Diffendoofer Day

1. What does it mean when someone knows how to think?
I believe that knowing how to think is a deceptively simple concept - that knowing how to think includes so much more than understanding information and utilizing it. "Synthesis" is a buzz word that gets thrown around a lot, and of course, there is nothing wrong with it. It is a great measure of how well a student understands an idea, but in my opinion, knowing how to think is much deeper than that. It is taking a piece of information and picking it apart, examining it, and yes, questioning it. Knowing how to think is not blindly accepting any idea that is learned but doubting it; it is looking for more possibilities. Essentially, knowing how to think is knowing how to doubt, and how to take that doubt and turn it into something meaningful.

2. How does a teacher teach a student how to think?
A teacher implements the seed for learning how to think.
I stray away from the word "teach" in this situation because it implies that more direct instruction is involved, when in this case that direct instruction could cause more harm than benefit. How can one learn "how to think" if they are simply following the direct guidance of someone else? A teacher hands the tools to the students. A teacher allows students to explore, to challenge old perspectives, to question and to doubt. This teacher needs to relinquish some of that old-fashioned control and behaviorist thinking if he or she really wants to produce a class of thinkers - of students who understand, synthesize, question, and explore problems and ideas.

 3. Have you ever been in a class where you really had to think?
I am fortunate enough to say that a few classes in my education growing up allowed me to truly and honestly think. The first instance I can remember was in fourth grade history class, when all four classes joined together and acted out a day in the life of Civil War-era Americans. Some of us were assigned the role of soldiers; others were traders; others occupied the lower class. We all had to work closely with other classmates and utilize information we had learned about how settlements operated in order to "survive" the day.
There was very little instruction, but a great deal of strategizing and recalling information that was pertinent to our individual situations. I also really started to empathize with the people we had been learning about in history class for so long. I wondered what their lives must have been like, how they must have felt. At the same time, I worked as hard as I could to successfully complete the day. And when I left school that day, I felt like I had really accomplished something - like I had really thought.