The design approach will be considered in a particular context. This context is the direct and explicit teaching of thinking as a skill.

The Direct And Explicit Teaching Of Thinking
As A Skill

We can now look to see how the three approaches can be applied to the teaching of thinking as a skill.

In the classification approach there are formal labels such as Down's syndrome, Gifted, A.D.D. etc. Each of these describes a 'box' into which youngsters with the right symptoms can be placed.

The emphasis is on 'what is'.

What is the condition? What can we then expect?

In addition to the labelled boxes there are spectra such as the IQ test. These are continuous but youngsters at one end or the other are labelled as gifted or 'slow learners'.

There are many 'box system' models such as the Myers-Briggs framework which might label someone as 'intuitive' or 'judgmental' etc.

Test and boxes are much loved by psychologists because they seem to make tangible, and true, matters which would otherwise be vague and subjective. Measurement is everything. The possibility that many of the tests do not really measure what the label suggests, is not important. For example, IQ tests simply test the ability to do IQ tests. If this ability correlates with other activities then the IQ test may be a predictor for these other activities. The label 'IQ' is itself arbitrary. We could call it 'TTI' or Test Type Intelligence.

Using one of the very simple 'attention directing frameworks' designed to improve perception some six year old Down's syndrome children were asked to consider the 'plus points' of a snake having a head at both ends. They pointed out that the snake could more easily see a pursuer. One head could be awake and one asleep. It would be possible to attack with both heads. The very first idea the children had was that if a snake went down a hole then the snake would not have to turn around to get out of the hole.

I once asked the same question of five hundred educators and secondary school pupils in Belfast. As fast as I could ascertain, none of them came up with the idea of the snake reversing out of holes.

There is a huge difference between measuring 'what is' and designing frameworks to generate 'what can be'.

The analytical approach to the teaching of thinking sets out to analyse thinking into its various stages, phases or components. It is not so much a matter of discovering these elements but of creating them through description. If we wished, we could describe a walking stick as being made up of five parts: handle, shaft, end bit; and two linking bits between the handle and the middle bit and between the middle bit and the end bit. Descriptions are arbitrary.

Having analysed 'thinking' in this way we then seek to teach each of the identified (description based) elements. But descriptions are not 'operating tools' and the method simply does not work.

The philosophical description method is not the same as the design of operational tools.

Then there is the critical approach. We analyse what can be wrong in thinking and then we teach youngsters to avoid such mistakes. This is the basis of critical thinking. The word 'critical' comes from the Greek word for 'judge'. So critical thinking implies judgement thinking.

Judgement thinking is excellent but not enough. It is not enough to identify standard situations and then to apply the standard answer. It is not enough to avoid all mistakes in thinking. You could avoid all mistakes in driving a car by leaving the car in the garage. You would not make any mistakes but you would not get anywhere.

The 'design approach' involves designing frameworks for thinking.

These designs are based on an understanding of the human brain as a self-organising information system which makes asymmetric patterns.

Judgment And Design
The Classification Approach
The GG3
The Analysis Approach
The Design Approach
Perception
Teaching Creativity
Argument
Summary