Barry Smith - Learning about Learning

I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to attend this Inter-Authority conference on Thursday.  The focus was the position of thinking skills and the explicit teaching of thinking skills within a Curriculum for Excellence.  Authorities showcased what was happening in their area in relation to teaching thinking skills in nursery, primary and secondary schools.  

I attended Scottish Borders session on Feuerstein’s Instrumental enrichment.  This is a theory and set of teaching techniques based on the premise that the fundamental structure of the brain is modifiable (structural cognitive modifiability) and therefore patterns of behaviour and thinking are also modifiable.  Nothing ground-breaking there I hear you say, and yes I’d agree, I think it is widely accepted now that the structure and connections within the brain are a lot more malleable than was thought in years gone by.  What instrumental enrichment and mediated learning experience purport to do is give us the tools to do this.  On first hearing it sounded a bit like brainwashing to me but once I got past that initial knee-jerk reaction to the language and tried a couple of tasks I began to see what it was about.  The idea is relatively simple in that it helps thinking skills by using techniques to identify patterns, categories and connections.  In a nutshell developing metacognition. learning how to learn.

A number of teachers were trained in this way of thinking, teaching and learning just over two years ago and every probationer teacher in Scottish Borders has been trained in mediated learning experience techniques.  I was impressed by the team’s presentation and the principles and practice espoused by Feuerstein.  Several attendees mentioned the language(, instrumental enrichment etc) involved as being a potential barrier, but those who are working with the Feuerstein techniques on a regular basis said they did not find this.  I’m not sure, I’d like to see it in action, although Feuerstein had a great deal of success working with Jewish youngsters who had undergone traumatic experiences at an early age during the second world war.

The training is not inexpensive and this may be part of the reason that it has not been embraced by more authorities but I’m going to do my best to find out more.  I can see an immediate place for techniques of this kind in helping some of our more troubled youngsters become more emotionally literate, as well as equipping them with thinking tools to tackle situations from multiple viewpoints, a skill which is vital for maintaining positive interpersonal relationships.  Learning how to learn is a skill that has applications regardless of academic ability and therefore it seems to me that there is great scope for teaching thinking skills explicitly to all youngsters.  Brian Boyd, the keynote speaker at the conference spoke passionately about developing thiinking skills in our young people, and staff, and what that could mean for Scottish education. More of this in my next post.