Before you begin,
meet your tools.
You will explore the situation below through De Bono's six thinking hats. Each hat asks you to think in a different way. Together they will take you somewhere you could not reach alone. Here is what each hat does.
You will receive a full set of these cards to keep when you finish. They are yours to use in any classroom, staffroom, or conversation.
can look like.
As learners grow, success criteria become more open and abstract, inviting them to choose how they want to learn rather than simply what to produce. Lu regularly uses tools like these to help her learners take ownership of their own experiences.
prior knowledge.
You already know Head, Heart, and Hands. You have used it as a lens for understanding how we learn. Now watch what happens when you bring it into contact with something unfamiliar, the six thinking hats.
We will use six questions to move through Head, Heart, and Hands. We will focus on feeling the situation first, thinking it through honestly, then deciding what to do with what we know. This sequence is not accidental. It is the same process we want learners to experience every time they meet something new, whether in a classroom, at home, or in the world beyond.
This is what transfer looks like. A framework you trust, applied somewhere it has never been before.
How will you capture your thinking?
When we model learning, we allow our learners to demonstrate agency while still scaffolding the process, so those who are not quite ready have the support they need to be independent. If this sounds like you, here are some ways others have captured their thinking. They are not the only tools, but they get your thinking started. If you already have a tool or process in mind, have fun with it. I cannot wait to see what you post on the Padlet.
No need to commit. This is your process.
Read this.
Let it land.
This is a real situation. You may have lived inside it. You may be living inside it now.
Everything was prepared.
The steps were clear. The outcome was defined. The materials were ready. There was a logical, sensible path from where they started to where they were supposed to end up.
Then something happened that was not in the plan.
A question. A reaction. A moment of genuine human need that the plan had no room for.
The person had a choice. Follow the plan. Or follow what was actually happening in front of them.
They chose the person.
It was the most important thing they did all day.
You have the tools.
Now try them.
You have done the thinking. Now it is time to try it on your own.
This is exactly what we do with our learners. We set up the conditions. We show them the tools. Then we step back and let them find their own way through.
You do not have to answer all six questions, because they are a choice menu. Put together the Head, Heart, and Hands combination that makes sense to you right now. Under each big question, there are smaller questions to choose from. Pick one or two that you want to answer. We scaffold choice so learners have multiple ways to approach the same task.
Try. Adjust. Try again. This is not failure. This is the process of mistake-making for understanding. It is exactly what we want our learners to do.
When you finish, you will have something entirely your own. A differentiated product that speaks to who you are, ready to share with the community.
Head
Thinking it through
This hat helps us focus on what is actually true, not what we assume or hope.
What was the plan, and what actually happened instead?
Not what you hoped for. Not what you intended. What is observable? What was the plan and what were its steps? What actually happened? What was the moment the plan and the reality diverged? Who was present and what did they do?
This hat helps us make honest decisions and see what could genuinely go wrong.
Where is the honest line between following structure and following the human?
If every person in your school set the plan aside whenever they felt a human moment called for it, what would break? What is the real risk of too much flexibility? What is the far greater risk of too little? Be honest about both sides.
Heart
Feeling it honestly
This hat helps us notice the relationships between people and between ideas.
What does it feel like to choose the person over the plan?
When you imagine a person in a moment of genuine human need that the plan had no room for, and someone choosing to set the plan aside, what happens in you? Notice the weight of that choice. The risk of it. The relief of it. The thing it costs and the thing it gives.
This hat helps us see what is already working and worth building from.
What made it possible to set the plan aside when the moment called for it?
Something made that choice possible. What was it? What did the person believe about learning, about people, about what matters? What conditions existed in that space that made it safe enough to diverge? Look for what was already there before you think about what needs to change.
Hands
Making something from it
This hat helps us reach for creative thinking and ideas that do not exist yet.
What would a system look like that could hold both the plan and the person?
If you could redesign the conditions of learning so that structure and human responsiveness were not in conflict, what would that look like? Not a policy. Not a procedure. A condition. What would the system need to believe about learners for both things to be possible at once?
This hat helps us step back, organise our thinking, and name what we have learned.
What does it mean to truly put people at the centre of something designed to serve them?
Now step back. What is the real problem this situation is pointing at? Not this one moment. The pattern. What is the one shift in thinking that would change how your school holds the tension between structure and the human beings inside it?
that is yours.
Your product holds your thinking and it is yours to keep. Before you post, sit with these questions.
Which lens helped you see something new?
What do you now want your learners to experience?
What changes need to happen in your school now?
paper tools?
Enter your name and email to unlock three tools you can print and use tomorrow. These are designed to live on walls, in journals, and in conversations, not just on screens.
You worked through a real situation. You looked at it through six lenses. Now take a moment to mark what that means before moving on.
I am ready to move forward →