Thinking as Religion

[DensIdeasGroup]

One of my first clients, in 1999, after doing a day's course on the Six Thinking Hats with me - this was in Cornwall at the time - wrote to me and said that since her course she is "less stressed and solves problems more easily".

The Hungerford Guidance Centre takes youngsters who are too violent to be taken by normal schools. David Lane, Principal, did a 20-year follow-up after the youngsters did some thinking lessons. 90% of those who did the lessons did not re-offend.

We also have evidence of people who have got off drugs through better thinking, and children in trauma, who have recovered more quickly, after using the Six Thinking Hats, in that case together with a psychologst, because mental attitude is not generally encouraged in hospitals, neither is thinking taught in our schools and universities.

Taking thinking lessons improves mental health because a person has greater self esteem, confidence, and sense of self-worth and achievement.

Once a person knows what to do in their mind when problems occur, the person becomes happy and fulfilled, with far less stress.

In your post of 2:31, you are packaging what is normal, natural and intuitive in most parents into a commercial enterprise. I'll admit this is something that gets me riled up, whether it is about general parenting skills, giving birth or anything else that is intuitive and a cultural norm.

mvemjsunp

We have inherited religion whether we like it or not. Not long ago our ancestors were forced to believe by threats of death, which were very real threats. I believe that religious feelings are sometimes right and natural, but they are personal and sometimes fleeting.

Why thinking as a religion? In any case, we need to think about any religion in order to further understand it. There may be a need to have a religion only if a person feels there is nothing else better that will satisfy spiritual yearning, religious feelings, and answer ultimate questions.

If there is a better way to think, should we not take advantage of it? After all, we only accepted our current religion because at the time it was the best available and suited our circumstances.

Den - I think you might find it interesting to read some of the archived threads on here. Most of the points on your list are discussed in depth and at great length, with reference both to personal experience and to studies and books on child psychology.

As to "teaching them thinking skills", I still don't know what you actually mean by this. Could you elaborate?

Religious = community, Thinking = self-centred/human potential/hedonism.

For all the merits of thinking, you can't force fit it into religion or a religious community.

A religious community is centred on faith, which is an inbuilt feeling disconnected from rational thought. Of course, the body of Christ needs all parts, including people who think, but they are not more important or stand alone.

Or society as a whole values people who think, or rather who have knowledge, skills and understanding, who can plan and problem solve, who are creative, who can synthesise. But this is not a religion (the topic of the thread).

I think it means, ZD, to teach them to draw spider diagrams.

ZD

The thinking skills are so incredibly simple (designedly so!) that most people often say they are already in use, that the tools are obvious. Even so, if something is obvious but also powerful and necessary, should we not become skilled in this?

We could ask a very young child or an adult to do a CAF. The tools work just as well at any age, just as maths is the same and necessary at any age. A CAF is one tool and means Consider All Factors. One first gives some exercises in the CAF, enough to familiarise the person to how it works.

Then in any situation where we feel it is necessary we can say. "Johnny, let's do a CAF on the idea". One can do a CAF on any ideas eg, buying a new computer.

Knowing what the CAF means is very different from developing a skill in its use. If I did a CAF on MumsNet it would be very different from the general assumptions and concepts all mixed up in my mind.

CAF ON MUMSNET

Types of people using MN
Reactions of people to ideas
How people interact
The possibility of making friends
Overcoming the fear of argument
Overcoming the fears of criticism
Listening to other people's ideas
Developing skill at interactions
Why MN is successful
How do we judge success of MN
Etc.

Everyone's CAF is different and rightly so. We then use some of the other tools on the items in the CAF. We always accept our child's CAF, or any other output from the other tools as his rightful thinking on the matter.

It will be very tempting to say that people already think like this. The fact is they don't, and use of the tools has shown to improve youngsters marks at school exams. Kids trained in thinking skills usually out-perform those not trained.

Yep, spider diagram

There is an interesting parallel between the newness of thinking skills and the newness of Christ's teaching. The parallel is how people react to ideas. The sneer was used at Christ's ideas. Who was he to have ideas of his own? Why listen? We are ok as we are.

We expect our children to listen but we sneer at ideas.

Thinking is the most important and fundamental human skill.

Speak for yourself.

Personally, I only expect my children to listen to safety instructions (for obvious reasons) and commands about their chores (for the harmony of our family). Other than that, they can totally think for themselves.

I think I see the problem. Considering all factors is something that women tend to be rather better at than men. I fear you may be preaching to the converted

In fact mumsnet itself is probably something like a CAF in itself: it is where we come when we want the benefit of others' perception and experience to help to ensure that we have indeed Considered All Factors with regard to a particular problem.

I'm really getting a sense what your "CAF on Mumsnet" is all about. What is it intended to achieve? (I understand that it is just an example, but I can't see what you are trying to illustrate.)

Sorry - that should read "I'm not really getting a sense etc"

ZD
Yes the CAF is a thinking tool. The output under the CAF is not intended to prove anything, but as you said just an example. Disciplined use of the CAF broadens perception on any subject. Try doing your own CAF, then you will get the sense of it. Thinking for the sake of it is a good idea to get the hang of something new. You could do a CAF on one of the following subjects. Do it for four minutes. Try to be comprehensive, then let's look at your output. Try doing a CAF for a full four minutes on one the following ideas:

1. All cars are painted yellow
2. Choosing a holiday
3. Buying a house
4. All seats are taken out of buses

Obviously it's like a game. You have to want to play the game to make it work. If you do not want to play the game, it won't work.

Using a tool is artificial and that is its great advantage since the artificiality is the essence of any tool. It will be awkward in the beginning to do a CAF on one of the above subjects. Just do a comprehensive list of all the factors involved.

The reason you don't have the sense of it is lack of practice! A tool is something to use, not something to discuss. And yes, women could be better at it than men, but don't make the mistake of thinking you can be skilled at a subject without practice!!

"The reason you don't have the sense of it is lack of practice! A tool is something to use, not something to discuss. And yes, women could be better at it than men, but don't make the mistake of thinking you can be skilled at a subject without practice!!"

Do us a favour. Truly, the reason I don't have a sense of it is because you haven't actually explained how it works.

For someone ostensibly concerned with independent thought, you are spending a lot of energy telling other people what to think.

mvemjsunp

Re: thinking in regard to classroom behaviour, hedonism etc., my belief is that better thinking would vastly improve any area of human life. The extent of the improvement would depend on the degree to which the thinkers were serious for beneficial change, and their skill at using thinking tools, especially the creative tools.

There are 60 tools in the CoRT toolbox, 20 of which we recommend to be taught as a minimum in schools. Basically we need to replace rigidity and complacency in schools, with creativity and a belief in the possibility system besides the right and wrong system we only have now.

ZD

Are you shy of doing a CAF now? You will discover how it works through practice!

The output will be your own ideas. I have given you a choice of topics but you can easily provide your own topic - now or later.

Rather than show off your thinking using old style argument and sneer, you could show off your thinking by doing an excellent CAF. If an optician gives you new glasses she is not telling you where to look. The CAF is only a tool. You use it on whatever thinking you like. Wise persons might use the proffered services of a volunteer coach.

You can always do your own independent research on Google. There is plenty of de Bono stuff on the web, and he has written 80 books. I have given you an example of how to do the CAF. Now it's up to you!

OK ZD

I'll spend a bit more time on "the how" of the CAF working! But trust me, no matter how well you understand how a car's engine works, it will not make you a good driver!

At the risk of being sneered at again, here goes:

Normal thinking is fast and jumps to conclusions. For historical reasons (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle's domination of Western thinking), the influence of the church, and the rise of argument by those for and against the church, our thinking has been neglected. It has been assumed that being educated is learning to think. Not so. Knowledge is not the same as thinking.

The CAF thinking tool broadens perception by slowing down thinking and directing attention. This allows the brain time to see a situation more broadly.

If you want the full details of how the brain, memory, lateral thinking, and perception works, you can get Edward de Bono's original book "The Mechanism of Mind" from Amazon.

The energy I've spent has been in response to your questions, which I've taken at face value.

Indeed Justabout.

Christ teachings were very complex and spoke to everyone who had ears to listen. I mention scripture about little children to show that everyone was valued not just those who were smart enough. Of course, the parables did cause people to do a double take. Those who had open ears and open hearts would quickly arrive at the teaching point.

Certainly, modern churchmanship does cause us to think. I am from an evangelical background, and even there, we are called to think about the meaning of scripture in the modern context. For more liberal churchmen, it is even more so.

I suppose what I am struggling with is the notion of thinking for thinking's sake within the context of religion, and just thinking with a view to understanding scripture, reason and tradition.

I know that during my years of being a SAHM, I loved my weekly bible studies because it both grew my faith and kept me sharp, although it was not the only thing. I still love bible studies, even though I have work to keep me sharp.

Hi JustAbout

Good luck with the C-section (ouch!)

The reference to the type of thinking employed 2,000 years ago was also to emphasise the time that has passed meanwhile, meaning that most things have improved in the last 2000 years except human thinking!

Leaving aside historical arguments, my job is to teach thinking skills. To do this, it is not necessary to have detailed knowledge of history, or even the brain itself. One does however, need training in thinking.

Lifetimes have already been spent writing great tomes on history. This is laudable but unnecessary for understanding new thinking.

I would never do justice to your knowledge of this part of history which I can see is impressive. How do we improve human thinking now for a better life for all? Dr Edward de Bono has spent his life answering the problems that the mistakes of history have handed down to us.

We do need to understand how perception works and then to take advantage of the great disadvantage of how intelligence normally uses the brains of educated people. If we do not slow down the self-organising patterning information processing system that the brain is, we are trapped by our own intelligence.

So basically the thinking tools I teach, devised by Edward de Bono are for forward-looking indviduals who are open-minded and wish for themselves and their kids better thinking leading to a life of quality rather than quantity, of creativity than rigidity.

Yes, just pandering to that big old misconception, which is quite disappointing in a thinker.

I feel sad to think that some children are not thinkers. I do not see that in my own children who cannot even contain their thoughts. I am one of these people who wakes up at 4 or 5am and can't get back to sleep because my mind goes into overdrive (but don't worry, OP, I draw spider diagrams in my mind in order to organise my thoughts, and my debit card stays firmly in my wallet.)

Christianity - the same today, yesterday, forever.

9 months

The skills have been taught to Nobel Prize Winners, whose initial understandable reaction was "I'm a Nobel Prize-winner. Do I need to learn to think?"

The more edificated we are, the more intelligent we are, the more we need to learn to think. Intelligent people are very often extremely bad and arrogant thinkers.

Thinking is in need across the board, from the backward to the gifted, from 4-year-olds to 90-year-olds and upward, from cloakroom attendants to professors, from housewives to chief executives. They all have the same reaction (except most children). How can something so simple be so powerful?

The fact that the tools are so easy to understand does not mean they will not be useful to us, at home, in our religion, and at work. They are easy to understand but not so easy to use. There is a learning curve. But education has taught us that all we need is argument and information.

Justa - good luck tomorrow x