Better 'thinking' skills?

[EmilyVK]

I am trying to find out if there is a need or a want for children to grasp and utilise better thinking skills. It is apparent that the majority of schools tend to miss out a fundamental part of learning ? the idea of ?learning how to learn?. Equipping children with knowledge of how their brains work, and how they absorb and retain information, has been proofed to be hugely effective within the learning process - but yet this is often never taught or even discussed within the classroom?

I wanted to get some thoughts and opinions to see if there was a desire for after-school lessons / clubs that could explore this concept, as well teaching skills like memory, communication, creativity, presentation delivery, problem solving, speed reading and intrinsic life skills.
There has been a lot of coverage recently about how students reaching university simply don?t have the complete skill tool-set to satisfactorily start their degrees. Same for when they enter the workplace ? those fresh from education aren?t equipped with the objective thinking skills that employers are looking for.

If there were clubs or classes or even tutors that could pass on these types of objective thinking skills would you be interested in enrolling your child? Your thoughts would be great to hear!

Also something else that would be of interest - what kind of price per class would you be happy to pay? Would it be aligned to other after-school classes / educational clubs?

I agree that this kind of education has fallen by the wayside somewhat, I guess the obsession with SATs etc has led to the emphasis being on just memorising facts. IMHO.

However I have no idea how you would go about actually teaching these skills! I would hope that my DC will learn them from us naturally as we are very enthusiastic about homework etc, so personally I wouldn't feel the need to send her to a club for it.

Anyway, whatever the solution is, I think it must be done in actual school time. Putting it into an extra-curricular activity or tuition would create yet another way for the rich kids to pull ahead of the poor kids, which just isn't fair.

Have you see Philosophy for Children. I think you can train with them.

My DS is only 2.10 but I'm interested in the concept and I wish I had been taught some philosophy/critical thinking when I was younger.

I'd agree: my schools expected us to 'fall in line' with their way of teaching no matter what our learning was like. There was a brief attempt to do this in sixth form, but no mention of how we might apply his to the way THEY were giving us information.

I'm pregnant and DP and I will TBH do this ourselves. We're both encouraging of creativity, I love poetry, DP loves novels and is brilliant at maths.

Things I would consider paying for:

Drama clubs
Music lessons
Sports clubs/teams
Other creative outlets such as potters, art
Free improvisation classes

In terms of having the complete skills set to start a job (and I say this as a recruiter), it is because students have had enough COMMERCIAL EXPERIENCE. We get kids straight out of Oxbridge who have brilliant grades, loads of extracurriculars, great communication skills etc ... and absolutely NO idea how business works. There are very few ways to teach that in an academic environment because so much of it is about having actually encountered those issues and scenarios. Would suggest that students are encouraged to get as much commercial experience as possible.

If working in a shop all holiday to raise money for university, take on EXTRA responsibility, volunteer to help out with stock taking, finances, marketing, displays, shadow the manager etc etc. Learn how business works.

Sorry. Rant.

I disagree with you - when I was teaching 4 years ago this was taught - the different ways in which students learned has to be addressed in lessons using VAK at least; I also taught ways of remembering such as mnemonics, tying a concept to a visual memory etc. I did a lot of work with my tutor group to help them identify how they learned (Gardner's multiple intelligences); and the whole de Bono thinking hats tool was frequently used too.

Communication and presentation skills are taught and used as an integral part of learning in history, geography and RE for a start; problem solving is in PSE; maths, and design for instance, and these things are embedded so they are part of the learning process, rather than a discrete subject.

Speed reading is not taught, but the challenge for many is to read at all, so speed reading would not be of any use to them. I don't want my students to speed read - they miss what is being asked in GCSE questions because they haven't read the question carefully enough and therefore lose marks.

I can teach my child intrinsic life skills, as can other parents, and these are also taught at school in PSE, Citizenship, finance lessons, maths etc.

I don't see there is a need for this, especially at secondary level, and if there was, the schools would provide it at no cost to the parents. I would not pay for it, but then, I spent time teaching it.

I think that teachers can teach all these skills but often don't.I think they are all really important and wish that I'd been taught them at school. WRT speed reading I agree with scaryteacher.

My DCs had thinking skills lessons at school, starting in yr 4. What he's told me about seems to have concerned logic and focus, broad/detail, and generating alternatives. I'm glad they do it, but I don't think we'd have gone for it as an additional club

Take a look at the ALPS approach learnweb.harvard.edu/alps/thinking/index.cfm

and children thinking

www.childrenthinking.co.uk/about_sara.htm

We've used thinking child for some years now

and Philosophy Bear www.amazon.co.uk/But-Why-Developing-Philosophical-Classroom/dp/1855391724

Developing thinking skills is a key role in the Foundation Phase curriculum for 4-7 to 7 year olds in Wales it is a vital part to the curriculum.