THE BIG BRAIN TRAIN: Teaching Thinking in Australian Schools
SOT NEWS: In early 2008 SOT will open up the National Brain Training Engine in Australia–The Big Brain Train.
The BIG BRAIN TRAIN is a national innovation initiative to focus attention on:
• the teaching of “thinking skills” and also
• the teaching of “teaching thinking skills” in Australian schools.
• the BIG BRAIN TRAIN is also a pro bono service offered to any educational institution in Australia.
Any school, college, university, TAFE or educational institution may qualify for membership in the National Brain Training Engine.
Member institutions will be able to offer daily brain training to any and all members of their community–students, faculty and parents–from SOT’s National Brain Training Engine at no fee nor administrative cost to their school or institution.
In 2007, this unique educational training engine was used by students, teachers and parents at Melbourne Grammar School and the opportunity to participate will now be opened to other educational institutions around Australia.
Applications from Principals, Headmasters, Vice Chancellors or Students and Parents who would like their institution to be considered for membership in The Big Brain Train can be sought directly from The Principal, School of Thinking.
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THE MISSION
The primary mission of SOT since 1979 has always been:
to get THINKING into schools as a school curriculum subject.
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Over 27 years, this mission has meant dealing in the USA and Australia with many foundations, government and educational institutions, corporations publishers and media in Washington and Canberra and elsewhere.
In 2006, Victoria became the first Australian state to put thinking on the curriculum as part of the Victorian Education Learning Standards (VELS) curriculum from Level 1 to Level 6. Other states are about to follow. Many schools around Australia, like Melbourne Grammar School (MGS) and Victoria University are already teaching ‘thinking’ as part of their curriculum.
USA
One day an invitation arrived from the University/Urban Schools National Task Force to speak at their last quarterly conference in San Francisco. This was a task force of school district superintendents from major American cities - Dallas, New York, San Francisco, Chicago etc. and was headed by Dr. Richard Bossone.
Dr. Bossone told me that their grant had run out and San Francisco was to be their last meeting as they had lost their raison d’etre and after the San Francisco conference, the task force would fold. He invited me to talk about the SOTs activities and teaching thinking. Our presentation was a big hit and as a result they passed a motion that their new raison d’etre would be to promote the teaching of thinking skills and they would apply to have their grant renewed.
Dr. Bossone was successful in getting the University/Urban Schools National Task Force grant renewed and he immediately convened a special conference In San Juan, Puerto Rico to focus soley on teaching thinking in US schools. I was once again invited to open the conference and other representatives of various thinking programs were also invited. At this conferencehis conference the leaders of education in the US including Dr. Frank Macchiarola, Chancellor, New York City Public Schools, and Mr. Gene Maeroff, President, New York Times Foundation and Dean of Education Journalists. Mr. Maeroff’s presence was strategically important because his was the top voice on education trends in America. Like the New York Times theatre critic who can make or close a Broadway show in one article, what Gene Maeroff writes in the Education Supplement of the New York Times, inevitably comes to pass. Gene was very impressed with the San Juan discussions and also the financial commitments given to the task force so in a special two-full page pull-out feature he subsequently wrote:
“Teaching to think: A new emphasis at schools and colleges
A major new effort to teach thinking skills is planned by the University/Urban Schools National Task Force, which will soon initiate a program in the public schools of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Detroit, Minneapolis and Memphis. The College Board will provide $300,000 for the project… The School of Thinking in New York is the base in this country for teaching de Bono’s theory, disseminated from its headquarters in London, which includes breaking out of traditional thinking patterns. This means trying to devise new ways of looking at problems… it affirms the belief that without specific efforts there is no assurance students will learn to think clearly.”(New York Times: Education Winter Survey. January 9, 1983.)
This was the story that was taken up by the press around the nation and a new fad was created - teaching thinking as a skill. The media have been generous in supporting SOT and its activities, and as a group, journalists deserve a lot of the credit for SOTs success in achieving its mission.
AUSTRALIA
Within a year from that New York Times story, we had accomplished our mission of getting thinking into US schools. This is an educational trend that is very unlikely to stop or unhappen in the future.
Since then we have concentrated our efforts in Australia.
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:07 am
I find this exciting and promising, I also look at those students graduating from the current curriculum in high schools and colleges and do not find that their skills in thinking have vastly improved. If the SOT had more input into the Curriculum and teaching methods used in teaching thinking then I believe there would be a vast improvement. The “6 Training Principles” are valid and direct, whereas teaching by rout memory is not and thus does not actually teach thinking even it may teach the principles. Principles learned by rout memorizing are soon forgotten but actions are not. For an experiment ask the checker at the store next time to count out the money given back to you or ask why if 25cents equals 1/4 then why does 15 minutes also equal 1/4. The answer is quite simple but it requires thinking.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:59 am
man this would be so great to teach in schools all of the United States, maybe than it would give the children coming up to be our leaders something to think about besides gang wars or what they could do to hurt some on or what ever they think about now days. It might give them a purpose in life and a direction to get out of the situations they are facing now. It would really open up the world to them.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Hi
I m an engg. student.I m studying in Tezpur University which is in Tezpur(Assam),India. My sir has advised me to visit this web as he visit this site frequiently.This first time I m visiting this site.
THANKS
November 16th, 2007 at 1:57 am
Hi
I work in China teaching business, one of the important things I teach students is the importance of thinking. Obtaining material is hard here I hope this site can help.
Thanks
July 11th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
I commend this great initative and find it very inspiring. As I hear more about SOT, I can see it opening up whole new paradyms for anyone who used the skills and for us all, step by step, and often stepping sideways
What a fascinating world we live in
April 19th, 2007 at 3:47 am
While I find this exciting and promising, I also look at those students graduating from the current curriculum in high schools and colleges and do not find that their skills in thinking have vastly improved. If the SOT had more input into the Curriculum and teaching methods used in teaching thinking then I believe there would be a vast improvement. The “6 Training Principles” are valid and direct, whereas teaching by rout memory is not and thus does not actually teach thinking even it may teach the principles. Principles learned by rout memorizing are soon forgotten but actions are not. For an experiment ask the checker at the store next time to count out the money given back to you or ask why if 25cents equals 1/4 then why does 15 minutes also equal 1/4. The answer is quite simple but it requires thinking.
December 3rd, 2006 at 4:19 am
thinking rightly positively and methodically alternating with randomly can make great difference in one’s understanding of issues. if only all of us can think we could have achieved many feats for ourselves and for the world