Entrepreneurship as a creative ability

Just after posting my list of Multiple Creative Abilities a few days ago, I received an e-mail from a librarian asking for my take on entrepreneurship. She thought I knew something about it since I wrote a column about it once upon a time and it came up when she Googled "libraries and entrepreneurship." She needs better evaluation skills.

I swore at the time I wrote the column that I would never write on the topic again since the word entrepreneur and all words derived from it are just too damn hard to spell.  But then I realized that entrepreneurship really needs to be added to my list of creative abilities. 

In my definition, entrepreneurs look for unfilled needs and opportunities within an organization or within society - and find ways to fill them. They are self-motivated and often mission driven.  Here is what I suggested in the column linked above:

... increasingly, the concepts of entrepreneurship are being used by individuals within traditional schools trying new educational approaches - ones that will keep them from becoming obsolete.  For librarians, I’d define entrepreneurship as actively searching for unfilled needs in a school and helping meet them, adding value to one’s position in the organization.

When I personally think of the term educational entrepreneurship, it is educators who seek and find opportunities, often in the for-profit world. But the term entrepreneurship education is the effort to make the students themselves more entrepreneurial: a creative skill we should be helping students master as well. The Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education offers a curriculum, conferences, and other support for teachers who are interested in teaching students to find and creative opportunities with a focus on business.

Increasingly, all jobs require self-motivation, self-assessment, and creativity, so yes, entrepreneurship seems like an ability to encourage. Entrepreneurs need courage, tenacity, innovation, and empathy.

I am still exploring why people become self-motivated and are able to create their own vocations. But I am guessing it won't be because they read the textbook from cover to cover.  

If you find out, please let me know! 

Image source: www.lifewithoutpants.com

BFTP: Lighten up

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past.  Original post February 4, 2009. Seems like it was a bad winter five years ago as well, but perhaps we need a little humor this winter more than most...

How can we redouble our commitment to business-oriented schooling? If necessary, we can outsource some of the learning to students in Asia, who will memorize more facts for lower grades. And we can complete the process, already begun in spirit, of making universities’ education departments subsidiaries of their business schools. More generally, we must put an end to pointless talk about students’ “interest” in learning and instead focus on skills that will contribute to the bottom line. Again, we’re delighted to report that this shift is already underway, thanks to those who keep reminding us about the importance of 21st-century schooling. Alfie Kohn, "When “21st-Century Schooling” Just Isn’t Good Enough: A Modest Proposal"

So I’ve been wondering about how to incorporate play into research as a way of tapping into more creative serendipitous approaches. Carolyn Foote in "Play and Libraries" (See also link to Helene Blowers presentation on fun in libraries.)

Welcome to Doodle 4 Google, a competition where we invite K-12 students to play around with our homepage logo and see what new designs they come up with. This year we're inviting U.S. kids to join in the doodling fun, around the intriguing theme "What I Wish for the World."

Those of us of Scandanavian heritage and epecially those of us still living in places where it doesn't get above freezing for an entire month and expecially toward the end of that month and where the snow that fell on the driveway in December is there but in the form of ice and especially for those of us who suffer from that lightdeprevation thing and especially those of us who think that if they eat one more meal that is primarily white in color and lacking any seasoning other than salt tend to have a bit of gloomy outlook on things now and then. It's a character flaw we acknowledge and do our best to live with it and try not to make it a problem for others.

This self-awareness keeps us on the lookout for those things that may lift our drooping spirits, such as the resources cited at the beginning of this post. Kohn's bit of satire is a hoot and should be widely shared; we should all engage in Foote's quest for fun in our libraries; and every student to should be encouraged to compete in Google's contest.

Humor, fun, and irreverance are the best weapons of all closet subversives in education. Make a kid or another teacher chuckle today.

And improve school.