Six Hat Thinking

A parallel thinking strategy enabling children to see all sides of an

argument, problem or proposal.

Six Hat Thinking

Preliminary :

The following information comes from the work of Edward De Bono. Six Hat Thinking is a technique of parallel-themed thinking about a given area or topic (de Bono also calls this Parallel Thinking). PMI, mentioned at the end, is part of de Bono's CoRT (cognitive research) programme.

More resources can be found by 'googling' eg.: cort de bono or six hat debono, or looking on Wikipedia or websites mindtools or debonogroup or de Bono's own site edwdebono.com.

Six Hat Thinking

White Hat Thinking : Facts and Information Available (and Needed)

•What information do we have?

•What other facts do we know?

•What information would we like to have?

•What else do we need to know?

•What information is missing?

•How do we get the information we need?

Six Hat Thinking

Yellow Hat Thinking : Benefits and Feasibility

•What are the good points?

•What are the benefits?

•What are the values?

•What are the reasons why this idea will work?

•Is there a concept in this idea that looks attractive?

Six Hat Thinking

Black Hat Thinking : Problems, Difficulties and Reasons for Caution

•What is wrong with this?

•What could be the possible problems?

•What could some of the difficulties be?

•What are the points for caution?

•What are the weaknesses in this idea?

Six Hat Thinking

Green Hat Thinking : Alternatives and Creative Ideas

We need further alternatives! We need to make a creative effort!

•Are there other ways to do this?

•What else could we do here?

•How else might we carry through this concept?

•What are the possibilities?

•What will overcome our difficulties?

Six Hat Thinking

Red Hat Thinking : Feelings and Hunches

•How do we feel?

•Which idea do I like best?

•What do I feel about this idea?

(Remember - feelings and intuition are important, and you don’t need to give a reason for your feelings)

Six Hat Thinking

Blue Hat Thinking : Organising and Managing the Thinking

•What are we thinking about?

•What is the next step?

•What thinking has been done?

•What have we achieved?

•What are we trying to do?

•What do we want?

•Where are we now?

Six Hat Thinking – Staff Activity

WHITE HAT : What do we know about this already?

YELLOW HAT : What are the positive aspects of this? Why is this a good idea?

BLACK HAT : What are the negative aspects of this? Why is this a bad idea?

‘It has been suggested that Christmas 2005 be moved from December 25th to June 25th. Do you think this is a good idea or not?’

Six Hat Thinking – Children’s Responses

• December 25th is Jesus’ birthday and Christmas is a religious celebration of this event; moving it would cause offence to many people and could cause conflict.

• Christmas would be in the summer so people’s fairy lights and decorations wouldn’t show up very well.

• People would have barbecues instead of traditionally cooked dinners, which would increase the risk of fires, injury and cause more air pollution.

• The added numbers of road users would mean even more pollution and could cause the number of road traffic accidents to increase. Also, with more people using the road, supermarket and shop deliveries would be delayed.

• Many Christmas cards depict snowy scenes. These would have to be changed which would cost money, so Christmas card prices would rise.

Six Hat Thinking – Children’s Responses

• No-one really knows when Jesus was born, so moving Christmas shouldn’t be a problem.

• Having Christmas in the summer would mean you wouldn’t want so many lights, which would save electricity, pollution and money, and would decrease the number of injuries caused by electrocution and falling from roofs.

• Many people use the roads at Christmas time, which means more accidents. If Christmas was during the summer time, lighter evenings would reduce this problem.

• Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties are expensive. If you moved Christmas, you could shift some of the expense to later in the year, which would help people.

• Splitting Christmas and New Year would also mean that Christmas cards wouldn’t have to say, ‘ Happy New Year’ too, which would save card manufacturers money and make cards cheaper.

Six Hat Thinking – Further Suggestions…

• All cars should be white…

• Door handles should be made of chocolate…

• School should start at 8.30am and finish at 1.00 pm…

• There should be 6 school terms instead of 3…

• Drugs should be made legal…

An Alternative – p. m . i.

This is an alternative thinking strategy to Six Hat Thinking and might be more suitable for younger children.

P – What are the Plus/positive points of a proposal? M – What are the Minus/negative points of a proposal? I – What are the Interesting points of a proposal?

Review of Session Aims

•To improve staff awareness of the need to teach cognitive and metacognitive skills to children…

•To provide some initial tools and strategies to help address this need…

•To develop staff confidence in the use of these tools and strategies…