Features: BEYOND THE FUNNEL OF SPECIALIZATION

BY OJO DEBORAH

Many life coaches and business experts advise us to niche down, follow just one path. They tell us that is the way to achieve excellence and safety; however, this has only proven itself to be a funnel that thins as one develops.

This thinning is etched into the educational system. We begin with questions about Jupiter and poetry in primary school, only to be forced into a “league” in Senior Secondary school. By the time we reach university, our options are limited.

Past cages close in further and we are left with a specialised, often rigid view of the world.

The result is a maths graduate who can solve for x without a human why.

The system's hold is strengthened by the misquoted proverb, “Jack of all trade, master of none.” This half-truth has shrunk our curiosity and convinced us that becoming a specialist maintains our excellence. Yet, this warning ignores the wisdom of the better half “... oftentimes better than master of One”

The Alternative Use Test (AUT), developed by Paul Guilford to measure Divergent Intelligence, might be our tool for freedom. It asks: How wide can you think?

Are we so rigid in our thoughts that a pencil can only be a writing material rather than a hairpin, a drumstick, or a bow-tie?

We know the funnel has succeeded when we have a low threshold for absurd ideas and they never get actualized.

A compromise like the T-shaped model where deep knowledge in one area with a surface-level overview of others, satisfies the critics. This is the reason for GES or GST courses in Universities. However, a mathematician who paints should be the way of life. Such a person perceives emotion and arguments in their equation; the anomaly is someone who misses out on other spheres.

The irony is that divergence is already a part of us. We have used vaseline as a makeup glow, propped a shoe as a doorstop for proper lighting in a video and even used pillow fur as a good background for some product?

In those moments, our genius is disobeys the ‘right’ option.

So why do we employ it in dire situations only?

I challenge you to see what else a pencil can be for. If “safety and security” shows you only a writing material, perhaps the tunnel has thinned your sight too much and you are now a master of a small world. To break free, write your own rules with it. And then, use it to stir your coffee.