A few years ago, I had the opportunity to spend some time thinking. Its generally a useful thing to do, and somewhat underutilized as a tool to evaluate the directions of both our personal and professional lives. I did a lot of reading during my sabbatical leave in 1987, and I ran a cross a little book called:

    The Use of Lateral Thinking by Edward DeBono.

I'd like to share some of Professor DeBono's ideas, because I think they relate to where the public university fits into society.

DeBono was a Maltese educator, author, thinker. He has a Ph.D. from Cambridge University, and has had faculty appointments at Oxford, Harvard, and Cambridge. He has consulted for academic institutions, governments, and corporations worldwide on education theory and learning. He has written 25 books on cognitive research, which have been translated 20 languages.

DeBono is generally given credit for the concept of lateral thinking, that is a learning tool in which to generate fresh ideas. DeBono writes that most ideas are generated via vertical (logical) thinking, which quite often results in the answer, but sometimes is inadequate in the face of new and complex problems.

This little book talks about the difficulty of creating original ideas, and I think we have had an example of some original thinking here today. DeBono also writes about why we often have such a difficult time accepting new or different ideas. New ideas imply change is possible, and change is threatening. Yet new knowledge must flow from new ideas..

How often have I heard, "she thinks too much, or he's too philosophical for me." Well, I don't think that the role of the university is to provide simple answers. Extension should not be in the business of simple answers, or even complex answers. There is a big difference between giving answers and providing education. Education is hard work. But its hard head work. It requires thinking. And to be relevant in the 90's and beyond, it may require thinking about new ideas.

DeBono uses the image of digging holes to describe the quest for new ideas. He says, quite often you can't find the answers to new problems by using old ideas, or accepted understanding. Sometimes you have to dig the hole in new ground. He writes:

    "It is not possible to dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper."

Lets think about it for a minute. If we need new and creative solutions to complex problems, will we find them in our text books, or our libraries, or in the ideas that we have dug out of old holes.

Progress of thought is the building of one idea upon another, but if the original idea or hole is in the wrong place, then no amount continued effort, digging, is going to put it in the right place.

This is true, no matter if you are digging holes or seeking answers to problems through logical thinking. Digging deeper into the old hole, sometimes isn't enough. Sometimes you've got to get out of the old hole, and start a new one.

DeBono writes, "No matter how obvious this may seem to every digger, it is still easier to go on digging in the same hole than to start all over again in a new place."

Sometimes I wonder if our research and education programs are digging in the right place? Some surely are. But all of the holes that were dug in the right place in the past, may not be appropriate for the future, yet often we keep on digging. Giving up the old holes, is difficult. Even considering giving them up is difficult.

DeBono continues, "The disinclination to abandon a half-dug hole is partly a reluctance to abandon the investment of effort that has already gone into the hole. It is far easier to go on doing the same thing rather than wonder what else to do."

I've heard the lament from my colleagues, "but what else can I do, this is what I've been trained for, why should I change now." Well, some people do change. Others don't understand why they should change, the answer to that is that needs and opportunities change. But the one that bothers me the most, is those who don't think they can change. If extension really stands for lifelong learning, than who better than us to redirect our own careers through learning, through education? We should not only be receptive to learning about new ideas, we should lust after new ideas. Do we?

DeBono says that it is far easier to follow along the path of current understanding, present knowledge, old ideas. He writes "...no sooner are two thoughts strung together than there is a direction, and it becomes easier to string further thoughts along in the same direction, than to change your thinking."

DeBono paints the unglamourous picture of all of us digging away at new holes, new ideas, when he writes "by far the greatest amount of scientific effort is directed towards the logical enlargement of some accepted hole. Many are the minds scratching feebly away or gouging out great chunks according to their capacity. Yet great new ideas and great scientific advances have often come about through people ignoring the hole that is in progress and starting a new one."

DeBono explains that the process of education is designed to make people appreciate the holes that have been dug for them by their teachers, supervisors, elders. And enlarging the hole that has already been started, offers an opportunity for progress and the promise of "approved" achievement.

Our education and evaluation systems encourage us to jump down into the hole with our teachers (the experts) and dig along side of them. This is how we achieve recognition and advancement, join the experts.

DeBono offers the following observation about experts:

"An expert is an expert because he understands the present hole better than anyone else."

    and

"...Experts are usually to be found happily at the bottom of the deepest holes."

Why are we digging so furiously in the old hole of traditional agriculture. Even attempting to shore it up as it caves in around us. Well, in our system, diggers are rewarded, even if they are at the bottom of out-dated holes, ones that were appropriate last year, or last decade, but perhaps not this one or next.

But we've got to keep digging. We have got to stop to think. We've bought into the old ideas and are so deep in the old holes, that it is really difficult to see over the edge.

DeBono encourages us to dig more new holes in more original places. But to start such holes more of us would have to escape the powerful commitment there is to the dominant hole. This is not to say that there is certainly a better hole. We don't know that.

But DeBono says we never will see a better hole from the bottom of the one we are in. New ideas abound. Some are not well-dug, yet some of us have already decided that there is nothing worthwhile to be found in them. And they are being dug for the most part by diggers with less experience than we have, with tools that are less powerful than our shovels of our research. Yet some of us have chosen to ignore the new ideas. We have not yet escaped the powerful influence of the dominant hole.

John M. Gerber, 1989