Think! (11 page)

There are other tools in the full CoRT programme, including tools for identifying values, and tools for identifying the information available and the information that is missing.

Examples of the basic tools

The PMI tool:
Asks the thinker to direct his or attention first to the Plus aspects of the matter. Then attention is directed to the Minus aspects and finally to the Interesting aspects.

A class of thirty 12-year-old boys in Australia were asked
to consider the suggestion that youngsters should be paid for going to school. In groups of four they discussed the idea. At the end, all 30 of them agreed that it would be a great idea: they could buy comics, sweets, chewing gum, movie tickets, and so on.

Then the PMI was explained to them. Again in groups of four they went systematically through the different attention directions: Plus, Minus and Interesting. At the end of this exercise, 29 out of the 30 had changed their minds and decided that it was not a good idea to pay youngsters for going to school.

The Plus points were as they had been before. But now there were Minus points. The bigger boys might bully the younger boys for the money. The school might raise the charge for lunch in response. Parents would be less inclined to give presents. They asked where the money would be coming from and suggested there might be a greater need elsewhere in education. There were also some Interesting points. They wondered whether the amount would be varied as a sort of punishment. Or if older students would get more.

The important point is that there was no teacher intervention at all. The teacher simply laid out the PMI framework that the youngsters used. As a result of using the framework they got a broader perception and changed their minds. This is precisely what the teaching of thinking should be about: providing tools that can be used to make a difference.

The C&S tool: I
was once giving a seminar to a group of very senior female executives in Canada. I asked them to consider the suggestion that women should be paid 15 per cent more than men for doing the same job. They discussed the idea in small groups and decided that it made sense because women had more responsibilities (family, for example). Eighty-six per cent declared themselves in favour of the idea.

I then asked them to use another attention-directing tool called the C&S. This stands for Consequences and Sequels. It directs attention to the immediate consequences, the short-term consequences, the medium-term consequences and the long-term consequences. They went through the exercise. At the end, with whatever reasons they had come up with, the 86 per cent in favour of the idea had fallen to just 15 per cent in favour.

The important point about this example is that if you had asked any of those women executives if they looked at consequences, they would have replied that in their role as senior executives they spent most of their time looking at consequences. Yet doing it deliberately with the C&S tool made a huge difference.

The APC tool:
Asks for attention to be directed to Alternatives, Possibilities and Choices. Down's syndrome youngsters are able to use these tools very effectively. It may be that in this condition there is a difficulty in one part of the brain giving instructions to another part. So
they make a hand sign for the tool they want to use. These hand signs were developed in the mines in South Africa, where the noise makes talk difficult.

So the youngster might make the hand sign for APC and then he reacts to his own hand sign and carries out an APC. By exteriorising the instruction, the Down's syndrome youngster can overcome any difficulty with internal instruction.

These things are so simple and so obvious that everyone claims to do them all the time. Time and again, experiments like those mentioned above show that directing attention deliberately with these simple tools makes a huge difference.

Attitude is not the same as using a formal tool. Most people would claim to have a balanced attitude and to look for both the positive and the negative aspects of a situation. In fact we do this in a very perfunctory way. And we do not do it at all when we like or dislike the situation immediately. How often have you made an effort to find the Plus points of someone you dislike?

As I mentioned earlier, an educator once said that these tools were so simple they could not possibly work. But they do work, and very powerfully. You need to understand how the brain operates in order to see why they should work.

Many people have said that the tools simply give acronyms to aspects of normal behaviour. Others like the methods but object to the acronyms.

The acronyms are essential as acronyms are stored in the brain. Attitudes have no location in the brain. They are like an itinerary put together by a travel agent. You cannot switch on an attitude at will.

The acronyms have a place in the brain just as names of things have a place in the brain. A man had a stroke, and the only effect was that he could not remember the names of vegetables. The stroke had damaged that area of the brain where the names of vegetables were stored. In the same way, acronyms are stored and can be called into action, just like a computer programme.

Perceptual maps

The
Flowscape

In my book
Water Logic
I describe the Flowscape, which is a way of mapping out or displaying perceptions.

If you are travelling down the river on a boat, town A is followed by town B. Town C might come next. Town A does not 'cause' town B. One simply follows the other.

A 'neural state' in the brain is stable for a while, and then the 'tiring factor' takes effect and the next stable state (of sensitised neurones) takes over. So there is a movement from one state to another. It is not necessarily to do with causation or inclusion; as with the river, one thing follows another.

With a Flowscape you simply list a number of elements that you see in the total situation (not necessarily at any one moment in time).

Then, for each point on that list, you see to which other point on the list your mind would most readily move. Every point must have one, and only one, arrow leading to another point. A point may receive many arrows but can only emit one arrow.

Then you map it out. You may find that points you thought were central are actually peripheral. You may find points that reinforce each other. You get a visual display that allows you to look at the elements in your perception.

Flowscape points:

THINKING
EDUCATION

CHURCH
LOGIC

EDUCATION
LOGIC

ARGUMENT
LOGIC

LOGIC
GOEDEL

GOEDEL
PERCEPTION

PERCEPTION
POSSIBILITY

POSSIBILITY
CREATIVITY