Wonderful image. It reminded me of me, as a young child, of how one tree appears to move at a different speed relative to me as another one (a bit further away

Wonderful image. It reminded me of me, as a young child, of how one tree appears to move at a different speed relative to me as another one (a bit further away). Angles and distance, and of a gravitation towards maths as a subject. Your experience in Education is not dissimilar, too, to my experience in Big Corps. 'Innovation' is a word banded around as if it were an elixir from heaven as a way to solve all problems and create the perfect workplace. Late evening at work, around 11pm long after the workforce had long since left, the managers tended to be able to tie-up their day. A vision of a 500 seat open plan office kept illuminated by 4-5 heads at various locations around the floor. Passing a much liked colleague, she asked me "What does innovation mean?" while pointing at a generic poster on the wall of a lit light bulb on a blue background with 'Innovation' in large text and some scrawl about a corporate competition. "Well, doing things better, modifying processes, creating new ways to do things" I replied. English language was not her first language, but I knew she knew what this word meant and I felt a bit taken aback. "No" she replied. "It is brainwashing us and my team to think change is good. Innovation is just change. And you know what, some things are OK. We don't need to change them. We need to leave them as they are. I don't want everyone thinking about how to change this or how to change that when they're perfectly fine. I want people to do their jobs and document it well, not think about how it isn't right, and change it to something else that is broken. People could be doing their job, be happy, and when a real problem happens deal with it. Brainwashing us to accept the next change in direction from our dear leaders." This made sense, and has stuck with me, even several years later. For those in Big Corp or other institutions where the word 'Innovation' is thrown around with glee, it does indeed not mean better. Infact, its meaning is probably closer to "Throw (new) mud at the wall and see if it sticks, and in the process of creating 'innovation' gain the opportunity cost of creating better documentation, going home earlier, or multitudes of other things, but say 'yes' to change because it is masked as being 'good'." Think about what words really mean, and if they don't make sense, there are much deeper problems with the people saying them.