THINKING ABOUT THINKING

THINKING ABOUT THINKING

Holistic education summarizes the nature of interaction amongst teachers vis-a-vis students, students-vis-a-vis students and students-vis-a-vis parents/community. The type of interaction that extends beyond the four classroom walls to enrich a learners experiences. Interaction of this nature could take forms such as group tasks, peer activities, field visits, cultural festivities, project work and last but not least, questioning.

Shifting focus into our daily happenings at schools, it is clearly evident that the modern day teacher ought to be dynamic and multi-dimensional. The traditional one way teaching paving the way to more interactive inquiry based learning. This justifies my being in Beni,  Myagdi where am serving as a VSO basic education volunteer. Together with my two colleagues, a management and basic education volunteer, we endeavour to bring about change by supporting management and leadership in schools, a role played by management volunteer, our core principle being that visionary leadership is key in driving change within schools. At the classroom level, as basic education volunteers, we work towards making interactive inquiry based learning a reality, a cause for which VSO at large is committed to, by supporting classroom teachers with classroom methodology. However, this is not possible without a stimulating environment which sets the stage for questioning and finding out answers. In this regard, we extend support with mobilization of local low-no cost resources. Complementing the arousing classroom environment is a creative teacher who keeps the ball rolling.

Of importance as we consider this paradigm shift is the central role of learners in contributing meaningfully to the process of teaching and learning. My experience in classrooms has been exciting, with classrooms filled with jovial students, hats off to all the teachers who have maintained this in their classrooms. However, if I were to navigate deeper into the learning process, the free environment presents very minimal challenge to the curious learners who should be encouraged to earnestly search for knowledge by critically evaluating situations to fully understand the way things are.

One of the phrases I never miss to hear is “ho ki hoina?” normally preceded by a statement and the latter a questioning clause. All a learner is expected to do is to pick out on one and the probability is that, whenever the clause is used, the answer will always be in the affirmative. Students with their “smart brains” have deduced this and thus will not hesitate to give the correct response without thinking much, which hampers quality reasoning.

Questioning is a powerful tool and a stimulant towards thinking. The main aim of education is to open up the thinking faculties amongst learners, thus creating avenues for them to contribute to learning. If done well, questioning goes a long way in preparing learners for lifelong learning and helps them acquire problem solving competencies vital for proper functioning as it empowers them to adapt to the ever changing world as well as positively influence society at large.

A successful teacher, the revolutionalist no longer enchained in  old fashioned teaching traditions, invests heavily on tearing apart teaching  content to come up with questions that will keep the students thinking, probing for reasons “why’ and justifying their thinking. Such a teacher always walks into a class armed, not with a whip or a pile of textbooks but with “why, what, when, how…” tools with which s/he prompts students  to higher order thinking.

The value of questioning/ questions in quality learning thus cannot be understated. For any interactive classroom, the search for knowledge, which stems from questioning, must prevail alongside other strategies. Learners should get the opportunity to enrich content and extend their thinking skills by thinking about the right kind of questions, that is, open-ended questions.

It is not about learners giving the supposedly “right” or “yes/no” answers, rather it’s about taking learning a notch higher and allowing students to explore deeply while at the same time, thinking about their own thinking- metacognition. This type of learning is the best form of capacity building for much desired change. It frees the brain to roam more broadly.

Giving students opportunity to share their schools of thought is equal to constantly reminding them that they are at the steering wheel of our classroom activities. A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships were built for- this is for every teacher out there, a wake up call to any of us who has comfortably docked at the shores of old ways of doing things to rise up to the occasion and keep the metaphor going.  Try questioning!!

The author is a VSO Basic Education volunteer working for DEO Myagdi.

Email:virginia.ngindiru@gmail.com