VATICAN CITY: Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world’s largest religion, the Vatican newspaper said Sunday.

    “For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us,” Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.

He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world population — a stable percentage — while Muslims were at 19.2 percent.

Click through to International Herald Tribune for more …

How to escape?

This is the most difficult feat in thinking–how to escape from your CVS (Current View of the Situation).

SOT’s First Ten Lessons are designed to help you to ESCAPE with the help of the virtual SOT Escape Committee.

The SOT Escape Committee consists of myself and the following teachers:

- Leonardo Da Vinci
- Albert Einstein
- Elizabeth Spelke
- Douglas Adams
- Irshad Manji
- Maria Spiropulu
- Richard Hoggart
- Edward de Bono and
- Sir Ken Robinson.

Click through here to enrol and start your training today!

In a recent masterclass I was asked the following excellent question: “If you could only ever teach just one thing about ‘thinking’ what would it be?”

Based on my experience, I’m quite clear on that question and my answer was one word, “Escape!”

When I first put forward the idea of designing a selection of ‘thinking caps’ to teach thinking the idea behind the strategy was this: in order to use, say, Cap #2 the thinker first had to remove (or escape from) Cap#1.

This is one of the most difficult skills in thinking and is indeed what defines a skilled thinker: someone who can escape from their current point-of-view.

Escape! Escape! Escape!

I was once asked to teach a class at Brighton Grammar how to use the Thinking Hats so I selected two hats–the black and the green hats–and drilled the students in the skill of removing the black hat first. Once you are able to remove the hat you are wearing (usually the black hat) then you are free to select any of the other hats. But, if you cannot escape from your current hat then you are not free to use a different one.

The same idea lies behind the strategy of the Universal Brain Software–CVS to BVS. If you cannot escape from your CVS then you cannot move to a BVS.

Yes, thinking skill is all about ESCAPE.

I was discussing with Professor Marty Seligman, who is visiting Melbourne on a project with Geelong Grammar, the link between positive/creative thinking and altruism.

Professor Seligman’s research has shown there is a direct link. In other words, that positive, optimistic thinkers are more inclined to help others and be altruistic than pessimistic thinkers.

I suggested the parable of the Good Samaritan would be better called The Happy Samaritan. ‘Good’ is merely a judgement while ‘happy’ is an insight. Marty said, “Why don’t you write that up?”. So, I did.

Visit his site and take his Signature Strengths Test–it’s excellent.

Italian Catholic educator, Don Bosco of Turin, invented what is called the ‘Salesian” method of teaching boys, also known as ‘The Preventive System’.

Boys are notoriously difficult to teach during certain stages of their development. Eventually, they do get over it.

The Salesian Method is now the fastest growing teaching strategy in the Catholic world, now overtaking and displacing the Thomist method, which has dominated Western Thinking for 500 years. The Salesian Method exploits positive thinking.

The Thomist Strategy exploits negative thinking and was introduced into Western European thinking by Thomas Aquinas. Both strategies are useful in their own way.

Don Bosco names his positive thinking method after Francis de Sales who is famous for promoting the optimistic view. He said, “You can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than a barrelfull of vinegar”.

The Right/Wrong Thomist strategy, derived from the Greeks, promotes judgmental two-box thinking–’this is right and that is wrong’–and was one of Europe’s greatest exports. It was spread around the world with missionary zeal and introduced into Australia 200 years ago by European settlers.

Even today, in public and private schools, Australian children are still encouraged to ‘get the right answer’ and ‘avoid the wrong answer’. This strategy tends to produce slow judgmental thinkers who spend much of their intellectual resources arguing “I’m right and you’re wrong” instead of using design thinking to see what is possible. Parliament’s use of the Westminster system is an obvious relic of this two-box thinking strategy, also called ‘Black Hat Thinking‘.

Many Australian schools are now balancing Thomist thinking with other modes of thinking. VELS Thinking in Victoria is an escape from the traditional approach to teaching thinking in Australian schools.

Meanwhile, the success of the Salesians is an example of how the Catholics are evolving an escape from 500 years of Thomist doctrine.

For more on the Salesians go to Wikipedia …

Consequences can be very difficult to forsee. Some conseqences are beneficial, some are detrimental. But, they ARE coming! We cannot escape the consequences.

Even experienced executives, scientists and statespeople have difficulty is seeing past the short term consequences of their decisions.

Especially when teaching children to think, who have no long term perspective, it is very difficult to teach them to consider the 5, 10, 15 and 20 year consequences of their thinking, decisions and actions.

Are you aware of the Law of Unintended Consequences?

Wikipedia says, “Unintended consequences are situations where an action results in an outcome that is not (or not only) what is intended. The unintended results may be foreseen or unforeseen, but they should be the logical or likely results of the action. For example, it is often conjectured that if the Treaty of Versailles had not imposed such harsh conditions on Germany, World War II would not have occurred. As such, war was an unintended consequence of the Treaty of Versailles … “

Go to Wikipedia for more on this topic …

A School of Thinking member sent in this link to some of the most amazing NASA images I’ve seen.

Well worth taking a look … click through here.

I’ve been invited to introduce X10 THINKING and NEWSELL into China by ClarkMorgan, China’s largest training organisation for Chinese corporations and their knowledge-workers.

This first lecture tour–in the CHINA XI0 series–will begin in April 2008.

• Shanghai - April, Friday 25th and also Tuesday 29th April @ Le Royal Meridian, Shanghai
• Beijing - April, Monday 28th @ Swissotel, Beijing.

This training program will be a full day business strategy masterclass entitled: “X10 THINKING: How To Multiply Your Business By Ten”. If you would like to be considered for participation in any of these masterclasses the fee is: 4500 RMB.

The Morning: Speed of Thought
• Session One: X10 Software for Your Brain
• Session Two: How To Become a Much Faster Thinker
The Afternoon: Speed of Business
• Session Three: Newsell: Accelerate the Growth of Your Business
• Session Four: WOMBAT Selling: How To Sell By Word of Mouth.

Those who complete the masterclass will receive a Certificate from the School of Thinking.

•••For bookings and further information•••

In China Freecall 800 820 5501

NOTE: SOT Members will receive VIP treatment.

Facts:
1 • Your brain weighs about 3 pounds (1,300-1,400 g).

2 • Your brain has about 100,000,000,000 (100 billion) neurons.

3 • The total surface area of your cerebral cortex is about 2500 sq. cm

4 • Unconsciousness will occur after 8-10 seconds after loss of blood supply to your brain.

5 • Neurons multiply at a rate 250,000 neurons/minute during early pregnancy.

6 • You have 12 pairs of cranial nerves.

7 • You have 31 pairs of spinal nerves.

8 • There are about 13,500,000 neurons in your spinal cord.

9 • You can hear in the range of 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz.

10 • There are 1,000 to 10,000 synapses for your “typical” neuron.