A fat man and a thin man are running against each other. It is not a formal race -perhaps they are running after the girls. The thin man always wins.

There are at least three board approaches to the above situation.

First of all there is the 'classification' approach. We look at the situation to see how we can apply our repertoire of standard boxes, categories and classifications. This is classic Aristotelian thinking.

We tell the fat man that he falls into the 'fat man' category. Fat mean do not run fast. Fat men shouldn't expect to run fast. Fat man behaviour is predictable and running slowly is just such predictable behaviour. We might even go further and suggest that being fat was programmed into his genes and there is nothing much that can be done about it. For very practical reasons this approach is much used by psychologists and psychiatrists. This is the diagnosis. There then follows the expectations and the treatment.

The second approach is the 'analysis'. We look at the situation and seek to analyse it. What is happening? Why is it happening? What is the explanation? We seek to understand what is going on. We seek 'the truth'. Once we understand what is going on then we can do something about it. In particular, if there is something wrong we then seek to put it right. This is problem solving.

So we analyse the performance of the fat man. He runs slowly. Why? What is the reason? It is probably because he is fat. Previous experience with fat man, and also the laws of physics, suggest that fat men do not run fast.

We move on to the next stage of the analysis. Why is the fat man fat? A strong possibility is that the fat man eats more than his body needs and the excess is laid down as fat. It may not be that he eats more than other people, but his metabolism puts down more fat than other metabolisms. Now we think we know the cause of the fatness. So what do we do about it? We move on to the remedy. We put the fat man on a strict diet.

We have analysed the situation. We have found the fault. We have taken measures to correct the fault. This must be good science.

We now come to the third approach - which is very rarely used. This is the 'design' approach.

In the 'design' approach we simply put the fat man on a bicycle. He will not, instantly, outperform the thin man.

In the design approach we set out to 'design a way forward'. We are not so much concerned with finding the faults and correcting them but with the providing a way forward even if the faults remain in place.

We can now examine each of these three approaches in more detail - and then show how the design approach can be applied to the direct teaching of thinking as a skill.

Judgment And Design
The Classification Approach
The GG3
The Analysis Approach
The Design Approach
Perception
Teaching Creativity
Argument
Summary