CoRT 5 – INFORMATION & FEELING

In our work at the Cognitive Research Trust we have noticed what we call the "Everest effect" which occurs especially among gifted children. They are accustomed to being presented with complex and difficult problems and being asked to sort out a mass of information. They become good at this type of thinking. They cope with the complex task just as a climber copes with Mount Everest. But when the same students are given a simpler task in which they have to search for information rather than just react to it, they flounder. They have become skilled at sorting information but not at generating it. In real life much of our thinking is concerned with assessing the information given and trying to get more. At times we even have to guess. In most business situations it is very rare for more than thirty per cent of the required information to be given - and yet decisions have to be made.

The CoRT 5 Thinking Lessons are concerned with practical information: with eliciting information and with assessing it. Some of the lessons are concerned with making the student aware of different aspects of information. For example, the lesson on shooting questions and fishing questions clarifies the difference between these two types of questions and encourages the student to use each type deliberately in order to elicit information. The lesson on ready-mades illustrates the substitutes that are often offered in place of personal thinking.

The whole thrust of the CoRT lessons is toward the broadening of the cognitive map in any situation. Some lessons offer tools for exploring the map. Other lessons illustrate features that can then be recognised on the map. The purpose of clarifying and broadening the cognitive map is to enable thinkers to find their way more easily to their chosen destination - through making the destination more obvious and through showing alternative routes to it.

Ultimately, values and emotions strongly influence the outcome of our thinking. The purpose of thinking is to arrange the world in our mind so that we can apply values and emotions effectively. There is, however, a huge difference between applying values and emotions, instead of thinking, right at the beginning, and applying them at the end when thinking has clarified the cognitive map. Whether we like it or not, we apply our emotions to the results of our perception. If we apply our emotions almost immediately without doing any perceptual work (that is to say, thinking) then we apply our emotions to prejudices, clichés, and stereotypes. David Lane, Director of the Hungerford Guidance Centre in Hungerford, England, found that teaching CoRT Thinking Lessons to disturbed and violent children has a remarkable effect. Instead of responding with a violent cliché they acquired the habit of spending some time thinking about the situation. As a result their reaction was less impulsive and more objective.

There are those who feel that deliberate efforts to train thinking skills may destroy spontaneity of feeling. This has not been our experience. In any case there are some situations we need to feel about and others we need to think about. Spontaneity of emotions may be wonderful in the first type of situation but disastrous in the second type.

The CoRT Thinking Lessons are not designed to change value systems. If people with tunnel vision or limited eyesight are given eyeglasses they can see more broadly and more clearly . They then react appropriately to what they see (which is equivalent to the cognitive map). The glasses do not direct the people's gaze nor do they create values that are not there. The people wearing the glasses continue to use their original value system. The CoRT lessons are essentially concerned with the thinking involved in perception. If we can improve perceptual skills then we apply our value system to this broader view of the world. It is also useful if we are aware of the values that we use in any thinking situation; CoRT 5 also concerns itself with this awareness.

Edward de Bono

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Many years of experience with these materials have taught me that teachers will want to use these Teacher's Notes in two distinct ways. The first is as a guide to the specific lessons. The second is as an introduction to the subject of teaching thinking in general and also to the particular method used here. The teacher should if possible read the sections CoRT 5 Teaching Method and Standard Lesson Format before starting the lessons. However, once this background material has been read it becomes of less importance than the actual guidelines for running the individual lessons. It is for this reason that the background material follows the instructions for the lessons in this book.

As an additional aid to teaching the lessons, teachers are referred to the section A Model Lesson Sequence.