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40 Book reviews

tein, 2008; van Geert & Fischer, 2009). Fourth, none of these models have truly incorporated mental imagery and mentalimulation in their scheme. Herein lies a niche for the creative mind.

eferences

ischer, K. W., & Bidell, T. R. (2006). Dynamic development of action, thought, and emotion. In W. Damon, & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Theoretical models of humandevelopment. Handbook of child psychology (6th ed., Vol. 1, pp. 313–399). New York: Wiley.

ischer, K. W., Stewart, J., & Stein, Z. (2008). Process and skill: Analyzing dynamic structures of growth. In F. Riffert, & H. J. Sander (Eds.), Researching withwhitehead: System and adventure (pp. 327–367). Munich: Verlag Karl Alber.

osslyn, S. M. (1994). Image and brain: The resolution of the imagery debate. Cambridge, MA; London: MIT Press.osslyn, S. M., Thompson, W. L., & Ganis, G. (2006). The case for mental imagery. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.epper, S. C. (1942). World hypotheses, a study in evidence. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.hepard, R. N. (1984). Ecological constraints on internal representation—Resonant kinematics of perceiving, imagining, thinking, and dreaming. Psychological

Review, 91(4), 417–447.an Geert, P., & Fischer, K. W. (2009). Dynamic systems and the quest for individual-based models of change and development. In P. Spencer, M. C. S.

Thomas, & J. L. McClelland (Eds.), Toward a unified theory of development: Connectionism and dynamic systems theory re-considered (pp. 313–336). OxfordUniversity Press.

atson, J. (1968). The double helix: A personal account of the discovery of the structure of DNA. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Michael Hogan ∗

School of Psychology, NUI, Galway, Ireland

∗ Tel.: +353 91493455; fax: +353 91521355.E-mail address: michael.hogan@nuigalway.ie

URL: http://www.nuigalway.ie/psychology/m hogan page.htm

8 September 2010

Available online 12 February 2011oi:10.1016/j.tsc.2011.01.003

he Future of Education, K. Egan. Yale University Press (2008). 191 pp., $25.65, ISBN 978-0-300-11046-3

Kieran Egan is one of a small band of truly original thinkers in the realm of educational futurology. Not for him a tinkeringf the status quo, or even something as semi-radical as ‘thinking schools’. The subtitle of this fascinating book is ‘Reimaginingur Schools from the Ground Up’, and that is exactly what he attempts. The clichéd phrase ‘thinking outside the box’ is muchverused, but it is exactly what Egan encourages us to do.

Egan begins with the thought-provoking comparison of today’s educational system with the ancient Greeks’ habit ofasing their foreign policy on examining the entrails of sacrificed animals. As he observes, any contemporary Greek warrioraving the temerity to question such a policy would have been met with incredulity. The implication is that anyone daringo question the value of schools as they currently exist is likely to be met with a similar reaction.

By drawing such an analogy, Egan graphically highlights for us the often unquestioned belief that learning certain kindsf knowledge makes one a more virtuous person. He goes on to point out that current views tend to perceive the purposef schooling to be a combination of socialisation, academic advancement and child development, the success of which willepend upon achieving a proper balance. Reflecting the analysis of Zvi Lamm, Egan concludes that these intentions aresually likely to be in conflict with each other, as well as each being inherently flawed in itself. Socialisation can lead to

ndoctrination; the academic curriculum founders on what knowledge is most worth teaching and the barriers of literacy;uman development is inextricably tied to culture and social experience and differs from individual to individual. To hisind, the best that can be said for schools is that their attempts to combine these defective ideas may help to prevent any

ne of them from causing too much damage.The metaphors continue to mount up throughout this book in a highly entertaining and illuminating manner. It is full of

are asides that seem to be going off at a tangent, only to hit home with a punch line that delivers a key message. Anyoneho has heard Kieran Egan speak will recognise this rhetorical device, which is much more common in a good lecture than

n most academic texts. It often means suspending one’s judgement and following where the stories take us, but the ultimateestination makes the journey well worthwhile.

Egan’s main thesis is that education is a process in which something good is done to the mind. Its purpose, therefore, shoulde to help build in each individual a cultural and symbolic storehouse within which everyone has their own cognitive toolkit.here Egan differs from others who have previously espoused, and are currently championing, the cognitive revolution,

s in his identification of five “operating systems” that he believes should make up this toolkit. Somatic understanding

ntails getting to know how our body works and establishing our place in the world. It is maximised by “stimulation andevelopment of the senses, of humour, and of the emotions.” Mythic understanding is concerned with the development of

anguage and, in particular, its use in listening to and telling stories. Romantic understanding relates to the development andses of literacy, particularly in constructing a vivid sense of the reality in which we find ourselves. Philosophic understanding

Book reviews 141

consists of the adoption of general, abstract, theoretic thinking, which is considered to be important in acquiring a sense ofagency in the world. And finally, ironic understanding enables us at its simplest level to recognise the difference betweenwhat is said and what is meant and the realisation that there is always some difference between what we mean and whatwe can put into language.

It is neither possible nor appropriate for me to attempt to précis these ideas in the brief space available here. As in allaspects of the book, the descriptions are rich in their use of language and full of humour and illustrative stories, intentionallyprovided, I am sure, to bring to life the points being made.

The second half of the book is devoted to a futuristic breakdown of how the educational curriculum might developdecade by decade from 2010 to 2060. Again this is a persuasive, as well as an original device. One finds oneself sweptup in Egan’s romantic vision with its own seemingly irrefutable logic. This is not a book that lends itself readily to coolcritical analysis, even of a constructive nature, and would certainly not find favour with the current UK Secretary of Statefor Education. Despite his dismissal of current orthodoxy, Egan refuses to lay blame anywhere on the inadequacies of theeducation system. His aim is to offer the vision of an alternative future for our schools. In this he succeeds remarkably wellby providing a thought-provoking treatise well worth the attention of all who consider themselves educators.

Robert Burden ∗

University of Exeter, Graduate School of Education, Heavitree Road, EXETER, EX1 2LU, United Kingdom

∗ Tel.: +44 01392 264795.E-mail address: R.L.Burden@exeter.ac.uk

25 November 2010

Available online 5 March 2011doi:10.1016/j.tsc.2011.01.002

Fostering Creativity: A Diagnostic Approach for Higher Education and Organisations, A. Cropley, D. Cropley. HamptonPress Inc., Cresskill, NJ (2009). x + 305 pp., Price [paper]: $32.50, ISBN: 978-157273-889-8

This book is founded on the beliefs that creativity is essential and beneficial to a society that continually needs to innovateto survive and prosper and higher education is not doing enough to encourage students’ creative development. The authors’contribution to the solution of this problem is to create a text that will help people, particularly education professionals, tounderstand what creativity is in a practical sense and through the principles elaborated in the book, adapt their own teachingpractices to promote students’ awareness and creative capability. This book makes a positive and useful contribution to whatI have called the ‘wicked problem’ of creativity in higher education.1

The book is in two parts: Chapters 2–8 are concerned with building a psychological framework for a more differentiatedmodel of creativity based on the well known 4 P Model of Creativity – Person, Process, Product and Press with two extra P’sadded by the authors – Problem and Phase. Chapters 9–11 are concerned with applying this knowledge to the question ofhow to foster innovation in organisations using the practical example of higher education.

The focus and philosophy for the book are set out in the first chapter. We are told that the focus of interest is not theproducers of sublime creativity or everyday folk who apply their creativity in their everyday relationships and actions, butthe ‘coal face creatives and thought leaders’ – the large group of people who are the backbone of organisations and educationwho make a contribution to generating effective novelty on a day-to-day basis.

Creativity is conceptualised as a system for generating and evaluating novel ideas while innovation is when novel ideasare implemented and result in effective novelty – new products and modifications that add value to existing systems. Theauthors argue that although creativity and innovation mean different things in different disciplinary contexts, the basicprinciple that they result in the introduction of effective novelty, applies to all fields. Agreeing what is creative is alwaystricky and two useful criteria suggested for recognising the products of creativity are elegance, summed up by ‘why didn’t Ithink of that’, expression, and generalisability, ideas/products that offer possibilities beyond the contexts for which they wereoriginally intended.

Chapters address: The issue of generating effective novelty and the ways in which novelty can come about by accident andby design; the creative process, extending the well known four phase model of creativity – involving preparation, generation,illumination and verification – to seven stages by the addition of activation, communication and validation; the personality

traits and dispositions associated with being creative, and the institutional/organisational influences on creativity. Practicaladvice for key stakeholders drawn from the content, is helpfully summarised in a table at the end of each chapter. There

1 Jackson, N. J. (2008). Available on-line at: http://imaginativecurriculumnetwork.pbworks.com/f/WICKED+PROBLEM+OF+CREATIVITY+IN+HIGHER+EDUCATION.pdf.