Presentation of Edward de Bono's 6 Hats

1. Lateral Thinking
Thinking
outside the Box!

2. Lateral Thinking
• Lateral thinking is a term coined by Edward
de Bono, a Maltese psychologist, physician,
and writer
• de Bono defines Lateral Thinking as methods
of thinking concerned with changing concepts
and perception.

3. Edward De Bono
Six Thinking Hats
An aid to creative thinking

4. Can You Solve this Puzzle?

5. Can You Solve this Puzzle?

6. Challenge
You have 60 seconds to think of as many uses as you can
for wire coat hangers

10. On average, 6 year old children
come up with 25 uses
of the coat hanger.

11. Is our our ability to think
creatively at risk of being lost?
• In most cases pre-school children explore their world through
imagination and investigation and exercise ‘possibility
thinking’(the engagement of everyday problems at a deep level).
• As children become older, the prescriptive world of formal
education pushes children through a series of educational narrow
gates reduces their capacity to exercise ‘possibility thinking.’

12. What are the characteristics
of creative thinking?
Creative thinking is characterised by:
• Imagination
• Open-mindedness
• A willingness to explore unexpected routes

13. How can we recognise
creative thinking?
When pupils are thinking and behaving
creatively in the classroom, you are likely to see them:
• Questioning and challenging
• Making connections and seeing relationships.
• Envisaging what might be
• Exploring ideas, keeping options open
• Reflecting critically on ideas, actions and outcomes.

14. Thinking in hats
(Edward de Bono)
To aid creative thinking Edward de Bono came up
with six notional hats that can be put on and taken off easily.
• The hats are designed to indicate a role or mode of thinking.
• It is based on the principle of parallel thinking.
Adversarial Thinking
Parallel Thinking
a b
a
b

15. The Red Hat
• What do you feel
about the suggestion?
• What are your gut
reactions?
• What intuitions do you
have?
• Don’t think too long
or too hard.

16. The White Hat
• The information
seeking hat.
• What are the facts?
• What information is
available? What is
relevant?
• When wearing the
white hat we are
neutral in our thinking.

17. The Yellow Hat
• The sunshine hat.
• It is positive and
constructive.
• It is about
effectiveness and
getting a job done.
• What are the benefits,
the advantages?

18. The Black Hat
• The cautious hat.
• In black hat the
thinker points out
errors or pit-falls.
• What are the risks or
dangers involved?
• Identifies difficulties
and problems.

19. • This is the creative
mode of thinking.
• Green represents
growth and
movement.
• In green hat we look
to new ideas and
solutions.
• Lateral thinking wears
a green hat.
The Green Hat

20. • The control hat,
organising thinking
itself.
• Sets the focus, calls
for the use of other
hats.
• Monitors and reflects
on the thinking
processes used.
• Blue is for planning.
The Blue Hat

21. Six Thinking Hats
Intuitive
Informative
Constructive
Cautious
CreativeReflective

22. Red hat thinking
Your task
- say how you feel
about the painting
opposite.

23. Black hat thinking
Your task
- discuss the following
using black hat
thinking.
What if the school
week was only 4 days
and the weekend was
3 days long?

24. Green hat Thinking
Your 2 minute task
A man is walking down a
busy street with a brown
paper bag over his head.
Put on your green hat to
suggest possible reasons
why he might be doing
this. Try to come up with
at least 5 possibilities.

25. Activity 1
Use the six hat thinking strategy
to write a character profile of ...
(Snow White, Robin Hood, Brad Pitt,
Garfield, Lady Gaga...)