Visualising de Bono

I first read Edward de Bono’s Mechanism of the Mind as a youngster, having spotted it on my mothers’ bookshelf. Some twenty years later, I completed his CoRT course at the then Cambridge Institute of Education under the tutelage of his formidable partner Francis Link.

I’ve seen de Bono in action, in his later years, sitting next to his beloved overhead projector in front of a huge audience of teachers. Seemingly oblivious of his audience, he proceeded to mumble and draw sketches on a roll of acetate constantly illustrating each of his ideas.

And while his books do provide some useful diagrams, his work for school students remains frustratingly short of visuals that help thinking. So at Model Learning, we’ve done something about it.

Because of the tight rein his company has over his ideas, we’ve changed all the names of his strategies. The one below we’ve called Consequence and Impact. It contains the same, and not very original, idea of imagining the future implications of current actions. Very appropriate for younger minds.

As you can see, it’s just a very simple flowchart. When pared down to their essentials, you’ll see that most of de Bono’s thinking strategies for students are rather simpler, and more obvious, than he makes out.

You can download a free Powerpoint document with several of these visualised, and alternatively titled, strategies from www.modellearning.com. Click on iDEAS for more free Powerpoint documents and posters.