There is always a tension in the workplace between executives who want workers who have that intuitive thinking and inexperienced supervisors who want workers who only do as they are told.

I beleive that it is part of my role as a teacher of adults to help students gain the critical thinking skills to prepare students for both scenarios.  In adult education, we have always had an emphasis on using reallife examples and making education relevant.  Our adult students are a rich repository of data / stories that can be used to develop some creative problem-solving skills.

What I do as part of the ABE/ GED instruction is to work with students to develop real-life applications for their math, social studies, science, or reading, based on their actual workplace  experience - or on their desired or fantasy profession (e.g. hip hop song album producer).  And then develop ideas for improving some aspect of that profession. 

For instance, a woman who is a housekeeper at a hospital, examined the physics of how her tools, such as mops and brooms, work. She began recording the productivity directions from her boss, which she than graphed, identified a problem, developed a solution, and wrote a memo to her supervisor, suggesting a solution. A young man who works as a concrete pourer developed a set of word problems for his classmates to solve, based on his work.    

The big hangup for most students is not the lack of creativity -- many  of our students have at least one area where they are very creative -  it is the negative self-talk, sensitivity around criticism and debate, lack of experience in solving problems related to productivity in a group setting  that then combine with the low literacy skills that hinders creativity in the workplace. 

Gail Bundy
Night Instructor
Native American Multi-Cultural Education School
Denver, CO