Cognative Education

Haywood, H. Carl. "Thinking In, Around, and About The Curriculum: The Role of Cognitive Education." Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA



Mr. Haywood's article brought up a variety of interesting idea about the current state of educational reform. He explains that education is in an endless drive towards reform and highlighted current examples of that. The three ideas that I found most interesting are (1) that we have only recently begun to approach the goal of formal education as being occupational proficiency (2) that recent studies have show that 40% of Americans are not literate to a functional level and (3) that teaching students to think is more and more critical.

I am partial to the idea of cognitive education because I think that it is the most sustainable way to impart knowledge. It's easy to memorize facts, but if students also learn the thinking process, they are able to rediscover the answers on their own later. It also allows them to make connections to content not specifically covered. I'm not sure that I focus enough on teaching thought-processes on a regular basis. I talk about the process for solving problems, but I don't fully explore the thinking behind it.