Higher-Order Thinking

Stick with me on this, as it may be a little complicated and long, but one of the more profound realizations I’ve had since becoming enmeshed in public education!

Around 1956 psychologist Benjamin Bloom unleashed his “taxonomy” of escalating thought-process on the education community.  It since has become a cornerstone theory in instructional design and professional development.  In brief, the idea is to move a learner from lower-order thinking (knowledge and comprehension) to higher-order thinking (application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation).

About a year ago, Linda Darling-Hammond was featured in a video comparing the U. S. Education system to similarly-developed countries. According to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) the United States ranks behind many of these countries and is continually falling behind.  The proposal is that the U.S. does not teach or test our children at the same levels of higher-order thinking.  This is not news as the multiple-choice, standardized tests we’ve relied upon for years can attest.

My proposition is that we, as a country, infrequently go beyond lower-order thinking.  Most educators I know value learning through inquiry, but are bound by multiple forces to function in perfunctory ways that may not necessarily facilitate higher-order thinking.  The knowledge and comprehension are out there, and have been for years, however we as a people have not moved into higher-order thinking as we play out our political values.

A few examples of things we “know” and “comprehend” across multiple domains of our society, but especially effecting the education of our children:

• Equitable tax structures for a sustainable economy
• The significance of socio-economic differences
• Learning styles of children
• Non-traditional school organizational structures
• Solid learning standards (deep, not wide)
• Effective instructional practices
• The relationship of learning standards to instructional practice

In few instances has our society “analyzed, applied, or synthesized” such concepts into reality or action.  To be fair, we do plenty of “evaluating” of the same old systems and any new thinking that tries to rear its ugly head…perhaps that’s our higher-order thinking.  Is this lack of higher-order thinking due to some political agenda, financial deficiency, or hidden class system?

I’m left wondering: if we know it, why don’t we do it?  I suppose that question could be applied to many industries or situations, but it might require some higher-order thinking to answer.