Abstract
His vision was of nothing less global revolution. Born on a small island in the Mediterranean, his visions and ambitions have led to dynamic far-reaching changes. And he married a beautiful woman named Josephine.
Napoleon Bonaparte? Well, him too. I was thinking of Edward de Bono, a map-changer of another kind.
Dr. Edward de Bono is the leading international authority in the teaching of thinking and creativity. Born on Malta, he received his M.D. from the Royal University of Malta when he was 21 years old. He proceeded as a Rhodes Scholar to Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained an honours degree in psychology and physiology, and then a D. Phil. in medicine. He also holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge and has had faculty appointments with the universities of Oxford, London, Cambridge, and Harvard.
de bono is the originator of the concept of Lateral Thinking, which now has its own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. Lateral thinking is sideways thinking. It allows a thinker to cut across conventional patterns of logic and to come up with new concepts and ideas. Although de Bono's intellectual interests span everything from education to philosophy, his focus recently has been business and organizations. He has published 27 books which have been translated into 20 languages.
Prompted by his work, many countries have instituted thinking courses in schools. In Venezuela, for example, over 120,000 teachers have been trained in what is now the largest curriculum program in the world for the direct teaching of thinking. By law, every school-aged child in that country must do two hours of thinking per week throughout his or her primary education. The same program is being used today in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia. And the same methods being taught in the jungles of South America are being used in the board: rooms of major corporations and by the leaders of several countries.