Off the Beaten Path: Edward de Bono's PO

Hall Houston, Taiwan

Hall Houston has many years of teaching experience at universities in Taiwan and Hong Kong. His first book, The Creative Classroom, was published in 2007 by Lynx Publishing , www.lynxpublishing.com. His second book, Provoking Thought, will be published in 2009. His professional interests include task-based teaching and learning, discourse analysis, group dynamics, creativity and critical thinking. E-mail: hallhouston@yahoo.com

A thought-provoking concept from the pen of Edward de Bono is called "PO". Simply stated, PO is a way of challenging ideas or stirring up new ones. de Bono gives two alternate etymologies for PO. One is that it is rooted in words such as poetry, hypothesis, suppose, and possible, all of which contain the two letters. Another explanation is that it's short for "Provocative Operation".

In his book, PO: Beyond Yes and No, de Bono states that a common thinking error is to quickly accept or reject ideas, then steadfastly insist on the correctness of that position. PO is meant to be an alternative way of exploring ideas, going beyond the Yes/No dichotomy to a place where can slowly consider all possibilities.

De Bono lists four functions of PO: the challenge function (to encourage new perspectives on an idea), the provocative function (to stimulate more ideas), the anti-arrogance function (to prevent dogmatic attitudes), and the overreaction function (to encourage calm rational discussion).

Hale-Evans (2006) suggests two everyday uses for PO. The first is to mutter PO to ourselves in frustrating situations, such as when the student in the back row of the classroom answers his cell phone for the seventh time in a row. Think PO and pause to consider your options before reacting. The second use is to say "PO" in the middle of a heated argument. The aim here is to get everyone to settle down and think of an answer you can all agree on, or just to get everyone to "agree to disagree".

Next are three provocative operations that can work quite well for stimulating thinking: PO-1, PO-2, and PO-3.

PO-1 involves using a bad idea as a springboard for good ideas. For example, asking the entire class to remember new words by tattooing them all over their bodies is probably a bad idea. However, it might trigger some useful ideas, such as a review activity where you draw the outline of a person on the board and asking students to "tattoo" new words on his arms.

PO-2 challenges us to juxtapose two unrelated ideas. For example, TV PO cabbage should conjure up some inventive combinations, such as a TV made up of edible cabbage leaves, or a cabbage channel, with programming devoted entirely to it.

PO-3 is a means of challenging an idea or just part of it. Take the statement "We begin every class with a dictation." You can take this statement and challenge various parts of it:

PO begin: why not end class with a dictation? or in the middle of class?
PO every: why not every other class? or every third class?
PO dictation: why not a song? or a role play?

You can use PO to help students discuss concepts in texts they read in class, or to work on ideas that come up in group work.

Resources

de Bono, Edward. (1972). PO: Beyond Yes and No. London: Penguin Books.

Hale-Evans, Ron. (2006). Mind Performance Hacks. Sebastapol, CA: O'Reilly.

Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.