Metacognate meliora!

 'The teenage brain: 'We can be impulsive and easily distracted during our teenage years'' photo (c) 2011, Duncan Hull - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0

 

 

 

Metacognition has a variety of definitions; what makes all of them similar is that they all recognize that it is primarily "thinking," thinking about thinking, or learning to think about how one learns, considering personal ways of knowing or habits of mind. Only when an individual steps out of this  unthinking state--steps out of just doing what one always does without taking a good look around at how one is doing or learning--can that individual start to  focus change in any meaningful way. Lynn Meltzer, author of Promoting Executive Function in the Classroom, asks "Why teach strategies?" when she suggests it is possible for students with executive function issues to master their challenges. Again, the answer is metacognition. (28)

Broadening the ability to think about how and why we do what we do and think about how we think is undoubtedly a process that we must practice lifelong*. Unfortunately, metacognition may not be available to all who desire it-- and may not be available to many before the prefrontal cortex of the brain, along with other sites is fully functional. And development of the parts of the prefrontal cortex occurs very late; often teenagers' brains are not fully developed in this area, and so, it seems to me, they may have already formed habit , especially habits of mind, or habits that relate to studying, or schoolwork, or self-image BEFORE their brains even give them a chance.

So it makes sense that the teenage years MUST be the very latest time to force the issue with our students. If we do not actively promote metacognition and open up about students' relative strengths and challenges and ask them very directly to learn about metacognition and strategies that characterize differ ways of manipulating their learning environments so that their own particular ways of thinking and their own learning styles are treated best, then certainly we have missed the mark. And often, I think we do that both before adolescence and right through it-- just because the challenge for us as educators, or teachers, or consultants is hard to do. By the time students are teens, they ARE hard. Asking them to manipulate their thinking, when their impulsivity and hormones and whatever other stimulants are raging in their brains and endocrine systems is hard even to think about. But it's impossible.

Case in point: I am always stunned when I approach a student and ask that student if he/she has even seen or knows what is in his/her IEP, and the answer is a resounding no. How can we expect students to use the prefrontal cortex development in any meaningful way if the individual does not have inkling of what there might be to think about strategically!

I head straight back to Mel Levine’s ideas about "demystification," How very key. Demystify what a child's challenges are as soon as possible and talk about it openly, directly, so that child knows from the start-- or as early as possible-- that what or how they are thinking is just one way, not the only way.. And certainly to make sure the demystification is one that adds to rather takes away from their ability to gain self-esteem. That, I think, is NOT so very hard to do. But keeping that kind of information away from students with brain-based differences (from the norm) of one sort or another is something we actually--and wrongly-- do very, very well. It's all hush, hush, when it shouldn't be. Just as our culture is hush, hush about any illness or difference that has something to do with mental states or capabilities. Why is it that all of us have physicians to take care of our physical symptoms, and to help or ameliorate physicals symptoms or pain, and only a minority of us have mental health professionals to take care of or mental symptoms or pain?

Have you heard of this? "Physician heal thyself?" Well, here's a parallel command: "Parent, special educators, and all those who want no student left behind, METACOGNATE to successfully teach strategies that will help them take advantage of positive strategic learning about learning before they are definitively set in their ways. WE ARE responsible-- so keeping our own thinking open to novelty and change is a given.

Closed minds, unmetacognitive minds, and "neverminds," can't open a thing, certainly not that of a student or anyone else.

Actually, YOUR prefrontal cortex should be working pretty darn well by now; so no excuses.

Please comment, if you wish.

 

*See future blog or comment about lifelong learning.

 

 

 

 

 

From "the book" and real life...

As a special educator who teaches students with--what I understand very incompletely to date-- "executive functioning" issues, and as a parent of a now grown child who had these for sure, I am eager to learn what I can to intervene as early as possible or at least to help students compensate as soon as they can manage to counter their "executive funk." I am not positive what the actual definition of "funk" is either, but I am sure I see it daily as students go round and round in a seemingly never ending flurry of activity or nonactivity that almost always yields very little on paper along with a kind of blustering frustration with whatever has been inadvertently left undone. The book I am reading and will be reacting to and reporting on through this blog to assist me in developing as a professional in the field is Promoting Executive Function in the Classroom by Lynn Meltzer copyright 2010, part of the What Works for Special Needs Learners series , Guildford Press New York. The "real lives" I'll be referring to anonymously is my own and those of the high school students struggling (whether they know it or not, yet) to make their learning lives more effective.
If you wish, please come along -- and comment!