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Today, we discussed the concept of 'thinking' today -- specifically, if there were a universal, shared thinking method.  Something I find interesting, though, is drawing this concept back to metacognition: what happened if we TAUGHT thinking? I recently discovered Edward de Bono [click here for a fabulous article on his argument for teaching thinking.]

"Edward de Bono strongly believes that thinking is a skill and he calls the skill of thinking "operacy". He suggests that operacy should be included alongside literacy and numeracy as good thinking is essential for problem solving, decision making, constructive thinking, critical thinking and for coping with change, all of which are essential for survival and for success in today’s world. In this manner, a new gateway would be available for pupils who may not be good at literacy or numeracy but who may be good at operacy. It is important, he maintains, for operacy to be included in education, as he states:

In the real world there are people to deal with, decisions to be made, strategies to be designed and monitored, plans to be made and implemented. There is conflict, bargaining, negotiating and deal making. All this requires a great deal of thinking and a great deal of operacy. …

Operacy involves such aspects of thinking as: other peoples’ views, priorities, objectives, alternatives, consequences, decisions, conflict resolutions, creativity and many other aspects not normally covered in the type of thinking used for information analysis."