lot of knowledge on theories
and practice of technology, there is a key element that is missing in all
technical education that I have seen -- innovation. Implementing
technologies always require an element of innovation; something which is
never present in any text books or laboratory experiments".
"It is hard to *teach* innovation. Some people seem to have it and some
dosen't seem to have it. However, a key aspect to innovation is
interaction. Innovative ideas seem to emerge from interacting with others
with different (even conflicting) viewpoints. Hence it is imperative that
students (even professionals) subject their notions to different
viewpoints and contexts for implementing sound technologies..."
Warm Wishes
Srinath
--Srinath Srinivasa <srinaths@lotus.iitm.ernet.in>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>