Make “thinking” a subject at school.
We teach children language, math, science, nature, music and sports. Why don’t we offer them an opportunity to learn to think? Thinking is one of the most fundamental aspects of being a human being and indeed relevant in a knowledge society.
I am not an expert in thinking and the function of the brain; others will be much better qualified to put the right content into this new subject. but here is my input:
Different types of thinking, creative, critical, evaluating etc. Why not teach the use of de Bono’s thinking hats?
How to find new solutions, i.e. creative thinking. Creativity is a skill - not a gift for the few.. Learn different techniques.
Thinking in narrow vs broad contexts. Cars or transport systems?
Values and thinking about values. Many people miss a language about values. Why not learn that at school?
Logic: roads and offroads in argumentation. Demagogics, spin and populism: How to spot it and how to counter it.
Mental models; what they are, how they are mapped and how they can be redesigned.
Wouldn’t we have a better society if our kids learned all that? Let me hear your comments.
13. May 2009 kl. 17:33 #
I think you ask a number of interesting questions in this blog posting, Lars. Thinking about some of the topics, you touch upon, I came across a question.
I’d like to ask people who read this how you think about learning. Do you think that
A. To learn, people should create knowledge, or
B. To learn, people should reproduce knowledge?
Thanks very much in advance for your inputs.
13. May 2009 kl. 22:36 #
Jeg kan godt give et bud på et svar: At tænke er at anvende viden og at skabe viden - altså begge dele. Viden kan anvendes til at skabe, at vurdere, at kombinere/konstruere, at bevæges og sikkert meget mere. Men pointen er at viden er langt mere and blot at reproducere.
13. May 2009 kl. 23:00 #
Tak for svaret.
14. May 2009 kl. 22:22 #
How do you think about human relations? An example:
A. Do you think that people want to collaborate more than they want to compete?
Or
B. Do you think that people want to compete more than they want to collaborate?
15. May 2009 kl. 00:51 #
Dear Lars
In terms of teaching how to think, I wish to share an idea from Maastricht University, where I am currently teaching in the programme of European Public Health. Our students have classes during every semester called “Academic Thinking” usually taught by a professor in philosophy with the purpose of achieving reflexive skills to be used during studies and in future professsions. It is an idea I can highly recommend being introduced in Denmark too. The Academic Thinking trajectory is taught alongside the more subject-related modules.
15. May 2009 kl. 11:57 #
The “core of thinking” is and should in principle always be individual/private - however when people needs to think more structured or together we may also need simple guidelines. These “guidelines” must facilitate the structure, while we maintain and protect the individual focus and values. When we want to “improve” our thinking we can not set a predefined standard, but we can take into account that we are all biased to make errors of perception.
In the question “do learn via new knowledge or de we lean via reproduction of knowledge”, we are in fact tempted to make such errors of perception. There is a third option: that we learn more when we learn to organize and perceive any knowledge (old and new) in new ways. In this context you see that thinking as a skill is a central part of learning - simply because you learn more when you actively ‘process’ knowledge in some way. And when you use thinking skills in this process you triple your output, you may learn more, you may create new knowledge and you actively train you thinking skills.
Thinking and learning can not prevent errors from happening, but if we can become just a few percent better at utilizing the knowledge we already have small “miracles” are likely to happen more often.
When we think politically/dualistically, we are much more likely to incorporate perception errors in our thinking. Thus we should also attempt prevent “thinking tactics” that may lead to such mistakes. Doing this can not, as mentioned, prevent all errors but we can attempt to avoid many mistakes using a few tactical tools that are designed for that specific purpose.
Taking this several steps further you will see that you will need to do things that are not rational or logic to get to new results. Say you would never ever want to model or copy the thinking patterns of others. What we are looking for is in fact very simple tools that would be devaluated if we try to “improve” them.
Specifically such tools should avoid support for predefined ideals and values, and this leads to the next important point. The didactics we need to used for this ensure this - thus the “good willed” teacher must be “prevented from” focusing on such values or ideals…. in the specific training process. Adding these key considerations together with many other aspects of thinking we have a set of thinking tools that can make you think a bit better that you did before. If many people do that, and when they do it together, the results can be stunning!
Regard Per - de Bono rep. in Denmark
15. May 2009 kl. 12:05 #
@Frank
We actually want people to “compete on cooperation” (a+b = ! ) - we would want to prevent them from using the dialectic approach. The dialectic approach is an counter productive competition strategy that will often allow the stronger part win on behalf of the weak solution!
Regards Per
15. May 2009 kl. 13:18 #
@ Per: Would you please elaborate on “compete on cooperation”? Do you have a couple of examples? Thanks in advance.
15. May 2009 kl. 15:25 #
@Frank
I won’t put forward any specific examples, but in general we are talking about what you would call co-creation. If you have different teams competing you will see that those that are very competitive (and often more “intelligent”) are likely to produce few and specific solutions, while those that are trained in parallel thinking will produce more and broader solutions. I can not claim that one solution set will always be preferable - however I will claim that there is a higher “human cost” when you use the first (competitive/dialectic) approach.
When I talk about competing on cooperation, I look at the different challenges we set up for people. When we cooperate we focus on the product - but when we compete our eyes are on the goal line.
Regards Per
15. May 2009 kl. 15:32 #
Thanks, Per, for the information.
18. May 2009 kl. 21:27 #
Hi Lars - some inspiration:
A project in Germany is trying to add “future” as a subject to curriculums in public schools. Think it relates indirectly to your proposal. There is still limited information available about it online, but read about it here:
http://www.bmw-stiftung.de/index.php?action=show_pages&siteID=234
4. June 2009 kl. 12:46 #
I absolutely agree with you. The thinking hat’s are a marvel!
Thinknician PA Ståhlberg at http://www.stahlberg.com is one of my favorite thinkers and has been a great help for my own personal development.
I’d also like to thank you for todays very inspiring seminar in Malmö!