In this post I’m going to demonstrate the use of a lateral thinking technique invented be Edward de Bono he called, PO.
The word lateral means “to the side,” as in, a lateral pass in football. Lateral thinking is various technique for approaching problems “from the side” rather than directly.
This example was inspired by a conversation I had with a friend of mine who teaches junior high school in Taiwan. She was talking about how a gifted student was caught cheating, how that had angered his very competitive father, and how apparently other students in the same class also cheat. This incident may damage this promising student’s academic career and therefore his whole future, explained my friend. I asked what had been the response and how cheating was dealt with in general. She said students are given a kind of demerit on their record, and that an appeal to the morality of cheating is made. She asked what I thought.
Lateral thinking like design thinking looks for practical solutions to real problems. First I asked, what would the goals or parameters for a solution be. We identified that ideally the solution would learn something that would dissuade them from further cheating, that other students and stakeholders would see that they “got some consequence,” and that they would repeat the assignment under stricter conditions.
We discussed a few possibilities right away. Maybe the students could come in on a Saturday to redo the test. She thought the school administration and the teacher would find that inconvenient. Mostly my friend was concerned with the fact of how the student’s father had extreme expectations for his children’s academics. He would however reward good performance with cash and perks, a carrot and a stick.
I asked my friend whether there was an academic data about cheating in Taiwan. She wasn’t aware of any; she said generally schools cover it up to avoid sullying the school’s reputation and therefore future funding. I find that shocking but not surprising. It would be valuable information for an academic to uncover, but very difficult to get. There must be lower-hanging fruit for PhDs and doctoral students in Taiwan.
At that point no other ideas seemed obvious; that’s a good time for lateral thinking.
Lateral thinking would identify the problem, the students are cheating is A, and the current solution, threaten, punish, shame, and bribe them to be honest as B. The PO technique creates a third point C, which is “off to the side.”
How it works is that first the say, “PO.” That signals you are using a lateral thinking technique. Then you take an assumption in the situation, in this case “students shouldn’t cheat.” Then you change that into an untrue statement, the more absurd, the better. So that gives us, “PO, the students should in fact cheat.”
Then you brainstorm ways the statement might be true, or would might be possible if it were true, or what aspects of it being true might be useful to something that could be possible. All these are potential paths through the point C to get to the solution at point B. Going through C makes it “lateral.”
So let’s consider how “students should in fact cheat” might or is true.
1. To get rewards and to avoid punishments they should cheat.
2. It takes a lot of intelligence and courage to cheat successfully, so they are actually superior students.
3. They should cheat if the alternative of bringing shame onto their families is an even worse option.
…. Other ideas are possible.
After generating some potentially useful ideas, lateral thinking then moves to a harvest phase. In this phase you consider the ideas and identify useful aspect or details or questions arising from them.
The first idea, that cheating is pragmatic, leads to the obvious fact that cheating is an intrinsic part of a competitive system. Either you need to make it less competitive, or you need to control the environment better. Neither one of those would be very easy in this environment.
The second idea, that cheaters are very capable in their own way, is a very useful idea we’ll come back to in a minute.
The third idea, that there are family and social pressures that are part of the picture, is important. This fact should be part of a solution, as should the three solutions goals we identified earlier also be.
Looking at the idea “cheaters are capable people,” I was reminded of the movie “Catch Me If You Can,” starring DiCaprio and Hanks. Based on a true story, it follows the remarkable career of criminal mastermind, who luckily was not apparently violent or psychotic. He was so successful in his various forgery and fraud escapades he not only made fortunes, but also a name for himself. Eventually after serving some jail time, he found a well-paying niche as a security consultant.
Thinking how this might apply to junior high students, we can arrive at the following solution.
The core group of two or three students should, on their own time, research and write a report on cheating. Their report should a. Identify reasons why junior high students might cheat; b. Identify techniques and strategies students use for cheating, and c. Provide between three and 10 recommendations to address cheating by junior high students in Taiwan.
To motivate the students, their report would be published for example in one or more Taiwan newspapers.
This solution would have the following benefits.
It would be a huge learning experience for any students involved. It would potentially involve applying learning in research techniques; sociology and criminology; educational research; psychology; behavioral economics; school administration; and academic publishing
It would take a definite amount of the students’ own (free) time to complete
It would potentially provide a basis for a wider discussion of this problem.
On that last note, I think in fact cheating is more of “an issue” than an actual problem, where “an issue” is a problematic situation that doesn’t actually require a solution.
Ultimately cheating arises mostly from the environment. As noted by Demming, the famous quality control specialist who brought QC to Japan, which in turn made Japan a world leader in manufacturing,
That you can predict a lot of behavior by looking at rewards, punishments, and real motivations is self-evident. Any time rewards outweigh punishments, then people will misbehave.
Final note: This solution will never be implemented because the problem just isn’t that serious, and, no one is really that motivated to address the problem. Nonetheless, this exercise seems worth doing. Firstly, the solution is fun to imagine. Secondly this solution, although somewhat impractical, might still be worth sharing to stimulate some discussion which may in turn lead to some useful consequences. And finally, the solution in its unsuitability does perhaps show also that to truly address this problem probably something no nothing less than a significant shift in educational culture in Taiwa would be needed in Taiwan, and similar cultures. This in turn maybe confirms that the status quo is a little problematic but still lies within acceptable boundaries.
Epilogue:
1. As with most issues, in the absence of a kaizen/constant improvement culture, probably nothing will be done, beyond the status quo of providing carrots and sticks; and the best possible invigilation.
2. De Bono passed in 2021. His work isn’t very popular in academic circles. But I think this example shows that his techniques do indeed lead to out of the box ideas to address practical problems.