Thinking about thinking

Our reading for this week was on Information Processing, memory and cognition.  One specific topic which piqued my interest was the concept of "metacognition," or thinking about thinking.  The skills of metacognition develop along with many other cognitive abilities, although it seems that they sometimes lag behind children's more obvious cognitive skills (memory, reading, math and problem-solving, etc.).

Because I have a young boy aged 5 who has just started kindergarten, these theories of cognition and information processing are of tremendous importance in our household.  My son has taken to school very well and has progressed rapidly with his reading and math skills.  His rapid success has made him overconfident, however.  While he has quickly learned many words by sight, and how to sound out many others, he has little patience for words he doesn't know and doesn't yet have the metacognitive ability to understand the limitations of his new skills and watch out for common errors.  As a result, he often misses important concepts of a reading assignment or understands his readings in a way completely opposite of the text.  Studies of cognitive development have shown that this ability to recognize one's own weakness and possibilities for error, and to develop strategies to check one's work are vital to a child's academic progress.  My son has not been totally without progress in this regard, however.  After several mistakes and misunderstandings, he has learned to slow down and closely read questions containing words like "except," "do not," "least," "greatest," and other words that call for detailed and close reading.

Metacognition is not solely limited to academic matters, however.  Metacognitive ability and development is vital in many basic tasks of life, such as being able to understand someone else's motivations and thoughts, or in simply realizing that reality is not always what you see.

One of the most important researchers on this topic is John H. Flavell.  One of his more interesting studies looked at young children's ability to understand the possible difference between someone's physical appearance (whether they looked nice or attractive) and their moral behavior.    My first thought after reading about this study was, "how often does a pre-schooler in our modern society really need to try and discern a stranger's morality and good or evil intentions?"  Then it occurred to me that this process most likely occurs for the first time for most children while they are watching plays or movies or reading books.  In particular, it often seems that children's interest in this type of dramatic deception occurs alongside their abilities to realize that people are not always what they seem (around age 5-6).

For my own son, this particular metacognitive development has coincided with his fascination with Star Wars.  Along with all the action and special effects, a major theme of the Star Wars films is that things, and particularly people, aren't always what they seem.  An old hermit living out in the desert is really a Jedi master.  A handsome and elegant Galactic Senator is really an evil, scheming Sith Lord.  A tiny, elderly alien living alone in a swamp is really the most powerful Jedi in the universe.  And finally, a poor farm-boy living in obscurity in the middle of nowhere is really destined to save the galaxy.