Skillful Thinkers

I recently had the pleasure of attending a workshop by Edward de Bono in Belfast Northern Ireland. His presentation regarding "Thought full lesson design" really resonated with me. Two key aspects struck a note:

1. To ensure that we are fully aware and plan for the understandings that we want the children to develop in a rich context

2. To plan to develop skillful thinkers by the language we as teachers use in the lessons as well as the teaching strategies we teach the children.

It sounds so simple yet it is so critical. What are we trying to do if not to develop skillful thinkers?

Yet to do this a teacher needs to consider:

- the type of thinking that is required for the child to be successful

- replacing "I want you to think about..." with " I want you to consider or debate, or discuss, or analyse etc..."

- the understandings (and what this actually means) to be developed and then the process to achieve this- this goes well beyond rote knowledge and is based on a conceptual curriculum

That is we become more precise about the type of thinking we are asking to child to engage in.

At Windsor we staff have placed large copies of words to use in place of "think" on the wall to provide prompts to themselves and children. Just one small step but I believe a powerful one. In addition they have planned for the type of thinking that will be required in the lesson and they have continued with developing specific deep understandings of concept based curriculum in their Inquiry Modules.

Thank you Edward for complimenting our work and providing some very useful insights to develop our children's thinking!

Dublin and Belfast ICOT 2011

I am currently in Belfast at ICOT (International Conference on Thinking) having spent four wonderful days in Dublin.

Having visited schools in Ireland I can say that in NZ:

We are very fortunate with our school environments

Our autonomy under Tomorrows Schools is worth its weight in gold (and student engagement and achievement)

Our teachers have wonderful professional development opportunities in general and support as beginning teachers

Our staff are empowered to be reflective practitioners due to the systems and processes that we have in place

Our lack of a formal second language is debilitating

The imposition of National Standards is a move back in time and will do little to help our children

We have a beautiful country!

Having listened to some top international speakers such as Art Costa and Edward de Bono I am challenged about some of our practices and indeed about the risks inherent in moving to a narrow curriculum focussed on numeracy and literacy. I am reminded of the absolute need to help our children to be skillful thinkers and of the need for teachers to utilize strategies that will empower and enable our children.

I am also challenged by the difference between "real learning" and "school learning" and how we might reduce the gap between the two so that learning is more meaningful for our children.

It is an honor and a privileged to travel here to learn about teaching and learning from such an expert field. It is also a privilege to teach our children in New Zealand.

As the children and families struggle with ongoing earthquakes in Christchurch I am again reminded about the amazing job that the dedicated staff at Windsor do in providing a positive and challenging learning environment.

Kia Kaha Christchurch and Windsor!

Neill from Belfast June 2011