Thinking skills and their taxonomy in education

How to think ?, is a problem of Public Policies

“Learning without thinking is useless. Thinking without learning, dangerous ”(Confucius (Chinese philosopher))

Thinking is something that we do naturally and spontaneously. All of us, the human race, presume to be the only animals that think, in fact, far away in history, a character (Descartes) affirmed that the only thing that makes us "be" is thought. This teacher of teachers, with the term "thought" referred to all mental content, to everything found in the conscious mind of the subject.

Obviously we all think but despite this, when we ask ourselves what is thinking ?, we realize that as much as we think we do not know what it is to think.

Interesting, we think but we don't know what it is to think. This mysterious process runs so naturally and spontaneously that unfortunately we do not take full advantage of its potential. The fact of not knowing what it is, invites us to confuse it with other terms and so on many occasions "think" and "thought" we handle them as synonyms, on other occasions we assume a certain equality between "thought" and "belief", between "think "And" believe "; I think it will be hotter tomorrow (believe); the men of yesteryear thought that the earth was flat (belief). They are definitely terms that are closely related, but are never the same, to the point of wanting to use them interchangeably.

In these moments the words of Aristotle come to my memory, that paraphrasing it we can say that "thinking" is studied by psychology, on the other hand, logic studies "thinking", being this (noun) the product of the thinking process. Following this order of ideas, this verb is without a doubt, a process, an act, a mental action, which in no case can be reduced to memorizing, remembering, or simply having a thought, regarding this, Matthew in one episode From her novel "The Discovery of Harry", quoted by Tabares, Elisa (one of her characters) tells us: "when you already know something and want to go beyond what you know, you have to think".

I personally think that Elisa's words hit the very center of the answer to our big question, what is thinking? On the other hand, Tabares referring to Dewey (American philosopher, pedagogue and psychologist) tells us: "'thinking' is nothing other than 'the intentional effort to discover specific connections between something that we do and the consequences that result from so that they both become continuous. '”

Now, thinking is a process that requires an intentional effort in order to answer a doubt, a question, or simply explain an event. But the thing is not that easy; the doubt or the question can have several answers (depending on), in fact, when wanting to give an explanation to a specific fact, a considerable number of possibilities emerge, in this regard, Maldonado, Carlos Eduardo in his essay "Thinking as Origin", published in the magazine Universitas Philosophica 21, (PP. 95-103), in December 1993, Santafé de Bogotá, Colombia, tells us: “Thinking well is equivalent to thinking of all possibilities. The problem is that in reality not all possibilities are met, but any possibility can be met.In this way the task of thinking is equivalent to conceiving possibilities in front of reality and, thus, that of generating new experiences. It is about anticipating the future and projecting the past and the present. Indeed, thinking is anticipating the future, since the future does not yet exist in reality and does exist primarily in thought ”

Maldonado is not referring to Quantum Physics (the physics of possibilities), in fact he tells us: "In the order of thought it is the duty of sound reason to consider each and every one of the possibilities, since in the order of thought all possibilities are fulfilled. Thinking should not be understood here in any way as an exercise in calculating probabilities but, on the contrary, as a game of the imagination consisting of re-presenting to ourselves in mental images the cases that can be carried out as well as the negative and neutral cases.. Thought is defined facing reality, the world and others. Against logicism or some misunderstood idealism, it is really reality and the world that demand rigorous and solid thinking from us. Indeed,The importance of thinking well is that in reality not all possibilities are fulfilled, but any possibility can be fulfilled. Faced with this state of affairs, thinking is, to use Plato's expression (Republic, 537 c), to have a synoptic vision and, better still, a synoptic-prospective vision ”

At this point in our dialogue, we run the risk of confusing "thinking" with "meditating" and even why not, with "reflecting". Without a doubt, the word “think” is closely related to these two verbs, “meditate” and “reflect”. With the first from the epistemic point of view, there is a marked difference with respect to "thinking", something that does not happen with the second since the term "reflecting" refers to the process of rethinking, that is, thinking about what already thought.

Somewhat to clarify the picture, let's make a parenthesis and try to define these two terms that could cause noise in our conversation.

Meditate, what do we understand by meditating?

According to the dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language, to meditate (Del lat. Meditāri) is (“1. tr. To apply thought with deep attention to the consideration of something, or to discuss the means of knowing or achieving it. U. tc intr. ”–RAE, 22 edition-) and meditation (Lat. Meditatĭo, -ōnis) is the action and effect of meditating.

Obviously the definition of this word "meditate" from the Academy of Language, perfectly reflects its western notion, and the synonym with "concentration", but, from my point of view, the most adequate translation of the eastern concept originated in India and characteristic of Hinduism, Buddhism and other eastern religions is "contemplation".

In this way, meditating is a type of intellectual exercise that seeks a contemplative state of consciousness whose technique begins with trying to silence the mind so that the endless talk (thought) with which the being fills our consciousness, unquestionably not an easy task of Indeed, since time immemorial (India 5,000 BC), endless techniques have been tried to appease her, but has anyone succeeded? Some experts advise focusing the mind on the breath, and when a thought arises, be aware of it and calmly refocus on the breath.

Now, thinking about a certain subject is not meditating, rather, it places as a prerequisite not thinking, letting the highest level of consciousness flow freely.

Reflect, what do we mean by reflecting?

Basically it is a mental process by which, we think about the causes, implications and consequences of what has already been thought, it is a detailed rethinking of what has already been thought.

It is a condition of our hominid race that allows us to proclaim ourselves homo sapiens and gives us the ability to cognitively inquire (investigate) our environment. In this way, in their actions, every reflective act is nurtured and in turn, generates knowledge. One could think of a cycle but it is rather a spiral that widens as the act is performed and with it the knowledge expands, allowing in turn to improve and perfect the act itself.

As noted by the teacher of teachers Dewey, reflecting is linked to thinking but not the other way around, that is, we think, well we think we think without having to reflect, but when reflecting we must necessarily be thinking about what has already been thought.

Following this order of ideas we can ensure that our reflective capacity and quality is in direct proportion to our hermeneutical and epistemic capacity of the fact to reflect since these capacities will define the number of possibilities, which are present in "thinking well", and thus, The more possibilities are present, the sharper and more realistic our reflective thinking will be.

Well, let's go back to our dialogue, if I remember correctly, it had to do with the question, what is thinking ?, and I remember Elisa's definition in the novel "The discovery of Harry", who tells us: "when you already know something and you want to go beyond what you know, you have to think ”, and I think I have pointed out that thinking is a process that requires an intentional effort in order to answer a doubt, a question, or simply explain a certain fact; As much the doubt, the question or the explanation that we want to elucidate, generate a considerable number of possibilities that we must necessarily keep in mind when reflectively rethinking.

In this way, I think it is clear that when we want to “think”, rather, when we want to “think correctly” or “think well”, we must necessarily keep in mind that we are talking about an intentional effort that implies a research process, supported by our hermeneutical and epistemic level that circumscribes the fact that catalyzed our need to "think".

I do not want to conclude without first pointing out that the fact that we do not know how to answer the question, what is thinking? and therefore, we do not know how to think correctly, it is a problem of Public Policies whose responsibility falls on the Ministry of Education who, acting as guarantor, must guarantee that our teachers, at the different educational levels, must, with the "D In capital letters, teaching and promoting "thinking reflectively", it is not enough to teach mathematics, biology, geography, history, etc., etc., we must necessarily learn to "think" and only you, appealing to your pedagogical arsenal, who have the responsibility to teach us to execute the verb "think" and thus we will ALL know how to conjugate it correctly.

Now I consider it necessary to place the accent on learning "to" think and NOT on learning "what" to think. The thing, the object, the problem, the phenomenon that we are going to think about, we establish through our free will, we are the ones who make the decision to think about, but the very process of thinking and above all thinking reflectively, is the one that we must learn to execute.

We as individuals, as a society do not need to be told the "what", we require that they explain to us, that they teach us the "how" to think.

The “how” is a problem of Public Policies since knowing how to think is equivalent to knowing how to read and write. Just as, the sum of the level of illiteracy in society defines the level of illiteracy in the Nation, the citizen's thinking thinks directly on the Nation's thinking, therefore, it is the responsibility of the State the quality of that "how" think.

As an aperitif I will quote the excellent Taxonomy of Thinking Skills prepared by the Doctor of Education, Benjamin Bloom (1913-1999):

1. Knowledge (it is the simple learning of data and facts)

What is…? What is…? Why…? When was…? What…? Who was…?

2. Comprehension (interpret information by putting it in their own words)

Summarize, demonstrate, interpret, explain, extend.

3. Application (using knowledge or generalization in a new situation)

Build, choose, calculate, develop, interview, demonstrate, organize, prepare, plan.

4. Analysis (divide knowledge into parts and show relationships between them)

Categorize, decompose, compare, contrast, relate, differentiate, conclude.

5. Synthesis (joining parts or fragments of knowledge to form a whole and build relationships for new situations)

Create, predict, propose, design, solve, modify, change, adapt, minimize, maximize, theorize.

6. Evaluation (make judgments based on given criteria)

Criticize, judge, argue, Would it be better if… What would you recommend… How would you prioritize… How would you justify…?

Just as an example I will mention some modes of thinking that we must know and learn since, appealing to one or the other will depend on the environment, the project, the situation in which we are immersed.

Logical-mathematicalInnovative, creativeComplex, criticalCooperativeReflective and strategicManager

Now, before learning the different modalities or types of thinking, we must prepare the bases so that they can bring the maximum expected benefit, I am referring to the correct handling of:

The formulation of questions The observation and collection of evidence The organization and management of information Language and communication Abstraction (the management of parts to reach the whole and vice versa) Research and experimentation

Well, I think it is time to finish, I hope that this dialogue acts as a catalyst and promotes the need to know how to think.