Last month I launched a new twist on webinars called, Ten-on-Tuesday: A webinar’s worth of important information in ten minutes. Take a walk, relax at your desk, or carve our a corner in your local coffee shop. You can join the call from just about anywhere.

CLICK HERE to listen to the last Ten-on-Tuesday conversation, “What might evidence-based approaches be missing?“

Would you like to join our next call? CLICK HERE to receive updates on future Ten-on-Tuesday calls (You’ll also receive 3 free gifts).

Our next call will be next Tuesday, March 1st at 10:00 PST. The theme will be, “Take it personally: The key ingredient for transforming education.”

Each year our family spends an extended period of time in Tucson, Arizona. One of our favorite activities each Sunday is to go to the farmer’s market held at St. Philip’s Plaza. During our most recent visit I noticed in the folded hands of the statue of St. Philip a stack of quarters. My six-year-old was standing next to me at the time. She noticed the stack of quarters too. We both began to consider: Where did the quarters come from? Why are they in St. Philip’s hands, and not in the fountain? If this is an offering of some sort, why are there only quarters? There are a couple dollars worth of quarters here. Why hasn’t anyone taken them? While we never did resolve the riddle, we got to practice the art of divergent thinking, a valuable exercise for us both.

Most educational approaches with youth today are convergent. People who care about and work with teens tend to reiterate the maxims: Avoid drugs and alcohol and sex; set life goals; keep on living. But we will strengthen the effect of our message by utilizing divergent learning methods that encourage teens to consider multiple options before arriving at an answer. Too often we employ convergent methods that force youth toward predetermined answers.

Our message is like the stack of quarters in St. Philip’s hands. Others’ understanding and relationship to the message will be markedly stronger if we introduce divergent questions and encourage them to do the same. This will help them examine multiple possibilities. Those answers that best fit their experience will surface. These possibilities may be in direct contrast to their previous assumptions and perceptions. When teens adopt a new idea and shift their perceptions we say that they’ve learned something. In order for this to happen we have to be skilled at asking questions that encourage a divergent encounter with the material.

For example, if we want teens to avoid using alcohol, we should explore why they would want to use alcohol and other related issues. When we ask convergent questions we not only forfeit the opportunity to equip students with learning skills, we suppress the reality that other possible answers exist. The good news is that the vast majority of us know, or knew at one point in our lives, how to ask divergent questions.

In their book Break Point and Beyond George Land and Beth Jarman mention a longitudinal study that surveyed sixteen hundred three-to-five-year-old children in the early days of the national Head Start program. Researchers used eight tests to gauge the levels of divergent thinking. Ninety-eight percent of the children surveyed scored genius level. Five years later they tested the same children and found the proportion of students considered genius dropped to thirty-two percent. When tested after another five years, when the sample was in their teen years, the proportion dropped to ten percent. It’s notable that a mere two percent of two hundred thousand adults who have taken the test score genius level. Should we wonder, given that ninety-eight percent of us adults are not gifted at divergent thinking, that we struggle to encourage it in teens?

In Teaching as a Subversive Activity Postman and Weingartner pose what they call a “What’s-Worth-Knowing Questions Curriculum.” It’s composed of two parts that I will outline here:

• The art and science of asking questions.
• The focus on asking questions that deal with problems perceived as useful and realistic by the learners—as opposed to useful and realistic by the teachers.

Here are some questions they pose as a standard for asking good questions:

1. Will your questions increase the learner’s will as well as his capacity to learn?
2. Will they help to give her a sense of joy in learning?
3. Will they help to provide the learner with confidence in his ability to learn?
4. In order to get answers, will the learner be required to make inquiries? (Ask further questions, clarify terms, make observations, classify data, etc.?)
5. Does each question allow for alternative answers (implying alternative modes of inquiry)?
6. Will the process of answering the questions tend to stress the uniqueness of the learner?
7. Would the questions produce different answers if asked at different stages of the learner’s development?
8. Will the answers help the learner sense and understand the universals in the human condition and so enhance her ability to draw closer to other people?

We should ask good questions to help teens consider multiple options and ideas. Only after we’ve pursued divergent questions should we transition to a convergence phase in which youth can begin to narrow the options to those that best answer the questions.

Divergence is instrumental to learning. But too often we seek to get rid of divergence at its first stirring–shunning it as a body might reject a transplanted organ.

Throughout history divergent souls have been met with scorn and rejection. Igor Stravinsky was one such Divergent. When he debuted The Rite of Spring a riot ensued. People attending the premiere expected to hear music that was familiar and comfortable. Stravinsky delivered something of another sort. The audience took offense and began to boo, scream, yell, fight with one another. Police arrived and were unable to subdue the crowd. Stravinsky was rumored to have escaped through a bathroom window.

The source of the conflict was not Stravinsky. The riot was fueled by the audience members’ internal expectations and assumptions. Interestingly, critics and audience members lauded subsequent performances. There were no additional riots. Why? Because the audience changed. “The Song Remains the Same.” Once the audience members adjusted their expectations they could appreciate and enjoy what Stravinsky was doing. It all made sense. It was so profound.

We have classrooms full of Divergents. They, like Stravinsky, want to explore and understand and articulate their perceptions. Stravinsky was inspired by West African rhythms, which he incorporated into The Rite of Spring. Imagine if Stravinsky had cowered in fear at the outrage shown toward his masterpiece. Imagine if he had never written The Rite of Spring for fear it wasn’t the answer the world wanted. I can’t imagine life without my favorite Divergents:

Jesus of Nazareth

Soren Kierkegaard

Bob Dylan

Vincent Van Gogh

Pablo Picasso

Thomas Edison

Alexander Fleming

Mother Theresa

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Galileo Galilei

Aristotle

Make your own list and ask if your life wouldn’t rap hollow if these people had buckled or been made to acquiesce if they didn’t stop diverging. Their divergence made them brilliant. It made their life worth living. How dare we strip students of this gift?

You are very likely going to be in a classroom or other learning arena in which a youth will ask a question or make a comment that is off topic. He may challenge what you say or introduce a comment that seems oblique. Here’s your opportunity to give a gift that could change this teen’s life. Stop! Ask the student to say more. Do you remember the Donahue Show? Do a Donahue. Bow your white-haired head, stretch the mic out, and just listen. That’s it. Something is happening within that student. Water has finally reached that little seed with a message, “Hey little buddy. It’s time to wake up.” Life is in the works and you get to be a part of letting it happen. So resist the urge to kill the seed with a piece of plywood. Give it warmth and more water, and let it grow.

Teens are watching what we’re doing and saying. They have a deep sense that, “I know you’re saying this is how things are, but in order to understand what you mean I must explore certain questions whose end may or may not be yours.”

To effectively teach and mentor teens we need to permit, even encourage divergence–a central element to becoming fully human.