Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason so few engage in it--Henry Ford

As teachers we should encourage students to think by asking them questions such as why, when, how, who and where. We must ask them to justify their answers and encourage them to think on a deeper level. According to Benjamin Bloom, an educational psychologist who developed a classification of levels of intellectual behavior, found that over 95% of the test questions students encounter require them to think only at the lowest possible level…the recall of information (http://www.officeport.com/edu/blooms.htm).

As a student I recall asking my third grade teacher why I had to answer the end of the chapter questions. She told me by answering these questions she would know if I understood the content. I remember thinking, how is copying an answer straight out of the book going to tell my teacher if I understood the information? Isn’t this simply just letting the teacher know that I have taken the time to go back into the chapter and copy the answers from the book? According to Bloom my teacher was requiring me to think only at the lowest possible level by simply asking me to regurgitate information. Sadly many teachers are still continuing this type of assessment today. They aren’t asking students to apply what they know to different situations (application level) or compare and contrast what they have read to another situation (analysis). My question is why?

I don’t think any teacher walks into the door and says, “I am going to do the bare minimum today.” Honestly, I think there are many reasons that teachers simply do not falter from the textbook curriculum. First, it is very time consuming. Why write your lesson plan when there is already one provided for you? Why stress on finding plans that meet the standard course of study requirements? Second, it requires teachers to think outside the box. Instead of simply reading from the textbook teachers must create or locate lesson plans for their students. Third, teachers must focus on language arts and mathematics heavily for students to do well on the end-of-grade test. After planning so hard for these two subjects many times other subjects such as science and social studies fall to the back burner.

Understanding by Design (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005, pg 125) asks "If the textbook contains the answers, then what are the questions?" My answer…THEY ARE NOT REALLY QUESTIONS? My mom use to tell me, “God gave you a brain so use it.” Are students really thinking if they can look back in the textbook and find the single, correct answer? Of course not! The questions we ask our students should provoke a higher level thinking. They should allow students to argue, assess, justify, illustrate, express, distinguish, experiment and compare and contrast answers. They should promote class discussions. There should be more than one correct answer. In our everyday life there is not one single answer to solve a problem. If so the President of the United States and a CEO of a major company would just look up their questions in a book to their major problems and find the single correct answer. Unfortunately life isn’t that simple. We are always going to have to “use the brain God gave us” to come up with answers to everyday problems. As a teacher it is very important to ask students questions that provoke a higher level thinking and encourage them to justify and explain their answers.