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A Pilot Reader A Junior Book of Social Inventing   For Creative Non-fiction Writing in schools   A Reading and Writing Book for creative thinking, constructive writing and empowering action from the Australian Centre for Social Inovations (ACSION) for classrooms, individuals and groups   Imagination is the ability to consider what may be possible, in the real world, not only in fantasy   These pages may be printed out for school use. Creative Commons copyright © Valerie Yule 2008

CONTENTS Still to be completed Take up any topic you like, suited to age-level and interest level Introduction 1. Play the Wishing Game 2 Inventions that are needed 3. The Great Big Schoolbag Competition 4. Invent Alternatives to Pleasures and Problems 5.Fashioninnovations 6. Gimmicks and Gadjets 7. Inventions that are needed 8. Jobs that are needed 9. Literacy Innovations 10. Inventing Myself 11. Test modern Myths 12. Imagine peace 13. People they laughed at 14. Preventing Waste of People 15 Better pleasures. 16. Socratic Quiz. Children ask teachers questions 17. Examples of social inventions - Ideas to start you off 18. SkillOlympics 19. Your Ideas for Television programs 20. ECOlympics as a TV reality show 21. School inventions 22. Inventing words 23. More ideas . . . Sports inventing . . . Change the government. Why not? An Ozroypublic What do I need to know anyway?

Introduction: Social Inventing as Non-Fiction for English studies A "Social Inventions Reader" that can be used as non-fiction in English classes and Future Studies and as a Thinking cure for insomnia and as an Action cure for depressing boredom for Anyone at all The basic idea of Social Inventing is that any one can do it. The more you practise thinking up ideas, the better you get at it. Improve quality of life. Help solve social problems, small or big. Innovation, Creativity and Enterprise are subject topics in Australian Studies and are likely to be examinable. However, Social Inventing needs to be a strong non-fiction part of English studies too, because here you can have Creative Thinking, Constructive Writing, Free-Range Observation and Voracious Writing - all directly relating English studies to the worlds around us and within us, now and in the future. This Little Book can start off all of these, inspiring lateral thinking and linear presentations and even inspiring more hope that in the rather awful world around them, young people can still help to make it livable, because it leads to ways for them to do so. You can write about your own ideas, or discuss and write about ideas in this book - including how they might work and how you could improve on them. School anthologies can now include Anthologies of Ideas and Projects, published to the wider world. • Without constructive thinking, critical thinking is negative. • The greatest energy crisis today is the crisis of human energy - Critical Mass in Physics - and in human affairs, Critical Mess. • For every good idea, there are 999 ideas that fail, and these are the compost for that one good idea to succeed. AS A SCHOOL TEXTBOOK: primarily for junior secondary schools, but also readable in upper primary and indeed by any teenagers and adults. Reasons: • Many students do not like the fiction that is set in schools, and prefer non-fiction • This would be good stuff for young people to read and get interested and enjoy discussing and getting stimulated to have ideas and projects of their own. • A format of the A5 books is just right, and the content is so varied in length and complexity that in any mixed ability class the poor readers could find what they could read and the brightest students could find what made them really think hard. • There is not anything else in the non-fiction line like it - and really stimulates the imagination - which is the ability to consider what may be possible, in the real world, not only in fantasy. • It is cheap, and expandable. Every class can produce its own, with special gold stars or other sign of brilliance for every idea that is put into action.

SMALL IDEAS can solve large problems  Innovate to make where you live more livable 6.  Invent Gimmicks and Gadgets  A lot of time and fuss and money is wasted in houses, when we could innovate to make it all more pleasant and easier to live in.  Why, even filling a kettle with no more water than you expect to use would save litres and kilowatts in a week. Check the family bills.  Here are some starters for thinking about Innovations at Home:  Bathwater diverter Bush-fire resistant housing. Computer Index for favorite recipes, so you can cook according to what ingredients you have Conservation hints Date-labels for items in your refrigerator Dependable-Mendable furnishings Flood-resisting designs for houses & shops Garden murals Garden recycling Gimiks and Gajets House-selling computerised, and libraries as estage agents. Insinkerators that produce compost for your garden rather than pollution for the seas and ocans. Kitchen and pantry designs with pallets or modules for Plastic Bags conservation Renovatable chairs Science in the home Soapshakers Standardised sizes for staple food jars Sustainable-Society architecture Teenage-bedroom cleaner-upper Time-motion study of how people do things. Make up a school book to sell on Alternative Homekeeping Back to top of page

8. Jobs that are needed IF all the jobs that need to be done were being done, there would be no unemployment. The only question is, how to pay for them. Here is an almost-ABC of jobs that are needed. Innovations can mean more jobs that are satisfying and worth doing. • Australian distinctive, innovative cultural products • Child care , leisurely, for less herding and more freedom • Conserve marine and forest resources • Education that is lifelong to produce resilient adults • Fashions - beautiful, useful, durable and comfortable • Households that are Sustainable and save waste. are more essential for our economy than markets that produce waste. Sustainable households need more manpower (generic). • Housing and community environments that are decent for everyone. Our spate of development can build wastefully designed houses that pile up future problems. • Landcare - you cant just plant trees and leave them. • Pest and weed eradication that need manpower more than chemicals. • Products that are more innovative & less wasteful - renovatable, updatable, durable, beautiful and recyclable • Sewage systems restructured and rebuilt to stop current appalling waste of our most renewable fertiliser, to reuse heavy metals and re-use grey water at source • Shops and repairers for Conservation Products. • Sick, handicapped and elderly to receive decent care • Transport infrastructure vastly improved • Uses and salvage for everything thrown daily out of shops and homes • Water-supply reparation and conservation • Work share to reduce the load on the increasingly overworked work force • Better services to the public everywhere. Increase (not cut) research in many areas • Preserve Australian unique flora and fauna • Fertilise the land without pollution • Food sources easily grown that do not deplete soils • Manufacturing techniques that conserve resources • Uses for pests and weeds, since they abound • Plants to withstand climate changes • Technology for renewable non-polluting energy sources   Look around. We even need more street-signs. Back to top of page Back to top of page

9. Literacy Innovations Make your own half-hour cartoon literacy video Many schools now have the technology to make a half-hour cartoon literacy video, or parts of one, with graphics and animated text to link speech and print. The international success of a quality UK cartoon video for small children shows that video could help many reluctant learners to understand 'how to read' or 'find out where they got stuck', especially those unwilling or unable to go through clerical activities at a computer. All the school can join in the project, in one way or another. • Very good readers advise on what helped them learn to read • Learners with difficulties to advise on how they are stuck and try out solutions. • All students helping to make the video will have a real stimulus in thinking about reading and spelling. 'What do you think people need to know to be able to read?' • Students with skills in computers, graphics, technology, writing, music, composing, organising, researching, narrating, singing, join in every stage and develop their skills further. • Everyone with bright ideas at all levels in the school advises and comments and evaluates at all stages. TARGETS. Any audience can be selected - young or old, strugglers, teenagers and adults, English language learners, ethnic groups such as aboriginal, using their own culture, or a comic version mainly for laughs - for example, with a sound-track speeded like Donald Duck. OUTCOMES. • A higher school profile for reading and community effort. • Improved literacy throughout a school. • A diagnostic tool to find where failing learners are stuck. • Win a prize at a film festival, for a work of art. • Evaluations by trialing different versions from different schools can identify what proves most helpful to the target audiences, and these successes can be turned into widely-available versions. Videos and follow-up CDs may be suitable for wide distribution and export as an Australian Innovation. COSTS Where a school has computers, and access to a CD-drive, a color printer, scanner, black-and-white fotocopier, a simple word-processing program and grafics programs even as simple as Photoshop LE and Claris Draw that 8-year-olds can use, and a tape-recorder, then introductory production would involve no further costs except stationery and phone/postage, up to stage B. Sponsors might be found. An early amateur pilot version, and newer storyboard are available at cost ($15+) plus consultant help. 2 Spelling - how would you like it? The English language keeps changing. How do you think English spelling needs to change to be user-frendly? . English spelling is only a tool to write the English language. It is not the language itself. Here is a story to try out your ideas of improving spelling: Once upon a time the beautiful daughter of a great magician wanted more pearls to put among her treasures. "Look through the centre of the moon when it is blue," said her mother, "and you may find your heart's desire." The princess laughed, because she doubted these words. Instead, she used her imagination, and moved into the photography business, and took pictures of the lunar sphere in colour. "I perceive most certainly that it is almost wholly white," she thought. She also found that she could make enough money in eight months to buy herself two huge new jewels too.   But wait, you need to have some rules, or you may just make the present irregularities worse. So, invent the rules you think would improve English spelling.  HERE is an example of how you might do this. SPELING NO TRAPS  Speling No Traps would be a godsend if we can stil read what we hav. It would save us milions of dolars - even bilions! Here is an Australian invention that has been reserchd for forty years, sinse I found out how meny pepl ar kept back from literasy because of English speling. And that 95% of pepl cannot spel wel.  SPELING NO TRAPS FOR READING FOR MEANING keeps 31 wurds we use all the time, seven alternativ speling paterns, paterns for final vowels, and -s endings and -d endings for verbs or plurals. (Now was that hard tu read?)   TO MAKE IT SPELING NO TRAPS FOR READING ALOUD, ads acsent marks for vowels A E I O U and how tu sho stress in wurds. So the sentense would go: - Speling No Traps for reading aloud keeps 31 wurds we ùse all the time, seven alturnativ speling paterns, paterns for fìnal vowels, and -s ending for verbs or plùrals. (Now was that èzier for lerners tu read aloud and lern how to say the wurds?)   TO MAKE IT SPELING NO TRAPS FOR SPELING IN RÍTING, u nèd not bother with lerning eny alturnativ speling paterns exept the 31 wurds we ùse all the tìm and for -s and vowels ending wurds. So the sentense could go: - Speling No Traps for riting kèps 31 wurds we ùs all the time, paterns for fìnal vowels, and -s and -d endings for vurbs or plùrals. (Now would that be èsier to spel than what we hav now?)   Milions of pepl can not read or rite becaus of English speling. Milions mor can not read or rite wel. Most pepl hav trubl with speling. Almost every other major languaj has had big or litl reforms of its riting sistem in the past 150 years - even French, but also - (These could be on a map of the wurld or a big chart) Afrikaans 1925 Albanian 1909 Arabic Belgium 1946 Brazilian Portuguese 1912, 1943 Chinese 1956, 1958,1973 Czech early 1950s, Danish, 1948, 1997/1 Dutch Netherlands 1815, 1883, 1934, 1946, 1954 Filipino Finnish 16-18th century French 1740, 1835, 1878 German, 1901, 1996 Greek Greenlandic 1973 Hebrew 1860, 1900, 1930s, 1948   Indonesia 1872 Irish Italian 1612 and later Japanese 1946 Korean 1443, 1945 Malaysia 1972 Niuguini Wantok pijin Norwegian 1885 Portuguese 1915 Romanian Russian 1928 and later Serbo-Croatian, Spanish 1915, 1959 Swedish, 1907 Taiwanese Mandarin Turkey 1928 Vietnamese So it is not imposibl that English can be impruved too! Pepl like speling with SMS TXT mesajes! Meny wurds alredy hav alturnativ spelings, like jail and goal, so enyone could use Speling-No-Trap spelings eny time thay liked, now. Speling-No-Traps could be used as a pronunsiation kee in dictionarys. In books for lerners of English languaj and for beginers. On the Internet. Pepl could hav reserch grants to test it out! We could hav an International English speling comission, so that English could be mor useful as the lingua franca of the wurld.  The big problems with English speling ar surplus leters and sily leters. Seven prinsipls insted of having to lern thousands of difrent spelings could chanje all that, and yet it would stil look prity much like we hav now!  Meny resons ar put up for not chanjing the speling. As u can see, this Australian invention makes all the resons look sily. Our cultur is not lost!  (vy's speling test that pruves that 95% of pepl can not spel wel. Some or all of these wurds ar misspeld. Rite them out corectly. acomodate . . . . . . . . . exessiv . . . . . . miniture . . . . . . . . . . professr  . . . . . . remembrd . . . . . . . . . unparaleld . . . . disapoint . . . . . . . . . .gardian . . . . . . . mischivus . . . . . . . . . psycology . . . . . sovren . . . . . . . . . . . disiplin . . . . . . . . iliterat . . . . . . . . . . recomend . . . . . . . ocasion . . . . . . . . tecnicly . . . . .   The 31 words we use all the time are ALL ALMOST ALWAYS AMONG COM SOM COULD SHOULD WOULD HALF KNO OF OFF ONE ONLY ONCE OTHER PULL PUSH PUT AS WAS WHAT WANT WHO WHY, and the ending - ION Back to top of page   Back to top of page

10. Inventing Myself HOW many choices do I give myself to be what I am? A problem. Many people define themselves as 'Oh, I could not do that.' 'Oh, I dont like that'. 'Oh, I couldnt'. "I'm not that sort of person that can do things' . They have a sort of reflex that says 'No' to good things, and can get conned into other things Some people are a barrier to progress through damning new ideas as a sort of reflex. Others can be too credulous and gullible about novelty. Towards solving this: -  • 1.Be self-aware about being able to consider new ideas when you meet them. Test your Ideability. Rule a sheet of paper with 6 columns for 'Good Idea' 'Has possibilities' 'yes, but -' 'Not sure/don't know this area' 'Doubtful' and 'Ratbag'. Read or skim through 20+ consecutive ideas in a list of Social Inventions, and enter each item in one of the categories as you read it. At the end, sum up the columns and work out the percentages of your attitudes. You may be right in describing them all as Ratbag, but if you think there is not one Good Idea in the lot, it might be a good idea to look through more carefully and check why you are so critical of every one.   • 2. Write stories with central characters who do what you would like to achieve and to be like.   • 3. Classroom roles. The class makes a list of roles that people can play - and for a month, one person in the class can play each role, and people look up to them as playing that role. Next month, switch roles around - but you might like to keep your old role as a hobby too. You dont have to be better than average to play a particular role, and there are plenty of roles for those who often get overlooked as being a bit dumb. For example, the Class Announcer, Class Brain, Class Calligrapher, Class Carer, Class Clown, Class Collectors (of whatever people may nominate for their hobby), Class Decorator, Class Good Sport, Class Inventor, Class Leader, Class Mechanic, Class Mender, Class Monitor, Class Pet (if the Class think it's a good idea), Class Philanthropist and Fund-raiser, Class Poet, Class Public Speaker, Class Quiz-Kid, Class Receptionist to visitors and new students, Class Singer, Class Sports Captain, Class Storyteller, Class Teachers' Pet (again if the class thinks its a good idea for someone to get special attention for a month). Class Thinker, Class Wit. And more - Back to top of page

11. Check up on modern myths L OOK AROUND, and see how much of what people believe today is just Myth. Some modern myths are destructive. They make us helpless. They fuel violence and distress. What myths today help? And what dont? Let's have truer myths. Check up on the myths that are around - are they over-simplified, just wrong, helpful, based on all the evidence? Are the statements made here about them too sweeping? Myth of Change for the sake of change, regardless of the waste - eg. throwing out socks because you have got bored with them. Myth of Competition - without Co-operation. Myth of Determinism Even if we 'cant help' what we do, we must try to act as if we have free-will and choice, or we pre-determine ourselves to helplessness, misery, failure and loss of self-control. Myth of Evil - the myths that to know good you have to know evil; and that life would be boring without evil/suffering. This is based on the delusion that 'good' is neutral and dull. It is not. It is at the other pole from 'evil', and more pleasurable. It is by knowing good that evil is recognised as what it is, not the other way round. Myth of Exams. "If it's not examinable, it should not be on the curriculum." Rather, if it's worth knowing, it should be there. Exams should help students find out what they still need to know, rather than punish or reward them for what they knew already. Myth of Excitement - that everything has to be exciting. Constant excitement is a form of subclinical chronic stress, and makes it hard to enjoy quiet pleasures, as sensitivities are blunted. Myth of a bleak Future as inevitable, so we need do nothing. That social progress is mythical; that no improvement is possible. That there will be star wars even in space. That injustice is inevitable. Or denying there are problems ahead, so that we need do nothing. Myth of Humourr - that humour is fundamentally malicious, and always about sex or violence, especially bullying. Wit, absurdities, cheery fun and 'battler' humour in hard spots help spice life and make it bearable in hard times. Myth of Imagination as only useful for fantasy, not everyday life. Myth about Information as the main future source of activity, with labor not needed. This assumes that we have solved world problems of air, water, food, shelter, transport, clothing, and health. Myths of ISAGIATT (It Seemed A Good Idea At The Time). Exposing and condemning what well-meaning people did in the past can be a displacement activity , distracting attention from evils being perpetrated at present, and what well-meaning people may be mistakenly ISAGIATTing now. Myths of the Jungle - society will always be callous and you must get in first with attack, and start wars. Recent proverbs, such as 'never give a sucker an even break', and 'Smash him before he smashes you.' are very different from the proverbs in happy societies. Myths about Knowledge, thinking, reasoning, rationality, blaming these as the causes of human problems, rather than their absence, and their application to ignoble emotional desires. Myths anti-Learning , that it is more pleasurable not to want to know, and to numb the brain, and to dynamite thinking processes. 'Mind-blowing' used as a 'good' word. Let's grow brains. Myth of aggression and male violence Myths that "Wars are inevitable because Man is aggressive." "All men are rapists." Such myths only encourage this. But they are not based on statistical observations of all men, not even of violent men all the time. Myth of Mandarins that anything useful is to be avoided. In old China, mandarins grew fingernails up to a foot long, as proof that they never used their hands. The Mandarin myth in our country is often seen in schools, in status, and some 'labor-saving' products. Myth that Moralising is wrong. Now there's a bit of moralising for you. Everything carries a message, intentional or not. Myth of Novelty as essential for interest, so change comes faster and faster whether needed or not, and people aren't recyclable. Myth of Outlets, that our psyches are like plumbing and drainage systems with no taps, so have to have outlets. Human emotions are more complex, and there are many alternative expressions for them. 'Appetite grows by what it feeds on' can result of thinking violent entertainment as 'outlets'. 'Return of the repressed' like avenging ghosts if it is not consciously brought back, is solved by recognition and diverting or dealing with desires, not by denying on the one hand or encouraging on the other. Myth of self-esteem - that people can be given self-esteem by reassurances - rather than receiving love from the moment of birth, so that self-esteem is built in. Self-confidence is built up by being liked by others, especially in school yards, and from knowing that what you do is worth doing. Myth of Sentimentality -that sweetness is cloying. Sentimentality is artificial emotion, whether sweet or callous. The Victorians liked their sentimentality sweet and morbid. Today sentimentality is more likely to be morbid and brutal. Any more myths? What about some good ones? Make up some myths. Back to top of page

12. Imagine Peace FOR REAL PEACE, it must first be imagined. Let us now imagine lively never-satiating peace, and the enjoyment of happy living - never mind screen horrors. For years the news and entertainment has given us such images of destruction, anger, violence, horror, cruelty and conflict, that some people think peace would be boring. How can creative writers imagine a peaceful and happy life? Start imagining Peace.  • CHANGE IN IMAGINATION. Imagination is from both heart and mind, and all conscious action starts first in the mind. The terrorist bombings of New York and Washington were not unimaginable. The film industry, computer games, music culture and science fiction have been imagining and enjoying such horrors and blockbusters for years. Let us imagine peace-builder entertainment instead, to spreading a culture round the world about justice, mercy, kindness and good humour, and which struggles to solve problems. This requires first class artists, actors and producers, not second-rate. Second-rate actors and artists can act and produce violent and horrible stuff - they cannot show what is Good without seeming artificial and sentimental.  • IMAGINATION IS the ability to see more than what is in front of our eyes. It can connect the present with past and future. What are the 'lessons of history' really? The more you know about the past, and its many wheels of changes, the more you have a chance to invent a future that is different still, without its mistakes, and keeping what is needed to build with. • Artists give us our visions of the future, don't they? Imagine your vision - and how it could be reached. Back to top of page

13. People they laughed at GOOD IDEAS are often different from what people expect, and they are pften laughed at at first, Great people are often laughed at at first. Look up examples to write about, and think how we could prevent all this People being Laughed At 1.100 innovations, ideas and discoveries that were ridiculed when they were already at the practical stage. Who made them, and what courage brought them to become accepted and welcomed? Make a class list. For example: - Air conditioning, Anesthesia, Antiseptics, Anti-venenes against snake poisoning, Arabic numerals, the nature of the solar system, cars, heavier-than-air flight, ball bearings, circulation of the blood, reformed calendar, cremation, crop rotation, daylight saving, ecology, food-freezing, kindergartens, trained nurses, the telegraph, the Plimsoll line, paddle-boats, screw-driven ships, solar energy, wind-power, steamships, umbrellas, Salvation Army, women's suffrage, zippers. 2. Investigate some people from the 1988 Bi-Centenary Book of 200 Australians who made Australia Great Here is a list of people in this book who had bad setbacks through ridicule for their ideas. If you have their name or surname you can feel proud. Three early leaders ,William Barak, Governor Bourke Two explorers, John McDougall Stuart, Charles Sturt Three inventors, Thomas Fisk, James Harrison, Hugh Mckay An air pioneer, Lawrence Hargrave Two nation builders, William Light, C.Y. O'Connor Seven medical pioneers ,Joseph Bancroft, John Cade, Kate Campbell, Elizabeth Kenny, Jean Macnamara, Lucy Osburn, Harry Wunderly Five scientists, Joseph Banks, W. B. Clarke, Ferdinand von Mueller, Griffith Taylor, Macfarlane Burnet Three believers, John Dunmore Lang ,Daniel Mannix, Mary McKillop Three academics , John Anderson, Peter Board, W E H Stanner Dancer, Edouard Borovansky; Artist ,William Dobell Eight social reformers, Daisy Bates, Caroline Chisholm, Pearl Gibbs, Vida Goldstein, John Gribble, Louisa Lawson, Rose Scott, Mark Wilson Four newspaper men, J. F. Archibald, Keith Murdoch, David Syme, John West Two writers, Mary Gilmore, Henry Lawson Six politicians, Ben Chifley, Andrew Inglis Clark, Billy Hughes, Hubert Murray, James Service, W C Wentworth Four organizers and unionists, Frank Dixon, William Ferguson, John Flynn, William Spence Three judges, Henry Higgins, George Higinbotham, Isaac Isaacs One captain of industry, Thomas Mort Of the 200 'great names', nearly 30% were noted in the Bi-Centenary book as having to battle severe resistance to their best ideas. Many of the others also faced resistance, which you can find from more detailed biographies. As for the thousands of others who have helped to make Australia great, you can find out about many hundreds who have had to battle unnecessarily against people's automatic rejection of good ideas - e.g. King O'Malley, Hugh McColl. If you know about sports stars, know about these other Australian greats too.   3. How many people develop one invention. For 'constructive writing' - a page that gives an account of the many stages of development and the many contributors to an invention such as photography. Or you can write it up creatively as a story.   4. Not all new ideas have been good ideas. Any inventor is likely to have 99 ideas that dont work for every one that is brilliant - but oh, how brilliant that one is. Between 1901-1905 over 140,000 British Patents were granted - pick ones that have worked: -   Hornby Meccano, a clip-holder to get boiled eggs out of the hot water, sunscreens for horses, arm-rest for violin players, moustache guards, clothes for babies and children designed to be easier to put on and remove, a portable foot and body warmer, advertisements on toilet rolls that change as paper is removed, improved shelter for watchmen, improved train for ladies' skirts with a brush on the bottom, a trap for burglars attempting to open safes, staircases in schools so boys and girls will not pass each other, hat ventilator for top hats, Gillette's razor, ways to fix ladies' hats on their heads, ways to stop your hat being stolen, a way to use the breath to heat the outer body, device to hold down ladies' skirts when taking exercise, the Wright brothers' improved aeronautical machine, an improved motor car that can go up stairways, improved apparatus for throwing animals into the air for exhibition purposes, and 46 Perpetual motion machines that were patented between 1901-1905. Some References The people who made Australia Great . Collins. 1988 The Australian Dictionary of National Biography The Dictionary of National Biography The Book of Heroic Failures Edwardian Inventions - an extraordinary extravaganza of eccentric ingenuity . R Dale & J Gray W H Allen, London 1979. The Encyclopedia of Ideas Unsung Heroes and Heroines of Australia. ed Suzy Baldwin. Greenhouse 1988 Back to top of page Back to top of page

 

14. Waste of people The waste of human potential THE BIGGEST ENERGY CRISIS is a crisis of Human Energy. Look at how People are Wasted and see how that Waste could be prevented.   • Famine, disease and war and the struggle for survival prevent chances to develop any powers of the mind. Malnutrition stunts children's development and saps adults' mental energy. • All through history the greatest waste of resources of intelligence has been through caste systems which enforced servility on the working poor and women. This last at least is being changed, even if not fully changed yet. • But even in Australia people are being unnecessarily wasted in so many ways - from car accidents injuries, neglect as children, not having decent jobs, unnecessarily poor health - look around you. Even time-wasting is not just frustrating, it is waste of living. It has been estimated that up to what half of what people do is wasted - often just in making mistakes and then trying to fix up after the mistakes. • George Orwell's prophecies for 1984 diverted attention away from where the most powerful forces of mental control today are coming from. A population kept as silly as possible is more docile than one controlled by thought police and prison camps. Autocratic control that seeks profit rather than power is more like a Greedy Uncle than a Big Brother. • Is the intelligence of the people being wasted by default because they are not aware of their precious brains - the greatest asset anyone can have? Deliberately numbing or 'exploding' their own brains. What do you think? Towards solutions The most effective immediate way to increase the available natural resources in the world would be to reduce present waste. This amounts to up to 25% for energy sources alone. Our most vital natural resource is human intelligence, so the same goes here. Reduce the waste of people. Intelligence as 'the 'ability to work out what to do in a situation' is about the best hope that all of us have. Everyone has a 'right to be bright' ' because that is fulfilling their own potential. What more can be done to stop the Waste of People? Practical Social Innovations are essential. Back to top of page

15. Better Pleasures ONE WAY to solve many of our problems would be to re-define pleasures. Most of our pleasures are based on instincts, drives, and sensations, (define these how you will) but our cultures and our personalities can direct our desires in some very silly directions that actually hurt us or others.   But it also possible for our cultures to direct us to find pleasure in ways that benefit us all. Our very different personalities can also enjoy many different pleasures that are not destructive. Childhood is a learning time - including learning what is a pleasure. Attitudes to learning, curiosity, construction, achievement and to other people are formed, to be sources of rewarding pleasures - or not. Hard sport? Hard learning? Teenage pleasures. Bernard Shaw recommended that all young men be put on ice between the ages of 18-24, to avoid having them around to fight wars or commit other destruction's. Anyone brought up with ideas of pleasure in glory, conquest, being top, or killing for excitement needs other directions for finding pleasure, since ice is not a feasible solution. Sublime Pleasures Freud had the idea of sublimation - a word made up from the word 'sublime', noble, pure. He thought that biological energies could be directed by sublimation into socially constructive and creative pleasures. One-Up Pleasures are described by Stephen Potter on Gamesmanship and Eric Berne on Games People Play. If people want to be One-Up, can they be One-Up in non-destructive, non-bitchy, non-mean-spirited ways? Sins and Virtues as Pleasures. There can be some Pleasure in the 'seven deadly sins', but there can also be pleasure in the eight lively virtues. Fewer people know about the eight lively virtues - what are they? What do you think they should be? Pleasure in eating without gluttony. What of the Chinese idea that eating with chopsticks was to enable you to savor each grain of rice. Eat chocolate in shavings, alcohol with a single mouthful. Novelty as a pleasure can be overdone. I'm getting old. Pleasures for millionaires? what about gambling by solving social problems, talent-spotting, doing a Carnegie? Excitement as a pleasure - but also calm as a pleasure. Social Innovating - to find more pleasures, and to be a pleasure. Back to top of page

16. Socrates Quiz Students ask teachers questions SOCRATES was an old Greek philosopher who made his young disciples think by asking them questions. Eventually he was made to drink hemlock poison, to get rid of him and his dangerous ways of getting people thinking. Socrates' young men had already had their education - and had knowledge and experience on which to base their thinking. But students in schools are still getting that knowledge and experience. So they need to be asking questions, to find out. Children are programmed to ask questions - because a primary way that a human child learns is from others. Children ask the questions, before they start school. "Why?" "What's this?" "Why can't I?" "What makes this go?" "Where does that go?" "How?" "When?" "Why not?" They ask stumpers like, "But Mummy, why does one and one make two?" Parents who worry that their adult minds will rot while they look after people under two feet high, are likely to answer "Because it is..." "Never you mind .." and "Ask another silly question and I'll go mad''. Parents who think it their duty to take all their child's efforts at conversation seriously, try to translate the Encyclopedia Britannica into two-syllable words, or use their own brains. Shades of the question-house From kindergarten on, Teachers Ask Them Questions. It begins the minute children arrive in kindergarten or Primary One. Roles are made clear in Primary One. The teacher asks the questions and the children answer them. "What shape is this?" "What colour is it?" "What is in that picture?" "What do you think will happen next?" "Why do you think it will do that?" "Where is your jumper?" "What are you doing there, Joel?" Asking students questions has been an unquestioned way to test students' comprehension and knowledge, in schools East and West What would Socrates have done? A 'Socratic Quiz' 'Learning through asking' as well as 'Learning through answering'. Some teachers have said the technique of a 'Socratic Quiz' is like rides on the Big Dipper, but the class find it exciting, when they retain the stimulus of novelty by being held say once a term. • Put some one- volume general-knowledge books in the classroom, with one book set as the main reference. Tell the class that in two weeks there will be a Serious Pursuits session. What is this Serious Pursuit? • A panel of 2-4 teachers plus any other adults who may be introduced as having any special expertise, will ask questions around the class on general knowledge from the set book. • The first student who can answer an adult's question correctly now has the right to ask the panel of teachers any question at all - except personal ones. For example, they could ask, "What are the Prime Minister's policies on education?" but they could not ask, "What do you think of the Prime Minister's policies on education?" • The teachers continue to ask questions around the class to ensure that every child has a chance to answer and to ask a question back. Some children can be given easy questions. • If no students can answer a general knowledge question, then all the class are set to try to find the answer before a follow-up session two weeks later. • If no one can answer a student's question, then everyone must look for an answer in the next two weeks. The teachers ask the class questions about useful and interesting general knowledge - like what is the silicon in a chip, what petrol comes from, what inventions are younger than they are, what people did before there was soap, why did an ancient civilisation collapse, what is a sonnet, and who was Edison. Children's questions are unpredictable. I have heard ten-year-olds ask: Spell brontosaurus. Where is Popacatapetl? Why do we die? Is astrology true? What does the sun burn? What will happen when oil runs out? Where does money come from? Why should it matter if we don't wash? Why do cats like fish? Why can't we eat in school? Why do people like being naughty? What are those yellow weeds outside the office? Does the world have to get worse? Where does Kylie Minogue live now? Why can adults swear and children shouldn't? What does the Prime Minister get paid? Why aren't White people called Pinkskins and Spottyskins when that's what they look like? Is God real? Could we have a school dance like they do at ....? Adults may have to explain that 'nobody really knows . . some people think that . . . other people think that . . .' 'I know where there are some great books on this - I'll bring some in' . . .   A way to encourage thinking is to start where the student's minds are. You don't know that until you find out. And to find out where syudents minds are, teachers don't ask them questions. Let them ask you. Back to top of page

17. Examples of Social Inventions Some Ideas to start off with - E XAMPLES of social inventions have been the alphabet, money, Open University, kindergartens, the Consumers' Association, wild-life gardens in hospitals, and all the different sorts of sports and games, old and new.   Who invented them? Many of the inventors are not as famous as pop celebrities who will be forgotten tomorrow. But their inventions and their innovations stand for them in the world. Look around you and you can see many scientific and technological inventions that have needed special expertise to invent and develop. But look around you and see how many Social Inventions you can see in one day that did not need science and technology, and almost anyone could have invented if they had thought about it. Schools? . .Better schools? Safety-pins - footballs - footpaths - jazz bands - voting. Melways has been one of the world leaders in how to make good street-maps. What social inventions that interest you? Books to read • Histories of Ideas, histories of the world, histories of Australia. Remember that Melbourne, Australia, was the world first in dozens of Social Inventions - for example, The Eight Hours Day, of happy memory, first established in Victoria, April 21, 1856. There is a monument in the City to celebrate it. Many other countries had not won an Eight Hours Day even fifty years later. • Publications of the British Institute for Social Inventions, such as the Book of Visions, The Encyclopedia of Social Inventions, and the annual collections of ideas and projects, such as DIY Futures and The Book of Inspirations - The pieces in them are short and simple, sometimes only a few lines, and longer and complex, running to several pages - there is something to suit and stimulate all readers in a mixed ability class from upper primary school on. • You could see also vyule's little 'manubooks', such as More living with less waste - a Little Book of Ideas. • See also newspapers, magazines and look all around you for problems to solve and ideas to throw around and work up, using your imagination.

18. SkillOlympics Modern Sports for Modern Life N OLYMPIC SPORTS are about warrior and hunter skills - to run and leap, throw and hit - records are about going faster, higher, further, harder, and teams are like hunting bands. These skills were needed for ancient Greek warfare. What skills are needed today? Modern SkillOlympic events such as sheep-shearing and spring-cleaning can now be great TV spectator sport. More skills are needed for modern life than for ancient Greek elites. A video camera for TV can pick up every movement in a skill, play it slow-motion, edit sequences, and show people competing neck and neck while they are in different places. SkillOlympics Contests in useful skills for modern life Almost any skill can be developed for Skill-Olympics, with clubs to arrange events. Newsboy-paper-throwing, weeding, cartooning, dish-washing competing against machines, safe-driving, packing lunches, floor-cleaning, mending and patching, crochet, ditch-digging, read and remember a book, hair-dressing, taking children for an outing, bricklaying, monster jigsaws, tree-climbing, counter-checkout, shop-window-displays, impromptu verse, reciting, gift-wrapping, toddler-training, thistle-slashing, manual lawn mowing, reading to children, DIY carpentry, cleaning, lullabies, getting correct change from a purseful of coins. And at the end of the event, your home or workplace can be better than it was before! Every country can enter its own special skill - such as carving in wood or stone, graffiti, making baskets or rugs, cuisine, origami, hair-dressing, embroidered jackets, inventing novelties, calligraphy, yodeling, lullabies, ceramics, making houses of mud or straw . . Some old Greek Olympics contests in poetry, drama and music were dropped when modern Olympics had to focus on what can be seen from a distance. Now these can be shown in detail by television cameras and judged by television panels, so these ancient competitions can be part of international SkillOlympics events. Advantages of SkillOlympics. • Spectators enjoy the thrills and learning the skills while watching. • Years of training for Skill-Olympics are not wasted even for losers. Losers as well as winners for SportsOlympics can devote their youth to going up and down or to and fro or round and round. • Everyone has a chance to compete because such a wider variety of talent can be encouraged. More non-sexist and drug-free than SportOlympics. More local culture encouraged. What skills would you like to see in a SkillOlympics? How could your school run a SkillOlympics ? Back to top of page

19. WHAT new ideas would you like to see on TV? Some starters to start you off. Alternatives to Cooking Shows 1. Cartoons - animated drawings with animated Australian art back-grounds, or Constable, Turner, old Chinese, medieval, Persian . . 2. Children - Time-line, Multicultural Australian Tales, 'Really Good and Really Stupid', Playstory, Lullabies at 8 pm, A Hero a Day, The Influencers, on people who have influenced others, A Magic Wishing Game series - children solve real-life problems using imagination 3. Comedy. Games people play (with permission from Eric Berne) "Yes but, Minister". About honest people who are not also stupid -in government, industry, commerce and police 4. Current affairs • What you want to know. (Viewers send in their requests about information relevant to current issues) • No background music to real-life reports or any narration. 5. Documentaries • Aerial survey of Australia. series like Domesday Book - deserts, erosion, pollution on same scale as livable areas • Everyday living - how people over the world manage what is overlooked because it is 'women's work' - what do they do about sleeping, sanitation, washing, cooking , babies' nappies and . . . • Multiculture - Folksongs and dances of the world, legends, songs, heroes, history, mores, proverbs of peoples now living in Australia. • SkillOlympics and It's Your Idea (Social Inventing) on TV. • Society and Spelling • 6. Drama and comedy. • Alternative Endings for other shows Viewers can enter their ideas . • Serial, OzRoyal Family • Drama in which people behave intelligently and the conflict is against the forces of fate and nature, not human infighting. • Melodrama with exaggerated virtue and vice, unbelievable characters, clear plot, so comedy gets pro-social messages going. • Simulations: Opponents play out the consequences of their conflict in computer simulations (eg preliminary to wars, strikes, divorces, and deliberate self-destructions.) Acted as melodrama. 8. Evening Education • Do-it-Yourself arts and everyday skills Open Primary School, Secondary School, Really Open Learning • Best Teachers demonstrate brilliant teaching. • Parental Guidance Requested. Demonstrates how to do this. • Teach Yourself to Read on TV, using animated text and cartoons, with an overview of how to learn, and nature of English spelling. • Styles of child-rearing. Include Toddler-taming demonstrated with line-ups, and how to hold a baby. Many people dont know.

20. ECOLYMPICS could be a TV Reality Show. It is about two things - Living with Least Waste, and Having a Good Time. One without the other is a miserable state of affairs.   There are SportsOlympics, and there could be SkillOlympics - and there could be EcOlympics. In SportOlympics the champions see who can go fastest, highest, longest - and other physical measures of speed and strength. SkillOlympics is to find the are champions in a wide range of useful skills. People watching them can pick up those skills too. EcOLympics is for everyone to see how they can become the champions at living with least waste and helping the environment while having a Good Time.  Running an EcoLympics. Add your ideas and comments • The call goes out that this TV Reality Show will select finalists in say, nine months. At the end of nine months, anyone can send in their estimated scores on 20 measures of Living with Least Waste with two pages explaining how they do this and still have a Good Time, plus pictures. Twenty finalists are selected who have high scores and represent as wide a range of life-styles as possible, in ages, household composition, culture, size of income, and where they live. • Each finalist is videotaped on a day they choose, to show how they achieve Least Waste, and chooses 10 measures out of 20 measures of Least Waste they would like to be scored. • This is edited down to 25 minutes TV. The series is shown over eleven weeks, with a studio audience, and entrants live on stage to answer questions after their segment is screened. • Half the studio audience rates out of ten the entrants' segment of Reality TV on their 10 chosen measures of Least Waste and the other half rates them on an index of Having a Good Time. For a final score, each entrant's total Least Waste measure is multiplied by their Good Time score. So someone with a total score of 100 on the Least Waste but only 5 on the Good Time score would have a final score of 500. Someone who scored 50 on the Least Waste measure but 10 on the Good Time score would also have a final score of 500. So the winner's way of living Least Waste must be shown to be good fun, not a way that inflicts misery and incites revolt. Try EcOlympics in your school - or between schools And think of some more ideas Back to top of page

21. School Inventions IT used to be thought that school would be more interesting for students if they said first what they wanted to learn, and then that was what would be taught. And so you have university courses in witch-craft and many, many primary school lessons about dinosaurs. But one question is, how do you know what you want to learn, if you dont know what there is to learn? For example, when people say what they want to learn when they are learning to read, they still might not be able to read, because they dont know what they dont know. So they cant say what they need to know. Teachers often think about what they think students need to know, and plan their lessons about that. But if the students dont know whether they need to know it, they might not want to learn it. What's the point? So this aspect of Social Innovating is classes working out together what they need to know about, now and when they have left school. And then, how do you learn about it? For example: - • You need to know about what you yourself want to know about, and every one in the class may be different here. So if you want to know about birds' eggs or how to blow glass or how babies go to sleep in other cultures - then how can you get a chance to learn these things? • If you dont want to know about anything, then the thing you need to know is what has gone wrong, that has made you not want to know. Curiosity and pleasure in thinking we are born with - what has squashed it out? • What do you need to know about adult things for when you leave school or even before? - about keeping records, and how a car works, and mending things that go wrong, and how to train a toddler in growing up (not just toilet-training!), and avoiding being taken in by confidence tricks, and standing up for your rights and for changing what needs to be changed, not turning disagreements into quarrels, saving money and . .. . • What do you need to know about what's going on in the world that will affect them? What will affect you, anyway? For discussing, researching, writing, thinking and imagining.   SCHOOLS need lots of Social Inventions. Would you all agree? Look around you.

22. Sniglets - Inventing Words  CHANGE HOW WE THINK. Think of more 'Hope Concepts' and new definitions that are needed. Here are some starters Adult - Not the same as an Immature Adult. 'Adult' ratings for shows mean that they stimulate thinking, love of knowledge, care for others, and constructive imagination. 'Immature Adult' ratings for coarse language, violence and waste. Ageism - Ageist segregation - is it as bad as sexism and racism? Beauty - an aim for the urban environment, as good for the spirit. Common Wealth. Keep its real meaning of common wealth Community godparents as 'relatives' for children who need them. Conspicuous Thrift with more status than Conspicuous Consumption Councils for Posterity hold a brief for posterity Disaimiabilia -help dislikeable people to remediate - Persecution and isolation makes them worse. Drinking Oz - a culture to enjoy social drinking with happiness, singing, laughter and kindness, not brawling or blankness. Future Cost -to count in with Capital and Labor the cost of non-renewable resources as the third component of the cost of product costs. Heroes. Real heroes who are brave to help and save and stand up against what is wrong, when others are afraid Human Energy Crisis is more serious than all other energy crises Index of Gross Unnecessary Suffering and Index of Quality of Life to go with Gross National Product as an index of a country's prosperity. Intelligence - defined as the ability to work out what to do in a situation Malnocence - Knowing a good deal about evil, but not about good. Manhood Test boys can go in for if they want. 'Womanhood Test' may actually be the same. Manners that oil the wheels of living together, not mere status 'etiquette'. Natural Child-Care - What we dont have when small children are cooped in domestic boxes or centres, away from everyone else. OdSports Festival. Odsports also played at intervals of big matches. $Old Age Pension ($OAP) as a measure for wage and salary increases to give a sense of proportion. A rise of 5 $OAP? Shame. Social Age - Everyone should be aware of their own Social Age Social Arithmetic puts all generalisations into perspective. "All men are " Ask, how many are . . ? When? Work - redefinitions are needed for Work, Drudgery, Earning and Being Paid and an invidious category of 'unproductive employment' when people are being paid for doing something not worth doing .   Think of new words and more new meanings too. You can invent better swearing instead of the boring old stuff. Look up old words and see if they are still needed - like lovingkindness, blessed, glory, grace, rejoicing. A Short List of Hope-Concepts Change how we think - and think of more ideas too Adult - Not the same as an Immature Adult. 'Adult' ratings for shows mean that they stimulate thinking, love of knowledge, care for others, and constructive imagination. 'Immature Adult' ratings mean that they have coarse language, violence and waste. Agism - how to prevent agist segregation Alternative Housekeeping - a Gift Book on this is given to all new householders Adult Initiation Ceremony for teenagers Ageism - Prevent segregation by age - which is an 'ism' like sexism and racism. Australian OzRoypublic with TV Royalty who play in a TV serial too - the Solution! Beauty - an aim for schools, homes and the urban environment, as good for the spirit. Common Wealth. Keep its real meaning of wealth for the common good. Community godparents as 'relatives' for children with none beyond parents. Community Soccer everybody joins in, regardless of age, gender or number of players. Conspicuous Thrift replacing Conspicuous-Consumption Councils for Posterity - holding a brief for posterity, so that something is left for them. Disaimiabilia - understanding and remedying dislikability, instead of persecuting others. Exercise - Conservation, Thrifty and Housework Exercises Future Cost factored in with Capital and Labor as the third component of product cost History of Freedom A Book we should have for everyone to read. Human Energy Crisis is more serious than all other energy crises Imagination - ability to consider what may be possible, in the real world not just fantasy. Immature Adult labels and ratings for films, videos, books, shops, behaviour. Index of Gross Unnecessary Suffering and Index of Quality of Life to go with GNP Initiation Ceremonies for young adults Intelligence - defined as the ability to work out what to do in a situation - . Jobs that are needed. Long lists. The issue is only how to pay for them. Malnocence - Knowing a good deal about evil, but not about good. Manhood Test boys can go in for if they want. 'Womanhood Test' is actually the same, Manners. A book of manners to oil the wheels of living together, not mere 'etiquette'. Myth-Exploding. The vision of the artist is needed to help explode modern myths Natural Child-Care - What we dont have at present, either in domestic boxes or centres. OdSports Festival. Odsports also played at intervals of big matches. Old Age Pension ($OAP) as a measure for wage and salary increases shows proportions. Parents Unions - to keep down the price of children's fashions Peace Toys to replace Guns. Pleasures that dont consume. Political Psychology Manual for all citizens and school leavers. Rites of passage. We need 9 such celebrations in modern life - good excuses to celebrate. SkillOlympics needes as well as SportsOlympics Social Age - Everyone should be aware of their own Social Age Standards Certificates issued each year showing each child's progress in many life skills. Users Association as a more conservationist name for the Consumers' Association. Utopias, happy not Dystopias - a goal for writers and artists to imagine and help bring in. Work - New definitions are needed for Work, Drudgery, Earning, and Being Paid for Useless Work'.   Back to top of page

23. Anything else you'd like to have a go at solving?

 • Benchmarks Quizzes to check people's present limits, to compare with what they come to tolerate later.

• Computer Conflict Simulator to be played by leaders, instead of wars & strikes.

• Remote control STOP buttons so an audience can indicate to a speakers when they need to stop.

• Erasing Machine to re-use paper rather than recycle it.

• Pokies that do something useful, for people addicted to operating machines with their lights, noises, and jingles.

• Pre-Shock Prevention training, so people can have personal resources when emergencies happen.

• Rites of Passage for all seven stages of life, including Initiation Rites to become Adult.

• 'Automatic Pilot' to practice behavior for emergencies so you can still act sensibly when you dont have time to think.

• Remote Control Gun Exploder to explode or disable any other loaded weapon.

• Uses for Pests and Weeds since there are so many to use.

• Carbon dioxide A way to get carbon from the carbon dioxide in the air, bypassing photosynthesis by plants.

• 'Immature Adult' ratings for shows, and change the cri