S1.E2: Synectics Questions, A Fun Dinnertime Conversation

Building on to our topic from the last post, I have a few more ideas for you regarding questioning to implement with your child.

One of my favorite ways to help my students think is by using a process for developing creative, out of the box solutions.  I call them synectics questions.  These are great for anytime you want to make someone pause and think, whether in the car, or while having conversations around the dinner table. Even from a young age, probably around 5 or 6 years old (although a friend has told me she tried with her younger child), kids can start to engage with these sorts of questions, especially when it’s modeled for them.  

On a side note, they’re pretty fun and interesting for adults to think through too.  We start to think too logically at times, and using questions like these shake up our sometimes too rigid thinking process.

So what are synectics questions? Let's start by going to look a little bit deeper into the word itself. Synectics can be traced back to the Greek word synectikos meaning the joining or bringing together of different elements that initially seem totally unrelated.  The word became more widely known in the 1960s after a specialist named William Gordon wrote a book called Synectics: The Development of Creative Capacity in 1961.  He then co-founded a company with a man named George Prince and together they focused on using creativity to help companies develop original business solutions. There’s more we could dig into in that history, but our focus is on how to help our kids here… so let’s get back to the questions.

These are questions that really don't make that much sense if you think about them completely logically. This might seem counterintuitive, but sometimes we have to stretch ourselves, to learn to think in new and different ways. Oftentimes, kids are even better at this than adults. Be prepared: your own children might surprise you.

You start by taking two very unlike things and bring them together with an adjective. Then you compare them to see who “wins” in this comparison.  That might sound a little bit strange in theory, so let's look at an example together. Let’s take the two nouns, for example: pen and pencil and now add the adjective, such as wise. You then ask the question: which has more wisdom, a pen or pencil?  Of course in reality neither one has wisdom because neither one has a brain. However we suspend our understanding of reality to apply it into a context that stretches our thinking.  So with that said, which one is wiser?

You might contend that the pencil is wiser because it knows that it will surely fail at some point, but it is much more prepared because it always has an eraser with it. Pretty smart! On the other hand, you might say that a pen is wiser because it thinks through its thoughts before committing them to paper. There are many more arguments for this and as one of my students once told me when faced with this question, obviously a pen is wiser because who would stick their head into a pencil sharpener? Very logical actually, within the illogical scenario.

There you have it. This is the essence of using synectics questions... it's suspending conventional logic to be able to use logic in a new way. These questions also have an underlying layer built into them, like an onion. This has to do with reasoning with evidence. When I use these questions with my students, I tell them that any answer is okay, but they have to support it with their reasoning. I encourage you to do the same when posing these types of questions to your children. They can give you any sort of answer, but if they don't back up their position with reasonable evidence, then their answer is invalid.

Let's look at another example.  Let's take two seemingly unrelated objects, items that don't even have a similar purpose. Let's say a chair and a cloud. Which one is kinder?  Or perhaps take a pillow and a can of corn, which one is more intelligent? Yes, these seem like silly questions when you hear them, but when you start to provide an answer you realize that you're doing some serious thinking. You might be considering the properties of these different materials, or you might even be thinking about your relationship to these items and how they work.  You could be thinking about how intelligence or kindness is displayed. You really actually get your brain making connections in new ways.  This is why some businesses use synectics strategies to help their teams generate new ideas and solutions.  Besides all of this, what better way to have a conversation about kindness, wisdom or intelligence with your children than in a creative, fun context?

Don't forget as you try this, one of the higher levels of thinking is application. Remember you do not have to be the fountain of all knowledge in your home, ask your children if they can come up with their own synectics questions. How do you do that? It's somewhat simple, just put together two nouns and an adjective and see what kind of synectics questions you can come up with. Try the ones mentioned here in as starting points if you like, and go from there. If you develop some good ones at your home, feel free to post it in the comments section to share with everybody.

My apologies in advance if these questions generate some sort of heated discussion around the dinner table.  On the flip side, if it does, then you will have a chance to also talk about the procedures for an appropriate debate with your children.  Most of all, remember to have fun, enjoy your children, and delight in the time you have together. Continue to listen to what they say, and prepare to be surprised.

Stay tuned and keep enjoying raising thinkers at your home!