I like thinking
exercises that are effective and fun, and I found one back in 2001. Pam
Blundell, Executive Director of Adult Education with the Oklahoma State
Department of Education, told a group of us about forced analogies.
A forced analogy
is when you take any two nouns and find things they have in common—something
that’s true for both.
I’m one of those
off-the-scale Introverts. Typically, I have trouble coming up with a quick
answer. Let me go somewhere quiet and think about and I’ll probably have a
pretty good one later today or tomorrow.
All around me in
that huge pit auditorium I could hear people writing their answers. I was
getting nothing. Not wanting to appear dense to my colleagues, I started
scribbling on my legal pad. I wrote, “You can bring a horse to water, but a
pencil must be lead.” Not a bad line, but not what she was asking for, either.
After I heard some
of the others’ responses, it started to click. What do marriage and a yellow,
number 2 pencil have in common? How about the number 2? That works. And that
metal band that holds the eraser to the wood part…and, well, see what you can
come up with.
I’ve used the
forced analogies exercise with a wide variety of folks, everything from single
mothers in a GED class to college and university educators in conference
sessions.
Forced analogies
are an excellent brain exercise, a good way to warm up for any learning
endeavor. Beyond that, I like them because
· Students enjoy them. Even the most reluctant
ones become intrigued and end up thinking in spite of themselves.
·
They level the playing field. I let the students
choose the nouns, so I have no way of knowing what they’ll be, no way to
prepare ahead of time.
·
They force me to be a little more like my
Extrovert pals. (Just because we have a preferred learning style or an
introverted personality, that’s no excuse not to exercise our weaker muscles.)
·
They’re fun.
So far, we have
never been foiled. No matter what the two nouns, we’ve been able to find
something they have in common—and I mean something beyond the cheap answers
like “they’re both nouns” or “they both have letters in them.”
I have many
favorite stories about forced analogies. If you have time, let me tell you one.
This one took
place in Arkansas. I was facilitating a concurrent class at a local high
school. (Concurrent means they get high school and college credit for the same
class.)
These students
were tenacious with the forced analogies. They refused to give up. One day, the
two nouns they chose were Walmart and pebble.
I wrote the words
on the board, as usual, and we all stared at them for a good long while.
Tick…tick…tick… Damn. Nothing. I thought that for the first time ever we were
stumped.
Ninety-nine times
out of a hundred, it’s the students who come up with the best (sometimes only)
responses. The reason this is one of my favorite stories is that this was one
of those rare times when I saved it.
“I’ve got one.”
What?!
“Arkansas.”
They stared at me
like I’d just set fire to my moustache. (Is he crazy?) Arkansas?
“Think about it.”
They thought about
it.
“Where is the
Walmart world headquarters?”
Oh, okay.
(Bentonville, AR.) So, where does the pebble fit in?
“What’s the
Capitol of Arkansas?”
Ahhhh. Good one,
Mr. Tom!
(If you’d care to read more about forced analogies, click
upon this:
