Brainstormer

On a dozen campuses across the U.S. last week, groups of Air Force officers were gathered to thrash out plans for next year's R.O.T.C. program, and sooner or later most of the groups came to a strange new subject: the ideas and methods of a man named Alex F. Osborn. By profession, Osborn is neither an airman, educator, nor psychologist. Nevertheless, he seems destined to have a hand in the training of the nation's air reserve. For the past two years he has been waging a one-man crusade to get U.S. education to teach creative imagination. Last week--with the blessings of the Air University in Montgomery, Ala.--A.F.R.O.T.C. instructors from Stanford to the University of North Carolina were discussing ways to incorporate some of Osborn's ideas into their courses on problem solving.

Of all educational crusades, Osborn's has been one of the most curious. A soft-spoken teacher-turned-adman (Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn), he has become convinced that education pays too little attention to imagination, and he has taken it upon himself to do something about it. Last year he wrote a textbook called Applied Imagination (Scribner; $3.75). drew up a special teacher's manual to go with it. Since then he has been writing to hundreds of educators and industrialists, has spoken often at workshops and banquets. Though some campuses have dismissed his course as a bit on the brash side, he has managed to chalk up an impressive record. His ideas have been taken over in whole or in part everywhere from the University of Buffalo and Drake University to Boston University and

M.I.T., from General Electric and the B.F. Goodrich Co. to the A.F.R.O.T.C.

As Universal as Memory. Osborn's main idea is a simple one. "There is," says he, "overwhelming proof that imagination is as universal as memory.'' The only trouble is that most people never get a chance to find out how creative they can be. The whole purpose of Osborn's course is not to turn out Einsteins, but to provide ordinary people with a number of hints and devices for giving their imaginations full play.

In tackling a problem, says Osborn, a student must first learn to suspend the "judicial" part of his mind, for nothing is more inhibiting to the free play of ideas than to stop after each one and say: "No, that's no good." Once a person has accumulated a "pile of alternatives," he can then make a decision. Meanwhile, he must indulge in a process called "brainstorming"--letting ideas pour out, no matter how preposterous.

Rearrangement & Reversal. In his text, Osborn tries to make students aware of a whole range of ways to confront a problem creatively (e.g., the possibilities of rearrangement, reversing the order, picking out similarities and contrasts, thinking up other uses and improvements). But mostly, he just wants students to "storm." A teacher might hold up a pencil and demand: "How many different uses can this be put to?" (Possible answers: to prop open a window, serve as the mast of a toy sailboat.) Or he might ask for different titles for Hamlet (e.g., Good Night, Sweet Prince; The Gloomy Dane; The Play's the Thing). Students must coin words (e.g., for butts and ashes left in an ashtray: buttage, gar-butts, cigamess), think up new inventions (e.g., an automatic bedmaker, a suitcase with rollers on the bottom), write 100-word short stories, answer such questions as: "A man living on the 22nd floor could take his automatic elevator all the way down but not all the way up. Why?"*

Far-fetched as some of these exercises might sound Osborn has found that they give students a chance they might otherwise never get to limber up their imaginations. With that in mind, he intends to spend the rest of his life on his crusade. He has started a Creative Education Foundation in Buffalo, hopes eventually to storm the ramparts of the U.S. teachers' colleges. For far too long, says he, educators have blithely assumed that creativity cannot be taught. "What I want to do is to create a new attitude of mind."

* One answer: the man was a midget, could reach button No. 1, but not up to button No. 22.

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