So recently I learnt something profound.

My ever-resolute wife decided to teach us a song during our prayer time.

Now my nephew, who is staying with us, has never been taught how to sing. Seriously, like never. So he hasn’t a clue how to pitch his singing tone.

It was simultaneously a heart-wrenching and hilarious moment, seeing his frustration and hearing him emitting notes that don’t exist on the musical scale.

Now my wife doesn’t give up, ever. So, she persisted for over an hour trying to get him to pitch his tone correctly. It became torturous at some stage.

As I was sitting there, it hit me that it’s exactly the same thing with thinking. Most South Africans have never been taught how to think well. Of course, like singing, everyone can switch from a speaking to a singing voice, but the fact that we are all born with an ability to think does not mean it naturally gets better without training of some sort.

Unfortunately, like my nephew’s singing capability, our education has all but neglected training its learners’ thinking faculties. The focus is just on conveyancing information.

Amazingly, my wife’s persistence eventually paid off. It was like something clicked in my nephew’s head and he started pitching his tone properly.

As I reflected on this, I realised that what had given my wife a breakthrough was suggesting to my nephew to pay attention to her tone and then to emulate it. So, he learnt not by being taught, but rather by modelling what he was hearing.

So here is the thing I learnt: it is similar with thinking. I spend quite a lot of conversations with my kids trying to get them to think properly, but really what is more impactful is to get them to pay attention to what good thinking sounds like.

Now as a country, South Africa is blessed with some fantastic thinkers, but they are thinly spread. Consequently, many people are never exposed to good thinkers.

However, there is one sure and accessible way to model good thinking: reading. This is how I have grown my own thinking. Now not all genres of literature cultivate good thinking. In fact, in my experience, some literature, especially of religious persuasion, actually dulls thinking.

My own thinking was enhanced by reading literature in the philosophy, psychology, anthropology and ancient history genres. But some of these may be dense and dry for many people.

There are, however, well curated, researched and presented series that I think I can recommend for everyone. The Great Courses series covers a whole range of subjects, and is presented by reputable experts of their respective fields.

The bottom line is this: the majority of South Africans are really poor thinkers. It’s depressing actually. I will venture to say that the quality of political, community and corporate leadership we get to have, is a direct indicator of the quality of our collective thinking.