Knowledge is important throughout the life of each individual, it is the result of a series of experiences that have been obtained through constant social interaction and is determined by different factors, including the use of thinking skills.
Preschool age is a stage in which the foundations of the knowledge that we have acquired so far are founded and also in which basic thinking skills are developed, to later transform into higher-order skills.
The following text aims to show the importance of thinking skills and their relationship with knowledge in preschool age.
Opening
Human beings are immersed in constant learning, every day we make use of the knowledge we have, we acquire new knowledge and we are part of the learning of new knowledge for other people.
From the moment we wake up, we know what to do to start our day, we remember what we dream of or our pending and we can even organize a day plan to take advantage of the time and fulfill our duties.
Without realizing we are making use of our thinking skills, not only that, the thinking skills have been part of who we were, what we are and what we will be in the future, therefore, I find it interesting and useful know a little more about them.
Because we began to develop knowledge and thinking skills from childhood, I will focus on talking about their importance in that period of life. The above can help us to establish a relationship between what we learned at that time in our life and what we know now; to help our children (if we have them) or our students (if we work in the educational field) to further develop their skills or it will even be useful as a starting point to learn more about our skills.
Development
Before continuing, it is important to establish the following concepts:
Knowledge is a set of information stored through experience or learning (a posteriori), or through introspection (a priori). (Porto, 2008)
Thinking skills are the capacities and dispositions to do things. They are the dexterity, intelligence, talent or action that a person demonstrates. (Garcia, 2010)
(Vila, Díaz, & UNAM, 2003) mention that thinking skills according to Stenberg's model of development of expertise are divided into three types: Critical-analytical skills, which includes analyzing, criticizing, judging, evaluating and contrasting. Creative thinking skills include creating, discovering, inventing, imagining, guessing, and hypothesizing. Practical thinking skills, includes applying, using, utilizing and practicing.
These skills are undoubtedly part of what is normally done (or should be done) in the classroom -and in everyday life-, however, one of the things that puzzles me the most about the preschool level is the underestimation of abilities of children that still exist, which sets limits when establishing the type of knowledge that is imparted to them (even at home).
Several famous theorists have alluded to knowledge and its relationship with thinking skills, for the subject I will return to three, Jean Piaget, Lev Vigotsky and David Ausbel.
The famous theorist Jean Piaget distinguished 4 different stages of thought, in them knowledge is organized differently, according to him, all children go through these stages, without exception. And although he established certain ages to go through each of the stages, the time can vary according to both individual and cultural characteristics.
- Sensorimotor stage, from birth to 2 years Preoperational stage, from 2 to 7 years Stage of concrete operations, from 7 to 11 years Stage of formal operations, from 11 and 12 years onwards (Linares)
The stage that corresponds to preschool age is preoperational, in it, according to Piaget, children acquire language and use numbers as a tool for thinking; On the other hand, children at this age show curiosity, which allows them to create intuitive theories and generate hypotheses about things. Thinking skills are present in all these activities.
However, Piaget did not place greater importance on what children knew, but instead focused on thinking about problems and solutions. That is, in cognitive processes.
On the other hand, according to Vygotsky, the instruments of mediation, including signs, are provided by culture, the social environment. But the acquisition of signs does not only consist in taking them from the external social world, but it is necessary to internalize them, which requires a series of transformations or psychological processes. (Pozo, 1989) There the importance of not only thinking skills but also knowledge is observed.
For Vigotsky, social interactions are very important in the acquisition of knowledge, because social activities are those that allow him to incorporate cultural tools such as language, counting systems, writing, art, among others, into his thinking. (Linares) And unlike Piaget, he thinks that, although children already have certain innate thinking skills, with the help of social interaction (and the knowledge that they transmit) these are transformed into higher skills.
Theorist David Ausbel suggests that what he calls discovery learning predominates in preschool children, which requires the student to rearrange information, integrate it with their cognitive structure, and reorganize or transform the integrated combination so that it occurs. desired learning; all this from an inductive process, based on non-verbal, concrete and empirical experience. (Ausbel)
According to the above, the new knowledge that children are going to acquire must be integrated with the knowledge they already have and transformed to generate a more complete knowledge, but to achieve this it is necessary to put into practice thinking skills (such as observation, discovery, the practice).
Closing
It seemed pertinent to refer to this small part of the book The Little Prince, because sometimes as parents or as teachers we forget that at some point we were children and that at that moment we were unaware of many things, but we also believed we knew everything, we responded with wit what we were asked and that, although we had the skills to learn, there were certain things that generated greater motivation to do so.
This allows us to remember that, upon entering preschool, children already bring with them a series of previous ideas that allow them to understand the world, they do not arrive empty, they have formed an idea of the culture and the social relationships they have established are a fundamental part of their learning.
After being born, the first socialization that is established in childhood is that of the home, the people with whom children are related become the base of the knowledge that comes later; everything they can learn from them - and obviously physical abilities, like the senses - helps them explore the world around them. Based on the concepts that children create from social interaction, new knowledge begins to be built.
Although children can be taught many things, that does not determine that they learn it; It happens that it is necessary for them to make use of thinking skills to be able to internalize and generate learning and other factors are also important, such as motivation, that there is a relationship with their context, that appropriate learning moments are sought, that the materials that are use are attractive, that a conducive learning environment is generated to make use of skills, among others.
Therefore, it is necessary that within the preschool stage children have access to
various knowledge, but they can also make use of thinking skills to process information, they should not be limited to coloring, cutting and pasting, they have to generate problematic situations that allow them to make use of their skills.
conclusion
According to what has been analyzed, thinking skills are important to transform children's prior knowledge into increasingly complete and complex knowledge. As I have mentioned before, knowledge is constant and dynamic; The more opportunities children have to make use of their thinking skills, the greater their chances of generating better knowledge.
Let us remember again that at some point we were children and we ventured, as parents or as teachers to implement in our daily work activities that develop basic thought processes such as observation, comparison, relationship, classification, description, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.; They will be useful and helpful in helping children build and organize their knowledge, in this way they will develop their intelligence (and we will also learn a little).
Children are capable of learning and teaching many things, it is necessary to have much higher expectations and to generate opportunities to reach their maximum development without forcing them.
I believe that we should not be afraid of teaching children things that they may learn because they think that they will not be capable, on the contrary, we must awaken in them all those skills that are dormant to generate more knowledge and not forget that learning can also be fun.
References
Ausbel, D. (nd). Theory of significant learning. Theory of significant learning.
García, AP (2010). Development of thinking abilities. San Luis Potosí, Mexico.
Linares, AR (sf). Cognitive Development, the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky. Spain: Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Porto, JP (2008). Definition of. Obtained from Definition.of:
definicion.de/conocimiento/
Well, JI (1989). Cognitive theories of learning. Madrid, Spain: Morata.
Saint-Exupéry, A. d. (1984). The little Prince. Santiago, Chile: Pehuén editores.
Vila, IM, Díaz, MD, & UNAM. (2003). Teaching thinking skills from a constructivist perspective. THRESHOLD. Magazine of education culture and society., 158-163.
Tuxtla Gutiérrez Chiapas, December 2016.
