clipped from www.potentialforwork.com

Many of us have been brought up with inadequate ideas about what it means to think. Through years of formal education, we were taught to equate thinking with memory. We had to learn the answers from our teachers and use our memories to recall them for graded tests and examinations. There was always a right answer. Now, whenever we must think, we automatically start scanning our memories to see if we can find the right answer. If it isn’t there, we’re lost. True thinking only begins when you realize you don’t know the answer (or there isn’t one) and you have to use your powers of thinking to work out what to do anyway. That’s why the essential basis for all effective thinking is not knowing.