EDWARD DE BONO'S MESSAGE
8th February 1999

CoRT Lessons for 5,100 children

Tomorrow I shall be talking to 5,100 children who will completely fill the Standard Bank sports arena in Johannesburg. The event is sponsored by the Standard Bank and set up by Susan Mackie and Lesley Bishop. Lesley Bishop runs SUPEDI, a foundation that teaches maths and science (and now thinking) in special Saturday schools. The children will be aged between six and ten years old. They will come from poor inner city schools and elite schools. There will be translations into both Xhosa and Zulu.

My experience with similar events last year in Christchurch, New Zealand, Melbourne and Sydney, showed that youngsters really enjoyed being taught 'thinking'. This event is twice as big as the others which were back to back events of half the number at each session.

The purpose of the event is to give some value to the children in terms of usable thinking tools but also to demonstrate to teachers, principals and education authorities that 'thinking' can indeed be taught. The event will be recorded and televised by the SABC.

Five hours of instruction in thinking can have more effect on most people's lives than ten years of traditional education. This is a bold claim. What it means is that where it is difficult or impossible to provide the ten years of education, it should be very much easier to provide five hours of instruction in thinking.

I shall be teaching five basic CoRT lessons. These have been shown, over and over again, to have a powerful impact on the lives both of children and adults. It is only the inertia and detachment of education authorities from the real world, that prevents these things being taught in all schools.

It is not often that an event of this size is held for children - and very rare for the event to be concerned solely and directly with education. The response from schools was immediate and positive. Some children will walk to the stadium, others will come in about 100 buses.

On this website there is a special area set up for teachers to exchange their experiences in the use of the CoRT material (email: edwdebono@msn.com subject: CoRT Initiative). A CD and video are also available.

Edward de Bono
South Africa
8th February 1999