Thinking In, Around, and About the Curriculum: The Role of Cognative Education

Haywood, H. Carl. "Thinking In, Around, and About The Curriculum: The Role of Cognitive Education." Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

The article takes a critical look at the current state of education reform. Haywood points out that although most individuals agree that education reform is needed, there is little agreement on the nature of the problems or the solution. Therefore it is easy to put focus and or blame on curriculum. While Haywood agrees there is an urgent need for change in the educational system he focuses his ideas from a transactional perspective. The transactional perspective relies on three principal components of ability: intelligence, cognitive processes, and motivation. Haywood states that, intelligence, cognitive processes, and motivation are three principle components and should not be regarded as three separate components of education, because they all impact one another depending on prior interactions. I agree with Haywood because as a teacher I do not teach to create robots, I teach to create life-long independent learners. I think that cognitive education/learning should be push heavily in school. The problem that arises is what does cognitive education look like? I must be honest with the fact that I do not consistently push cognitive thinking. I think this is the case is because as school we get so caught up on standards and standardized tests. The reality is if we pushed students to be independent learners the test scores would fall right into place.