On Dancing Bears and Goats -- Coffee, Regular or Decaf?

Before reading on, click on this link and complete the "Awareness Test." Perhaps you have already seen this "Awareness Test." If so, then you know what to look for. This is analogous to finding the arrow in the negative space of the FedEx logo. You cannot NOT see it once you know it's there. The problem I find having completed my Instructional Design and Development course and now involved in Creative Thinking is that there is a divide -- perhaps in my view a chasm -- between the objectivity of measurable learning objectives desired in IDD and the nebulous and seemingly unquantifiable nature of creative thinking. Simply said, how does one measure creativity, exactly? As I face completing my first lesson on creating a lesson incorporating and fostering creative and critical thinking, I run into the wall when trying to create measurable objectives for these. And, frankly, the idea seems almost antithetical. That is, the very idea of conforming to measurable objectives cries of closing the door to the act of creative thinking. In the "Awareness Test," one is so focused on counting the number of passes that one misses the dancing bear altogether. And can one really count the passes and appreciate the dancing bear at the same time? It seems they are two separate experiences. Which bring me to Black Holes, a concept of space I find fascinating. Physicists and astronomers know they exist, but you cannot "see" them. They are so powerful they consume all around them, so gravitational that even light cannot escape their grasp. Black Holes seem to me to be that aspect of learning relevant to creative and critical thinking in that it somewhat defies some precise, measurable and certainly observable objective. I am enjoying reading Making Thinking Visible, as it presents a number of "Thinking Routines" to provide strategies to foster and enhance critical and creative thinking. But again, evaluation tools? Even the notion of evaluation adds the component of extrinsic motivation -- one of the creative thinking "killers." Which brings me to dancing goats. I love coffee -- it helps me awake in the morning, and it is morning when I relish thinking most. In Starbucks I found some artwork and historical information on coffee. (See pictures.) It seems an Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi discovered coffee quite by accident when he noticed his goats, who had been eating the red berries, had sudden bursts of energy. When he tried eating the berries, he found the same burst we know to come from caffeine. How does this relate to creative thinking? Simple. He observed. He speculated. He tried. And he discovered. Ah, coffee! Which brings me to decaffeinated coffee. Again, another historical accident was the discovery of decaffeinated coffee, the result of coffee beans that had become soaked in sea water. It appears the beans lost their burst. Again, no one was looking for this. Rather, they simply noticed it, and learned from it. Edison quipped about his attempts to create the light bulb: "I have not failed. I've just found 10000 ways that won't work." I am delighted to find new "Thinking Routines" to provide my students with "tools" to effect better creative and critical thinking skills. I haven't read anything yet to help with these objectives. I think they may be in that Black Hole.