MESSAGE FOR WEEK BEGINNING 5th March 2001

'wacky initiative'...

It is truly astonishing to find that there are senior people in education who regard the teaching of thinking skills as a "wacky initiative". In the Daily Telegraph (London) of March 1st. Chris Woodhead, who resigned as chief inspector of schools, is reported as saying that ...."teachers were bombarded with educational claptrap and wacky initiatives" such as the teaching of thinking skills. I do not believe that Mr Woodhead actually meant this for the words beyond the brackets were those of the writer.

It is also true that there are genuinely wacky programmes which do pretend to teach thinking skills.

Nevertheless, thinking is the most basic human skill. The quality of our future is going to depend on the quality of our thinking. There is no other way the future can develop unless it is to be an exact replication of the past.

You can analyse the past byt you have to designm the future.

Thinking skills should be the most important of all subjects taught in school. How truly astonishing it is that this is not yet the case!

Edward de Bono nmt
4th March 2001
Australia