Thinking Notes

I read an interesting book called "Chasing Ideas - The fun of freeing your child's imagination" by Christine Durham. She introduced a framework to help unleash a child's imagination. It's actually very hard work if you ask me. There are numerous examples on how this could be done, using events, objects, stories, news as a springboard. If only schools here actively promote that!

Here's her framework or handy thinking keys & tools as she calls it:

Once you have found something interesting to discuss,
1. Pigeonhole it
- helps you to sort, organise and group ideas & things

2. Find the Facts

3. Find the Feelings
- discuss how they feel about the issue
- how the main character & other characters felt

4. Good, Bad & Curious
- this is creative, reflective, questioning, critical thinking.
- your comments on Curious things: "how come it was ok for...?" " Why did...?" "What would happen if...?" "Does it mean that....?" "If...would that make a difference?"

5. What If..?
- Ask this to encourage thinking about consequences eg. what if an element of the story were changed?
- predict outcomes, be aware of the influence of assumptions, look at cause and effect and give reasons for opinions

Big Important Concepts are embedded in most of the issue we discuss. Like: truth & lies, good & bad, relationships, values, trust responsibility, ownership, fairness, blame, dreams & hopes, winning & losing, etc. look out for this and name it for your children while discussing.

The author suggested Thinking Trap Resource Book and Pearls of Wisdom Books to encourage thinking skills. The first is for teachers/parents to collect interesting, quirky, strange, thought-provoking articles from newspaper, books etc. Keep an eye for anything that do with your child's passion e/g/ dinosaur, sports, animal rights etc. The Pearls of Wisdom Book is for you and your kids to record their discoveries. You can start the page with "I discovered.."

The author conducts thinking workshops to students and grown-ups. Her many examples in the book make it seem so easy and fun especially with young children. And with the older kids in one instance, she guided them to discuss complex issues of justice & fairness, responsibility & blame, equality etc using the Titanic story. I have no doubt when she said that discussion like this is wonderful and exhausting!

Earlier this week, I tried it on Ewan using a news report on a man who claimed he was owed a day's wages of $60, went on to smash the company's glass walls and the damages amounted to $20,000. After I read to him the article, we went through the facts and feelings, and in Ewan's opinion, without any prompting from me, the issue here was "In your anger, don't sin". Hahahaha. We discussed a little about consequences, problem solving, our criminal system, low wage earners, etc. It wasn't a long and serious discussion. It was say about 10 minutes and we had fun throwing up ideas. I let it go once he lost interest. A good start I think, to encourage thinking!