Extrinsic rewards should be beneath me now, but sadly nope. I finished this book within one day because I was hooked on the special reading promotion organised by Yishun Branch Library. I want to redeem a Mr Kiasu Comic Book, and boy, is my motivation on fire. 🔥

Bernadette Jiwa has managed to distill the elusive art of innovation into an exact formula. She proposes that aspiring innovators need three qualities: creativity, empathy, and imagination. The part that appealed to me most was that she hails from Australia. I liked that she weaved in Australian examples, thus broadening my horizons while reading the book.

Another point that hit me in the gut was how she argued that conventional education isn’t an ideal breeding ground for the incubation of creativity because 1) the problems are more often than not defined for students, and 2) even if students are encouraged to find novel solutions to problems, they still need to find a way to reach Point B from Point A. As a public school teacher, I do admit that I am imprisoned by my fixation on getting students to arrive at the RIGHT answer - but that’s because I’m consumed by the desire to get the entire class to emerge unscathed from their PSLE experience. I’m optimistic that with this year’s worth of battle experiences under my belt, I would be able to do better for my children. Grins. 😀