Semester 1, 2018:

Our first ever event kicked off with an address by Rose-Anne Reynolds, a part time UCT Lecturer at the School of Education and PhD candidate with more than 20 years of experience as a special needs educator. Rose-Anne spoke about creativity, lateral thinking and her PhD on teaching philosophy to children. Engaging and informative, Rose-Anne's central idea was twofold: Everyone needs creativity and all children are natural philosophers.

From here, we introduced the first of De Bono's thinking tools: The C&S - consequence and sequel. The idea is to establish a habit of investigating all of the potential side effects, good and bad, before making a decision. Some of the scenarios we applied this too were: "What if South Africa abolished all School exams" and "What if marriage were a renewable contract that expired every five years?".

...

This session was all about generating alternatives - alternative solutions, alternative explanations and alternative methods.

How many different ways can you think of to measure the total amount of fluid someone drinks per day?
For what reasons might your neighbour be burying a red sock into the ground?

The agenda for the meeting was adapted from the book: Edward De Bono's Thinking Course.

Linum Labs are a Cape Town based blockchain consultancy business who special in helping companies leverage the new opportunities created by blockchain technology. This talk gave an introduction into blockchain and explored its wide array of possible applications. We touched on smart contracts, smart grids, CryptoKitties and more.

Overall, it was the perfect introduction to this exciting new field. Many thanks to Carla, Devon and Florian for the inspiring talk!

... ...

In this meeting, we formally introduced the next of De Bono's thinking tools - the APC. It stands for Alternatives, Possibilities and Choices. After more exercises, we ended by introducing another tool called the PMI - Plus, Minus and Interesting.

Do a PMI on the following: At elections, everyone should have 2 votes. One to vote for the candidate of their choice and the other to cancel a vote for a candidate they dislike.

The agenda for the meeting was adapted from the book: Edward De Bono's Thinking Course.

The meeting began with a few more exercises using the PMI. The main bulk of the meeting however, was about Other People's Views, or the OPV. This tool is a way of concentrating one's attention on applying empathy and understanding. It promotes thoughtfulness and greater tolerance as the thinker first analyses the other side before reaching any conclusions.

Controversial statements were given and we asked the thinkers to work in teams to come up with reasons that support the side that they disagreed with. The aim was to use empathy and practice the skills of generating alternatives and teamwork.

The agenda for the meeting was adapted from the book: Edward De Bono's Thinking Course.

Why not sign up?

Join the Vula tab and get all the latest notifications about events and more.

Sign Up!
Did we mention it's free?