Why Knowledge is more important than Creativity
And why most students suck at the Art of Storytelling
The Recurring Problem
In the last 6 years or so, we've (our team at Unlearn Academy) conducted over 50 workshop sessions on storytelling, mostly for undergrad and grad students.
Following our workshop framework, we teach the participants the essential elements of a great story. We also share Campbell's template of the Hero's Journey, we give them our own examples and sample stories.
We make them practice, revise, rewrite, and share their final stories.
I have to be honest. There's hardly any good story at the end of the sessions. Hardly.
We give them all the necessary tools and processes. But we are left with scratching our heads. Why can't they come up with a good decent story !!!
They might recite/plagiarize Sundar Pichai's cockroach story1 or rehash the same stories shared by management gurus in linkedin. But hardly anything creative !
The major revelation
For any story to be good, it has to be personal. And, the big challenge we see as the workshop facilitators is that the participants, almost all of them, lack any real experience which they can weave through the story process.
They have the tools and the template. But they don't have any experience. Nor the insights from those experience.
They have powerpoint or canva, but they don’t have the content.
Basically, they lack enough personal knowledge, reflections, and insights to make their story anywhere near decent.
To stretch it, we give them tools and processes to make momo. But they don't have keema at all.
The fault in the narrative
Now there’s a big push in the school education these days.
“नलेज त इन्टरनेटमा छ दै छ नि, स्किल पो सिकाउने हो, प्रसेस पो सिकाउने हो”
”Knowledge is already out there. Therefore, schools should not focus on teaching what, but should focus on teaching how.”
This big push has massive flaws. It is similar to putting the cart in front of the horse in the name of creativity and 21st century skills.
किमा त बजारमा छ दै छ नि, मोमो बनाउन पो सिक्नु पर्छ. Without keema, all the momo making procedures, tips, and guidelines means nothing. Does this sound ridiculous? Exactly. That’s what the education narrative is right now.
Educators/Idealists may not like this natural fact. But without enough relevant knowledge built inside our mind, we can't rely on the "outsourced" knowledge found in google to get creative or to think critically.
Experience. Knowledge. Domain specific concepts. Subject specific depth. Mental models of the world. Visual representations of the environment. We need these "inside" our heads before we can start connecting the dots with the stuffs "outside" our heads.
If you haven’t read it, here’s the cockroach story:
At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere and sat on a lady. She started screaming out of fear. With a panic stricken face and trembling voice, she started jumping, with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach.
Her reaction was contagious, as everyone in her group also got panicky.
The lady finally managed to push the cockroach away but ...it landed on another lady in the group. Now, it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama.
The waiter rushed forward to their rescue. In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waiter.
The waiter stood firm, composed himself and observed the behavior of the cockroach on his shirt. When he was confident enough, he grabbed it with his fingers and threw it out of the restaurant.
Sipping my coffee and watching the amusement, the antenna of my mind picked up a few thoughts and started wondering, was the cockroach responsible for their histrionic behavior?
If so, then why was the waiter not disturbed? He handled it near to perfection, without any chaos. It is not the cockroach, but the inability of those people to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach, that disturbed the ladies.
I realized that, it is not the shouting of my father or my boss or my wife that disturbs me, but it's my inability to handle the disturbances caused by their shouting that disturbs me.
It's not the traffic jams on the road that disturbs me, but my inability to handle the disturbance caused by the traffic jam that disturbs me.
More than the problem, it's my reaction to the problem that creates chaos in my life.
(Aww cute)