The Missing Think Link

Go to any education conference, teacher-training clinic or school convention, and what you will typically hear is some version or variation of an emphasis on the dynamics of teaching and learning.  On the surface, this would appear to make sense and provide a healthy pedagogical formula.  Beneath the surface, however, the most important element in the whole process is often missing: thinking.

As an equation, in theory it looks like this:  teaching = learning.  But anyone who has ever been a teacher (or student) knows, in practice, that is not true.  What is true is this equation:  teaching + thinking = learning.

Thinking is always the missing link in any deficient mode of education.  Learning is the natural and inevitable result of teaching and thinking.  Where teaching and thinking are, learning will eventually be.  The first two are the forebears, the last one is the offspring.  Without “thinking,” however, one will have achieved at best a synthetic form of learning.

So if we bypass “the think link” in the educational chain, trying to achieve learning in our students without it, the result can only be superficial learning experiences, thus, not really learning at all.  The final product (usually) is a poorly equipped and uninspired student.   If our young people aren’t thinking, then we’re not teaching and they’re not learning.

Developing citizens who are strong, capable thinkers comes from developing students who love to think – and when done right, when done thoughtfully, every student does.  The so-called “airheads” of our youth ranks are usually a false perception.  But if there is any grain of truth to such labels, there is usually a good reason (i.e., stinkin’ thinkin’ at home, the mindless pop youth culture, or behavioral classroom teaching methods.) 

Nonetheless, it should go without saying that learning is not the objective of education.  Learning is a byproduct of the objective.  The objective is thinking.  Active thinkers actively learn and passive learners passively think.  If thinking is stimulated, learning will naturally follow; if thinking is stifled, learning will be sterile.  And sterile learning produces a populace that easily swallows propaganda and indoctrination.  

Brian Schroeder is the former Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction, an ordained minister and founder/president of The ChrisCorps Association (bschroeder081858@gmail.com)