Give them cake, and Photography!

Today, I am being provocative but not to an outrageous degree. The de Bono Thinker values provocation as a key element in the skill of lateral thinking. It is a gentle if persistent operation.

Provocation as a thinking process, when used with care, encourages movement in a different direction, sometimes, on a different path. That is where the lateral element enters the fray.

Here is my provocation with apologies to Marie Antoinette, and, to a degree, Herrmann International whom I thank for the opportunity to publish my graphic summarising their ethos:

Whole Brain Learning, as described by Ned Herrmann, the originator of the thesis, is the most desirable sort of learning. It is the most desirable sort of learning because all the potentialities of the brain are used. For those of us bored with teachers who describe themselves and others as ‘left brainers’ or ‘right brainers’, the Herrmann concept goes desirable steps further.

For those readers who no little or nothing about the work of Ned Herrmann, I designed this graphic in 2010 when I was actively promoting his ideas to the de Bono Thinking community. 

A Quick Summary to Sustain Thinking Momentum

1. Herrmann proposed the brain has four quadrants, A, B, C and D.
2. The orientation of each quadrant is described in the graphic. If you choose to click on the graphic, Google will enlarge it.
3. The graphic describes each quadrant in a word - centre - and in an adjectival group along the sides.
4. Herrmann taught that each of us has a quadrant ‘preference’ or two. It is relatively rare for us to have equal preference to use each quadrant consistently and collectively.
5. Herrmann suggests ‘learning’ should encourage use of each of the four quadrants. This is his thesis about brain potentiality - the potential for better thinking, broader perceptions, a greater variety of ideas, of outcomes. The de Bono Thinker should, at this point, be feeling vibrations of empathy.

I am surprised and I hope, well-informed when I speculate - I don’t have any figures to satisfy A Quadrant types - that the Herrmann model is one hundred percent orientated towards business and business training. Education is not part of the Herrmann ‘equation’. It should be.

It should be for two reasons:

1. As a commercial organisation, Herrmann could enlarge their ‘earnings potential’.
2. In the education sector, application of the Herrmann ‘instrument’ the questionnaire delivered to clients by certified practitioners only, to determine ‘quadrant preference’ amongst other important things, has huge potential.

For example, here are two:

1. Teachers, internationally, have been encouraged, if not convinced, to undertake ‘pre-testing’ to determine where each student is ‘at’ in terms of abilities and inclinations. There is a certain skill in designing a ‘pre-test’. Most teachers, in my experience, lack that skill.
2. If and when - I believe Herrmann in Schools is inevitable - the ‘instrument’ is used to determine the quadrant preference(s) of students, then teachers can better plan their teaching.
3. Of course, the Herrmann instrument has great value for teachers as well, for Faculty Leaders and for school administrators: What are the preferences of my team and how can I/we broaden perceptions? How open minded and creative are our A Quadrant Mathematicians? … and so on.

I invite you to think about people who live or work with, interact with in any arena, who typify any of the quadrant thinking styles. And, I hasten to add, thinking styles in the Herrmann context, can apply to groups and even cultures. I have been asked, by Lithuanian sceptics: *What proof do you have that de Bono Thinking works? There is statistical ‘proof’ of a sort - Professor John Edwards has it - but it is not the sort of ‘proof’’ Sovietic thinkers continue to demand.

Perceptive readers may have gathered I have a mild interest in photography. During a conversation with friends recently, we talked about the nature of photography and its ability as a practical art to satisfy of each of the Herrmann quadrants. Doubtless there are others but ‘taking and making photographs’ was the topic of the moment.

Here is an example of what I mean:

1. The photograph in the graphic at the head of the page is a portion of a much larger view of a building facade in Riga, Latvia. I noticed the woman’s head only when post-processing the view.
2. By deciding to process the photograph in monochrome, I met some of the adjectives in Herrmann’s A Quadrant - What did I want to achieve? Black and White photography has a specific impact on an audience. That ‘colour’ gives emphasis to the subject matter. There is a strong possibility - logical prediction - others viewing this photograph will feel similarly.
3. The ‘way’ to design a monochrome photograph required all the features described as B Quadrant Thinking - organised, sequential and so on.
4. The D Quadrant elements were also satisfied - How much of the original should I crop out? What am I attempting to show to the viewing audience - The B&W Photography Community on Google+? What filters can be used to achieve the outcome I think I want?
5. C Quadrant - The love of the sun in a cold country with a long winter; the elderly woman in the somewhat older building; the textures of bricks, steel roof, even curlers in the hair…

I began by suggesting this post is provocative. Here is another provocation:

What can teachers do, what can you do, in your school, or your business, what can you design that exploits the brain potential Herrmann teaching promotes?

OK, I know that Photography is a subject for senior students in some schools - in New Zealand, it is one of the NCEA subjects. But Photography is not in the ‘curriculum core’ alongside Physical Education, Mathematics, Social Science…

Why not!

My Four brain Quadrant Focus was the design and application of simulation games. They certainly required use of the Whole Brain…

What can you do?

All Power to the Middle Manager

When an Inspector of Schools, our team discussed innovation in schools and the process of diffusion.

'Diffusion' describes the way new ideas spread between teachers. Diffusion can involve a small group of motivated individuals, a subject/faculty area, a whole school or a national education 'community'. For example, in New Zealand, in 2010, the national curriculum introduced the 'key competency' concept. The diffusion of that concept continues.

One of the national key competencies is Thinking. I am asked to answer these sorts of inquiries:

1. What is the difference between new thinking and the well-tested and successful traditional styles?
2. How do I teach Thinking, as a skill, directly?
3. Is it possible New Zealand curriculum planners have simply restated what we have been doing all along?
4. Why should we change what we have been doing well for decades?

Coming to terms with the intent of the key competency, Thinking, and the ways Thinking can be implemented, integrated into daily planning, is part of the on-going diffusion process.

Another of the questions we asked during these weekly discussions with the team was:

Who in schools drives change?

The assumption was, and remains, that education must change and that change is currently too slow - schools are either falling behind being supplemented by e-learning or are struggling to 'keep up' with demands from every direction.

Almost unanimously, our team decided the group driving change in schools were the Middle Managers, the Heads of Department, the Faculty Leaders, those with leadership responsibility for a teaching team, a subject or group of subjects.

With a few exceptions, Principals/Directors/Rectors are not the primary change initiators. They are either too busy or committed to maintaining the status quo. Some commentators suggest this is one of the criteria for Principal appointment - reliability and showing no tendency to cause problems by 'rocking the boat'. Change 'rocks the boat'. Their role is to take what 'is' and try to make it better.

Teachers in general, 'the staff' see their role as 'doing their job'. That means, taking the curriculum as it is and transmitting it to their students. Change happens but is a nuisance, initiated by someone else.

The Middle Manager has a unique role:

1. A senior, often 'master teacher' who has demonstrated specific leadership skills including 'leading by example', financial responsibility and sophisticated subject knowledge.
2. Most middle managers are negotiators, members of a team of fellow middle managers who plan and discuss management issues affecting them and their team. This includes recommendations for change.
3. Quality middle managers have a global view - their focus is on the academic welfare of the school. That focus presupposes they read about 'trends' and have access to quality information about what innovative school/teachers are doing.
4. They have 'the ear' of the Principal/Director and the school accountant.
5. They are professional, to various degrees, knowing what is possible, when, who should be involved, how much change will cost and how change should be measured.

I have some recommendations about the status of Middle Managers:

1. Very unfortunately, tragically, too many competent Middle Managers 'gravitate' downwards to assume roles as Principals. This is a loss to the drivers of change in any school community.
2. Many Middle Managers value their potential to initiate and manage change, something best done from their position within the management 'hierarchy'. As a Middle Manager, much of their job satisfaction is derived from designing and managing change.
3. Many Middle Managers, but certainly not all, are 'master teachers', leaders in their field. In order to keep them in the classroom, they should be paid, at the top of the salary scale, no less than five percent of a Principal's salary.

Of course, this recommendation would bruise the ego of most Principals. The question is:

What is necessary to reinvigorate our education system, increasingly under threat by 'outside-school' e-learning/distance-learning/ open-learning agencies?

Beware the facade...

The Young Pioneers House, in Kaunas, Lithuania, is a beautiful building with two personalties. In Soviet times, its name described its function, organizing the ideology and life of the red-scarfed 'Young Pioneers'.

Today, the building has a different educational function. When looking for my photographic 'angle', I noted it has a 'facade', a street-facing, plastered and painted 'face', and a raw brick 'remainder.

When Abraham Maslow described the need for balance between personal growth and personal safety, he described the process - learning to grow is a process - in the following ways:

1. Focus on making 'growth factors' - new methodologies, new knowledge, new planning - more attractive and less unattractive.
2. Reduce the fear of growth.
3. Minimise those factors that make 'safety' more attractive.
4. Learn to establish a balance orientated towards growth rather than safety.

I emphasise the need for teachers to 'see' de Bono Thinking as having strong potential for their personal growth - enhanced ability to listen to the perceptions of others; a desire to learn from others; an ability to take that new learning and 'move' with it.

Without doubt, change can challenge safety. It is much easier to retain the status quo than to bend the status quo. It is much easier to find reasons why the status quo is 'adequate', 'satisfactory', even 'excellent', and reject or 'put on the back burner' any inclination to regard change as your modus operandi.

If I analyse the fear of growth, in the education arena, it renders down to these sorts of perceptions:

1. Why bother? More work will be required for no increase in pay! (The 'pay-me-for-anything-I-do-extra' Syndrome.)
2. Change costs. Someone suggests I buy Adobe InDesign to produce high quality students resources. Have you seen what InDesign costs? (The let-the-government, school board pay' Syndrome.)
3. I am in this 'game' to get kids qualified for exam success and work. Currently, my pass rate is above the national average. Why should I even think about change? (The I-live-in-the-Palaeozoic-and-am-loving-it Syndrome.)
4. I don't want to 'rock the boat'. The boss is opposed to change. It make life difficult for her. I want to keep on her good side… and so on. (The-Boss-protects-me-from-people like-you Syndrome.)

All of us needs to find the balance between personal growth and personal safety. But, we know that growth is desirable and necessary. Teachers know they should be at least considering new skills and techniques, new resources, new software… That knowledge my be innate.

When a leader 'knows' his/her team, he knows each individual's positive and negative points. More important, she focuses on the good. Exactly the same value needs to be applied when considering movement involving the training of thinking skills, de Bono style, by giving the method deliberate attention.

Think about the implications and your pace in the process. Howard Gardner exhorts us to find new ways to learn and to think.

What are you doing, for your personal benefit, your personal growth, first?

This is not movement!

Yesterday, Dr Edward de Bono celebrated his eightieth birthday, an achievement in every way. 

My celebration of the happy event is to comment about the foundational de Bono concept of movement.

When he coined the term, 'operacy', Dr de Bono generated a value for de Bono Thinkers, and others, who value movement, forward.

When I photographed the windmill spinning in the breeze at Vytauto Parkas, formerly a Soviet playground for children in Kaunas, I decided it represented what many regard as movement, effective movement, action…

In the de Bono Thinking 'sense', movement is not the sort of movement exemplified by the windmill, spinning, sometimes furiously, blown by winds of different strengths, but staying in one place.

For example, in the education sector, these are examples of 'windmill movement':

1. Those who claim that, by reading 'the literature, the latest research, they are 'moving'. They are not moving.
2. Those curriculum planners who refurbish the old in an attempts to disguise it as new: They are not moving.
3. The subject specialists who focus on examination pass rates, on 'teaching better to achieve excellence' but continue transmitting the old and often irrelevant: That is not movement.
4. The teacher who is the 'talker', the persuasive, often eloquent communicator who believes intelligent talk is enough: That is not movement.

In Edward de Bono's words, operacy is defined as the skill of movement. His assumption, that movement forward is a skill, a skill that can be learned, is fundamental for the de Bono Thinker. 

Dr de Bono's methods have a number of explicit principles that are connected to the operacy concept:

1. The principle of searching for alternatives, as a habit, even when there may be no immediate need for alternatives.
2. The principle of decision-making, having the skill, abilities and courage to make a decision, to decide on movement forward.
3. The principle of objective-design. By designing objectives that focus on action, we are also designing a way forward.
4. The principle of classification and prioritising of ideas by their 'movement value'; this could work, this may need more thinking…
5. The principle of effective thinking. In the de Bono Thinking context, this is action thinking.

Effective movement in education, or business, requires skill, determination and above all courage.

First Step: Learn to 'sail' yourself

I have said, more than once, the most pornographic publication available to the public is the annual publication of 'League Tables'.

For those who are unaware of these lists, League Tables rank schools on the basis of national examination pass rates. So, the school at the top of the League Table has the highest rate of 'success' and the school at the bottom of the list, the 'lowest'.

There are a number of reasons why I find league Tables an obscenity:

1. 'Schooling' is about 'success' in examinations based on subject information which is substantially irrelevant and out-dated. The hegemony of Mathematics and Science - Physics, Chemistry, Biology… holds a dominating position in the curriculum, at the expense of the Arts and Humanities. Some describe the former as 'hard' - also read 'essential' - the latter, 'soft' - also read 'of transient interest.
2. Parents are hoodwinked by League Table results to send their children to 'top-performing schools' when, in reality, those schools may not suit the needs of the child.Some schools in their annual Prospectus publish graphs of their examination success, in comparison with national averages.
3. The existence and continuing prominence of League Table is politically-driven. How many time have you read statements from politicians bemoaning the progress made in Asian schools and the stagnation in European schools? How may times have you read politicians saying something of this sort: The only way to compete with countries like South Korean and China is to teach the curriculum better; increase the length of the school day and reduce teacher holidays? How many times have you heard politicians ask for 'disruptive' curriculum change: Why is Geography in the curriculum? Do we actually need Classical Studies? Should boys be forced to read novels - are there netter alternatives to suit their interests and needs…
4. The majority of teachers firmly believe their role is to teach the curriculum well in order to achieve three outcomes; that students will be sufficiently skilled to find work and second, that graduating students will be effective contributors to the socio-economic welfare of the country.
5. The third outcome is to massage the ego; teacher ego and Principal(s) ego:
   My school success rate was eighteen percent above the national average.
   My student average in English was twenty two percent above the national average. Therefore I am a good teacher…

There are many interacting factors to explain this tragedy including the quality of trainees selected for teacher-training, psychology, culture and leadership.

Dr Abraham Maslow sums up the issues when he suggests there are only some who have the motivations to 'grow'. In the teaching context, these people ask simple questions:

1. How can I do my job better?
2. What training or skills do I need to do my job better?
3. What training or skills do I need for myself, to initiate or continue my personal growth?
4. What can I do, as a teacher, in the broadest sense, to satisfy the entitlement of students to quality education?

When trained in de Bono Thinking, the first priority is to apply the skills to improve your own thinking:

1. How and in what circumstances there is value in using dBT tools interactively, for a purpose?
2. Evaluating how these skills can be personally transforming:
   I now actually listen to what people say.
   I can accept others have different perceptions to mine.
   I can learn from these new perceptions.
   I used this combination of Hats and CoRT tools with a similar issue last month.
   Progressively, I getting more things done in a shorter time.
   I now firmly believe there are few problems I can't confront - I can find workable solutions. I have the tools to do that.

In every way, teacher experiences with de Bono Thinking is about learning to 'sail' on your own, to undertake a journey that generates pleasure, most of the time, even in 'rough weather' - colleague jealousies, lack of support from administration, money issues, parental confusion… I also use the allusion of 'flying':
The aircraft accelerates along the runway until takeoff. Once airborne, it accelerates more quickly, broadening the view, inviting movement in any direction.

Please don't tell me, when you review your dBT work with your students: Their training in dBT has improved their subject success in examinations.

That common, predictable declaration, is not what de Bono Thinking is all about.