Teaching and administering are creative processes, and that is why | am attracted to the profession. This is
a profession that encourages me to be creative and even allows me opportunities to be so. If that takes the
form of reinventing the wheel, then that is the way | am creative.

3. When I reinvent wheels, | learn from my own mistakes. When | try to adapt the wheels of others to my college
or to my classroom, it is easy to blame them for the difficulties | experience. It is easy to criticize the way
they have designed the wheel, the language they have used, and the effectiveness with which it gets the
job done.

When I reinvent my own wheel, I have to take responsibility for it, and it gives me a chance to correct my
own mistakes. If the wheel isn’t quite right, then I take responsibility for whittling it down or aligning it
differently. Since it is a product of my creativity, and since I take full ownership of it, it is well known to
me and not so threatening. And since it is not threatening, | am freer to learn the mistakes | have made in
designing and developing it.

4. 1 take great pride in my reinvented wheel. In fact, I am not sure there ever was a wheel like the one | have
made. I do not even think in the language of "reinvention." For me, my wheel is a first invention; | am
proud that I have made it.

As I said, I know that others have invented wheels similar to mine; but mine is the only one I have ever
invented, and it is the only one of its kind for me. I need to take pride in my work, and I need to help
students and my colleagues take pride in the work they do. Making my "original" wheel gives me great
pride and encourages me to develop that pride in others.

And so, | have come to realize that there is value in reinventing the wheel. Something there is in human
nature that makes the process of reinventing the wheel a very personal and important one. One could do worse
than to be a reinventor of wheels.

Terry O'Banion
Executive Director
League for Innovation in the Community College

For further information, contact the author at the League for Innovation in the Community College, 23276 5.
Pointe Drive, Suite 103, Laguna Hills, CA 92653.

 

DOUGLAS COLLEGE
ARCHIVES ___...

 

 

 

Suanne D. Roueche, Editor
March 21, 1986, Vol. VIII, No. 9
INNOVATION ABSTRACTS is a publication of the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, EDB 348, The University of Texas at Austin,
Austin, Texas 78712, (512) 471-7545. Subscriptions are available to nonconsortium members for $35 per year. Funding in part by the W. K. Kellogg
Foundation and Sid W. Richardson Foundation. Issued weekly when classes are in session during fall and spring terms and monthly during the summer.
© The University OF Texas at Austin, 1986
Foie) duplications permitted only by MEMBER institutions for ther own personnel ISSN 0199-106X