Think! (9 page)

Schools in the European Union spend 25 per cent of their teaching time on mathematics. But most people only use about 3 per cent of the mathematics they learn at school. I have never consciously used the geometry, algebra, trigonometry, differential calculus or integral calculus I learned at school.

So why do we spend this rather high portion of school time on the more advanced 97 per cent of mathematics?

Because a student may want to enter a profession that does require this grounding in mathematics.

If you wanted to be a rocket scientist, you could learn the necessary mathematics as part of that course. This applies to many professional choices. There is no need for everyone else to learn so much mathematics.

Because it trains the mind.

I am not aware of any evidence that shows that those who
studied more mathematics, or were better at it, have superior minds compared with those who studied less. It may indeed have some effect, but if the intention was to train the mind, then there are many much more powerful things we could do to train the mind and to train thinking. There are aspects of my thinking that have been shown to have a powerful effect, increasing performance in every subject by between 30 and 100 per cent; improving employment chances by 500 per cent; reducing violence by 90 per cent. Can anyone claim such results for mathematics?

Because some mathematics is needed so more mathematics must be better.

The tradition has been established and is continued and defended.

Because it is necessary to fill the time allocated to 'baby-sitting' in education.

Youngsters need to be occupied. Mathematics, like many other subjects, simply fills their time.

I am certainly not against teaching mathematics, but if education claims not to have the time to teach other subjects, such as thinking, then the amount of
time spent on mathematics could be reduced.

There is also another aspect. Students who are not good at mathematics may leave school feeling they are
stupid. Their self-esteem is very low, and this affects both their future lives and their contribution to society.

Teaching thinking should be the key subject in education. Nothing is more important than thinking – for personal life, for professional life and for contributions to society.

To claim that schools already teach thinking as part of teaching other subjects like history and science is a very weak argument. To be sure, some thinking is taught, but it is mainly of the analytical type.

There is a real need to teach broad operational thinking skills. There is a need to teach
perceptual thinking
– which is extremely important and will be considered later. There is a need to teach genuine
exploratory thinking
– not argument. There is a need to teach
value thinking.
There is a need to teach
action thinking.
There is a need to teach
creative thinking.

John Edwards, a research teacher in Australia, reduced the amount of time at school devoted to science, and taught some thinking in that time. In the science examinations those students who had been taught some thinking did better than those students who had spent more time on science. He also showed that teaching thinking doubled the number of students getting to the top level in mathematics.
Another report, from India, showed that teaching thinking greatly improved performance in mathematics.

Thinking needs to be taught explicitly as a separate subject. Youngsters who may not be good at other subjects suddenly find they are good thinkers, and their self-esteem rises with powerful effect.

I have had many reports from teachers along the following lines: 'I thought Suzy was not very bright because she did not perform well. But in the thinking lessons she blossomed, to the surprise of myself and all the other students.' I have had reports from China about students who suddenly found that they were expected to think instead of just learning what they were supposed to learn. They found this a liberating experience.

I am concerned with constructive thinking, which is why in the days of the Soviet Union and in Communist Bulgaria there was a lot of interest in my work. In my experience Communist regimes were not at all against thinking and new ideas. This is also the case in China today where the government is trying out pilot projects with my work in five provinces.

On one occasion in the Soviet Union I was asked to teach in School 36 in Moscow. At first the students were very quiet, but gradually they realised they were allowed to have ideas, and the noise level rose and rose.

In Bulgaria I was told the story of a young girl from Plovdiv (the second largest town in Bulgaria). She was asked if she used the thinking lessons in her daily life. She
answered: 'I use these things all the time in my daily life. I even use them outside life – in school.'

Just that one sentence summarises
the need to teach thinking in schools.

Research on thinking in schools

Denise Inwood of the Atkey organisation has done extensive research on the teaching of these methods in schools in the United Kingdom. Susan Mackie of the de Bono Institute in Melbourne, Australia, has also done a lot of work with schools. Tom Farrell of the de Bono Foundation in Dublin is also involved.

The evidence is clear. Teaching thinking explicitly as a separate subject improves performance in every other subject by between 30 and 100 per cent.

Many years ago there was some research done by the Schools Council in the UK. It claimed to show that teaching this thinking did not increase the number of ideas produced.

For this research, one group of pupils was taught my PMI technique, and another group was simply told by the teacher to come up with as many ideas as possible. There was no difference between the groups' results. The conclusion was drawn from this.

In my opinion, that is poor research. First of all, the PMI is not a creative technique at all. It simply asks the student to consider the Plus, Minus and Interesting points about a matter. It is for perceptual clarification,
not creative thinking. Because there are other techniques of mine that are designed to be creative, it was incorrectly assumed that the PMI was also creative.

It was also shown that the group just coming up with ideas had more irrelevant ideas than the PMI group. So although the overall number of ideas was similar, one lot included many irrelevant ideas.

I believe this research is highly dangerous because it may have discouraged many educators from trying my methods for themselves. Helen Hyde of the Watford Grammar School for Girls has, however, used the methods extensively with very positive results.

In Venezuela, every child in every school learns my methods. This was the result of the work of Luis Alberto Machado, who was originally a professor of philosophy at the University of Caracas. He read my book
The Mechanism of Mind
and later joined the Copei party, which was in government. He requested a new ministry – for the Development of Intelligence. He became Minister for the Development of Intelligence.

He then came to see me in London to ask what should be done. I told him I had a programme for schools to teach perceptual thinking. This was the CoRT (Cognitive Research Trust) programme. He invited me to Venezuela where I trained 250 teachers. They then in turn picked up some experience, and trained 107,000 more teachers. The programme finally passed into the Ministry of Education and became mandatory in all schools.

Every country needs a Minister for the Development of Intelligence if the human resources in that country are not to be wasted by inadequate education methods. It is not enough to rely on Ministers of Education to make the needed changes.

Many schools are already teaching the use of computers, the Internet and other aspects of information technology. There are, however, other subjects listed below which are equally important. How is space going to be made when the curriculum is already so crowded?

These subjects are so key that there needs to be a change in how much time is spent on traditional subjects compared to these subjects. As discussed, the amount of time spent on mathematics can be reduced. Subjects like history and geography can be taught with videos downloaded from the Internet. Tanguage and thinking can be integrated together. Less time can be spent on literature.

Operacy

Literacy and numeracy are not enough. A mass of knowledge is not enough. As soon as a youngster gets out into the world, there is a need to 'do' and to 'get things done'. Operacy is all about the skill of doing or operating.
Youngsters can be given tasks and projects to plan and to carry out. A side effect of this is the sense of achievement when something gets done. This is very important, because youngsters do not have much opportunity for achievement. Operacy may include doing things on your own or as a team, such as in the Young Enterprise scheme. There needs to be a mixture of both.

Design

This is part of thinking but needs direct attention. Design tasks can be set. These can be carried out in reality or shown in a drawing. Youngsters can make a drawing showing how to build a house more quickly; how to improve a motor car; how to wash windows in a skyscraper; how to design a supermarket.

Design is putting things together to deliver value. This is very different from analysis and description. Design is not drawing pretty pictures of a cottage with hollyhocks outside. Designs can be compared and discussed. Practicality and other values can be commented upon.

Systems behaviour

There are
schools in some parts of the world that do teach simple systems behaviour. This is a very useful way for youngsters to get a sense of how things interact. There can be a basic understanding of positive feedback and negative feedback, amplifying systems, and so on. There is no need to get into very complex matters. What is
needed is a sense of how things interact and come together to produce a result. Studying items on their own is not enough.

The
world around

This involves an understanding of how shops work; how unions work; how governments work; how the UN is supposed to work; how the media works. It involves some knowledge of how things function and interact. This need not be an in-depth knowledge. There may even be games that youngsters can play to give this understanding.

There is a great deal that needs to be done to improve education, but it is rather unlikely to happen. This is because education advisers and consultants have been brought up in the old traditions and want to preserve them. Continuity is the name of the game.

Education is a classic example of a local equilibrium where all the elements are locked together to keep things as they are.

At the same time, there are so many new fads and fashions that education is being exhorted to adopt that a reluctance to change at all is understandable.

Even if an individual school wants to change, it still has the responsibility of getting its pupils through existing
examinations, because that will affect their careers. Perhaps a new examination opportunity might be a good way to start change – what about an additional examination in thinking skills?

A report has shown that 56 per cent of young people in the United Kingdom do not trust the press. This may seem very alarming. It might be expected of older people with years of experiencing the games of the press, but it is rather alarming for young people to have this degree of mistrust.

Would this figure surprise or concern the media? I do not think so. I do not think the press ever expect to be trusted. What matters is a good story – even if only part of it is true, that is enough if the story sells.

At its best, the press is very, very good. At its worst, it is embarrassingly bad. There are some highly intelligent and honest journalists. There are many journalists who are either stupid or dishonest. It is difficult to tell which is which.

Early on in my career there was an excellent piece about my work by the
Sunday Times
Insight team. There was also a very good piece by Margaret Pringle. On the
other hand, some time ago there was also a remarkably silly piece in a different newspaper. Did the journalist not realise that the facts she failed to mention were crucial and may also have interested the readers? Would the readers not have been interested to hear that teaching thinking in schools increased performance in every subject by between 30 and 100 per cent? Would the readers not be interested in learning that teaching thinking reduced crime among youngsters by 90 per cent?

The journalist did not, in my view, write a balanced article because important facts, namely the positive results, were not included, and the piece as a result reflects very poorly on the newspaper.

What that episode indicated to me is the stupidity of the press in general. Stupidity in believing that what interests the reader is negativity. To be sure, the press has a duty to expose scandals, corruption and bad behaviour, but the belief that readers are only interested in negative stuff is misplaced. There is a real need for much more positive stuff in the world.

The fundamental problem is that it is very much more difficult to write a positive piece than a negative piece. Much more talent is required, and some editors and journalists seem to lack such talent. So the end product is
invariably negative. That hardly encourages positive attitudes or constructive thinking among readers.

In Australia they have what is called the
'tall poppy effect'. If you are walking through a field and there is a tall poppy that stands out above the rest, the temptation is to take your stick and lop the head off that poppy. The attitude is, of course, inherited from England and the days when society was rigidly structured into classes. Anyone who was seen to be getting above himself or trying to rise out of his or her class bracket had to be cut down to size. This silly attitude never developed in the USA, where success of any sort (even criminal) is respected.

Newspaper circulations are falling because of competition from television, the Internet and even social networks. If newspapers are to have any function in society, they need to develop positive products that television cannot easily offer because of the nature of the medium.

Reading is very powerful.

Research has shown that for women, eating chocolate, shopping and falling in love all have the effect of raising phenylethylamine in the blood and giving pleasure.

For men, eating curry, making money and looking at
Playboy
magazine all increase activity in the pleasure centre of the brain.

While it is interesting, this research is only partial, since there was a limit on what was tested. For both sexes, achievement, even minor achievement, is very satisfying. That is why crossword puzzles and Sudoku are so popular.

There are other ways of providing opportunities for achievement in newspapers.

Celebrity culture is not in itself very stimulating mentally. Some celebrities have indeed shown talent in sport, music or acting. Others are famous for being famous in a positive feedback loop.

The media once played a central
role in culture. That is hardly the case today.