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A PUZZLE TO GET PEOPLE THINKING IN NEW WAYS
All of us, teachers
and students alike,
get into ‘ruts’. And like
horses with blinders,
we often tend to look
at things from a narrow
point of view. We
keep on trying to solve
problems in the same
old way.
New approaches to health care require new approaches to teaching and
learning. This means tearing off the conventional ‘blinders’ that limit our vision
and imagination. It means going beyond the walls of the standard classroom and
exploring afresh the world in which we live and learn.
A number of ‘tricks’ or puzzles can be used to help planners, instructors, or
students realize the importance of looking at things in new ways—of going beyond
the limits their own minds have set. Here is an example:
Draw 9 dots on a paper, on the blackboard, or in the
dust, like this:
Ask everyone to try to figure out a way to connect
all the dots with 4 straight lines joined together (drawn
without lifting the pencil from the paper).
You will find that mostpersons will try to draw lines
that do not go outside the imaginary square or ‘box’
formed by the dots.
Some may even conclude that it is impossible to join
all the dots with only 4 lines. You can give them a clue
by saying that, to solve the puzzle, they must go
beyond the limits they set for themselves.
At last, someone will probably figure out how to do
it. The lines must extend beyond the ‘box’ formed by
the dots. (Be careful not to shame the students or make
them feel stupid if they cannot solve the puzzle. Explain
that many doctors and professors also have trouble with
it.)
After the group has seen how to solve the puzzle, ask some questions that help
them consider its larger significance. You might begin with questions like these:
• In what way is a classroom like the box formed by the dots?
• How does the idea that ‘education belongs in a classroom’
affect the way we look at learning? At health? At each
other?
And end with questions like these:
• What can we do to help each other climb out of the mental ‘boxes’ or ‘ruts’ that
confine our thinking, so we can explore new ways with open minds? Is this
important to people’s health? How so?