Value of You · Thinking

Think Again

Three classroom challenges about how we see, think and share.
? PINS MATCHES CandleBox of drawing pinsMatches 60
What just happened?

The box was a resource all along

Most people see the box only as a container for pins. Psychologists call this functional fixedness: once we know what something is for, we stop seeing what else it could be.

In one study (Adamson, 1952), 86% of people solved the puzzle when the pins were placed beside an empty box. When the box was full of pins, only 41% did. Same objects. Different way of seeing.

What in your school, home or village is a "box of pins"? Something useful that we only see one way?
Three quick questions

These three questions come from the Cognitive Reflection Test (Shane Frederick, 2005). In his study of about 3,400 people, only 17% answered all three correctly, and even at MIT fewer than half did. The fast answer arrives first and feels right. The skill is to pause and check it, just like in the Stroop test and on the Thought Railway.

Before we start
0 fish in the lake
The Lake · a Fish Banks game

Four villages share one lake

4Split the class into 4 villages. Each village chooses a net every year.
8The game lasts 8 years. Goal: catch as many fish as your village can.
↻Fish have babies every year. But fewer fish means fewer babies, and fewer fish are harder to find.
🤫Villages decide in secret. Show your choice to the teacher only.
Small netCatches up to 6 fish. Boat fuel costs 1 fish.
Medium netCatches up to 12 fish. Fuel costs 5 fish.
Big netCatches up to 24 fish. Fuel costs 11 fish.
Eight years later

What did we have?One shared lake. It kept giving, as long as it had enough fish left to grow.
Who needed it?All four villages, and the villages' children, who will need the lake after these 8 years.
How do we improve it?Talk, agree on a fair rule, and trust each other to keep it. That is how real fishing villages save their lakes.