I thought I’d start this blog by talking about where many of the difficulties begin—by looking at the education system. My PG Cert thesis, written six years ago, was on dyslexia and creativity. It explored how dyslexic individuals are more likely to be creative, whether in the arts or sciences.

Many dyslexia specialists use the term lateral thinking to describe the thought processes of people with different cognitive styles—ADDers, dyspraxics, Aspies, etc.—who fall within the neurodiversity spectrum. Essentially, individuals with executive functioning difficulties tend to move away from convergent, sequential thought processes and lean more towards divergent, tangential, or holistic thinking.

The term lateral thinking was coined by Edward de Bono, and I believe it’s mentioned in this video (although I haven’t watched it in a while). De Bono devised lateral thinking as a technique to promote creativity in convergent or linear thinkers—a way to help conventional thinkers step outside the box or shift away from linear patterns into new directions.

Divergent thinking, on the other hand, just happens—like a eureka moment. It’s non-sequential and unpredictable.

The Lateral Thinking process probably works well for sheep who go the same way and can be herded. The education system and society expects everyone to be a sheep, to fit in to the pen or box… but some of us are goats that jump around and is difficult to herd (using Will Self’s analogy for Why prison’s fail), which is why schools fail and why essentially why society fails to be able to deal with people thinking differently. Why just eat grass… when you can eat loads of other stuff. Its funny how the education system and society has to put people into boxes, whether you black, white, brown, dyslexic, ADHD etc…. Then there are those that say… To progress there is the need to think out of the box then why is it then those who think out of the box are the one who are always the first to be excluded in education and society, by failing the education system, being institutionalized and undermined.