Thinking Things

Image Credit: thinking about fish by elisabeth

I am late to my blog posting this week. The past five days have been filled with lots of opportunity to reflect but little to write while in the throws of extreme highs and lows- a special birthday celebration, the death of a close family friend, and the not-always-good times of being a parent. Ironically, my 16 year-old daughter's weekly paper for her honors English class required interviews over the weekend on the existential question of joy and suffering. I may be late to my writing here, but I am not wont for "thinking things."

Thinking things. One of the key concerns I have as an educator and a parent is how little we ask our students and children to do this thing called "thinking." We have conditioned them to react,respond and fill in the blank, but we have done little to prepare them to "figure it out." In our rush to get to the next thing on the daily calendar filled to the brim or the next content area in a mile-wide and inch-deep curriculum we do all the heavy-lifting. And, we wonder why we are all so tired and why they do not know "what to do next."

Someone shared with me recently the appall of an older surgeon when accompanied by the new crop of residents. His observation was that the residents were plenty "book smart" but did not know how to think about the case at hand, did not know "what to do next" when it was not a clear case calling for step 1, step 2, step 3. They did not know how to think in the real world.

Is there really such a resistance to thinking? Are our students and children incapable of critical thinking, especially if they are not our "honors" or "AP" students? I think not. I think, I believe, and I have faith that each child has the ability to think, has indeed something important to share, can make important connections that will shed new light on a subject...but, only if.

If...

we give them the space, the time, the opportunity and the expectation to think.

If ...

we do not do the thinking for them.

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In addition to wanting my children and our students to be critical thinkers, I believe deeply we need to ask them  "what are you thinking" in the context of caring about them and their well-being. I think it is critical for us to stop and think, and make evident, that we care enough to ask them-without an agenda-"What are you thinking?" I want them to know that they are valued as people, that what lies in their minds is important, and that I care enough and will offer a safe place for them to share their thinking.

So, what am I thinking? We will have students who are critical thinkers when we make the effort first to critically value the thinker.

And, my response to the interview? With some critical thought, and temporarily suspended teenage "you can't possibly have an answer for this,"  I suggested to her that joy and suffering are handmaidens, and shared my stories of how I had found that to be true. Reading her paper just now, these questions that I and others have not answered for her but instead responded to offering different perspectives, have honored her and called upon her to think deeply and critically. That is what I want and hope for all our children and students.

Comments

[Nina Edelstein]

You have articulated exactly what I have been discussing and complaining about with my colleagues. Students today, for some reason, seemly can not move to the next step without step by step instructions. I would say that they even seem fearful of moving on in a creative fashion on their own. We need to change whatever it is that we are doing in education that is giving us this result. Perhaps it is "the test" that is forcing us to teach how to answer the questions with the "right" answer instead of teaching students how to think and come up with their own answers.

[Bernadette]

Wow Laura! Such an important statement. We have to encourage and train our students to be critical thinkers. This is so a propos because I attended Springboard training this week and the focus was specifically on engendering metacognition in our students. One strategy that I employ in class is to always play the Devil's Advocate and question everything students say-I force them to defend their positions; to convince me that their positions are the better than mine. I encourage them to challenge anything I say if they can provide proof that they have a better solution. I often challenge their beliefs as well; not to change them, but to encourage the students to think about why they believe what they believe, and to question whether they have accepted ideas because they were imposed upon them, or whether they have evaluated the tenets and truly believe in them. I explain to them that the goal is not to get them to change but to encourage them to ask questions and not accept what is said or written at face value--that they should look deeper and beyond simple denotation. In essence, they are learning to read between the lines. Every once in a while, I have a success story. :-)