UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

EDUCATION COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE SCIENCES : SPEECH

AND LANGUAGE SCIENCES

MA in TESOL

EDU846 Developing Thinking Skills

LEVEL M

Assignment 1

Sue Robson

Student number: 038014035

January 12th 2004

Word count: 5000

 UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

EDUCATION COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE SCIENCES :

SPEECH AND LANGUAGE SCIENCES

I certify that all material in this Assignment

which is not my own work, has been identified and that no
material is included which has been submitted for any other
award or qualification.

Signed:

Date:

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Introduction
Contemporary education policy is dominated by a seriously flawed
intellectual framework which will inevitably fail as a means of
educating persons for the 21st century or, indeed, any other. We are
facing a multiple crisis within this country [UK], a crisis of intellectual
and imaginative nerve that currently afflicts policy makers, teachers in
schools and the research community alike. We remain prisoners of an
outmoded intellectual framework and a properly zealous political will;
taken together they present a well intentioned, if mistaken, symbiosis
and as a consequence our demise is likely to deepen rather than
disperse. Just as school effectiveness and social improvement articulate
the moribund categories of a frightened, unimaginative society so the
aspirant hegemony of the technologies of teaching provide a classroom
equivalent which will do more damage more quickly and more widely
than its institutional predecessor. (Fielding 2000, p397).

Fielding may be right. Then again he may not. In reality stuck in a contemporary world
of perpetual paradox which rejects God yet still seeks to define right or wrong as
something objective it is, in the end, immaterial. In this paradoxical world, Fielding can
be right and wrong and it interests us not. What is of concern here is the desire by many,
Fielding being just one, to ‘think anew’ in the words of Albert Einstein. In the new
globalized world dominated by big business and corporate giants ‘old’ thinking is of no
use, one has to be ahead of the pace just to keep up. Changes in society are mirrored by
changes in the classroom; ‘Part of the need to teach thinking skills has come from a
growing awareness that society has changed. Skills that were appropriate 20 years ago
no longer prepare children for the world beyond school.’ (Fisher 1995a, pvii).
Developing societies, already at a perceived disadvantage by international laws and
conventions that appear to favour rich nations economically and politically, are as in need
as anybody to keep abreast of changes in the world. To do this they need an intelligentsia
that has the necessary sets of skills to allow them to assist in the development of their
countries. As part of the process of developing a workforce capable of meeting the needs

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of the twenty first century ‘In recent years thinking skills have been placed firmly on the
map by educational policy makers’ (Mckendree et al 2002, p57). This assignment is an
investigation into the deployment of new, predominantly western designed,
interventionist strategies in Pakistani schools.

What follows is in three broad sections. The first section is an overview of contemporary
research into thinking skills interventions, focusing on the ideas of the founders of much
of today’s ideology, Piaget and Vygotsky. I will examine the latest commentary on their
ideas. I will then move to examine a practical implementation of these ideas in the form
of the works of Matthew Lipman and Robert Fisher.

The second section will look in detail at the possibility of implementing Lipman and
Fisher’s strategies in schools in Pakistan and comment on the perceived difficulties
arising form such an attempt. I will use past research that has been carried out in
Pakistan to evaluate the suitability of my proposals.

The final section will focus on the design of an interventionist paradigm for Pakistani
schools. Here I will offer a full evaluation of the strategies chosen.

I will finish with a conclusion highlighting my findings.

Piaget and Vygotsky, Same Difference?

Similarities and perceived differences between Piaget and Vygotsky have concerned
theorists for decades. In the last decade it has been suggested by some that perceived
differences between the two may be just that, perceptions and nothing more. Writing a
few months ago, Shayer argues that ‘by the early 30s they [Piaget and Vygotsky] had
reached almost identical positions regarding child development’ (Shayer 2003, p465).
Rather than being alternative theories Shayer argues that the two theorists were
complimentary. This echoes sentiments expressed by Glassman (1995) who in response
to Duncan (1995) also puts forward the thesis that the differences that exist between

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Vygotsky and Piaget are complimentary not alternatives. What then are we to make of
all this?

The main difference between the two cited by many is the role of society in cognitive
development. A major criticism of Piaget is that his work neglects the role of peers and
adults in children’s development; ‘Piaget has suffered a great deal of criticism that his
theory of psychological development neglects the social nature of human development’
(Hayes and Matusov, 2000, p215). The basic thesis put forward by Piaget is that in the
years between infancy and preschool, children are individual or solo thinkers in the
social, cultural and physical world. This appears to contradict directly with Vygotsky’s
thesis on the zone of proximal development (ZPD) defined by himself as

…the distance between his actual development, determined with the

help of independently solved tasks and the level of potential
development of the child, determined with the help of tasks solved by
the child under the guidance of adults and in cooperation with his more
intelligent peers (Vygotsky 1933, cited Shayer 2003, p470).

It would appear then that we are looking at two different notions of children’s cognitive
development; the Piagetitian model which prefers to focus on the child as an individual
and the Vygotskian paradigm which views the child in a wider, social context. Both
Shayer and Glassman reject this perspective preferring instead to view each theorist as
dealing with a specific and more importantly different area. There is no room here to
engage this discussion in the detail it requires and hence I will only comment briefly on
some of the comments made by Shayer.

What Shayer is saying is that Piaget was more universal in his approach, that his tests
were aimed at gathering data for populations whereas Vygotsky was concerned with
individual learners;

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 If one looks at Piaget’s sampling unit as being not the individual but as
a set of children sufficiently varied both in age and ability to elicit both
successful understanding and all the steps in the ZPD leading up to the
achievement of the scheme studied, one can then view the Genevan
methodology as focussed on the qualitative detail of the study of the
ZPD phenomena, as distinguished form the quantitative side which
Vygotsky described in his psychometric phase. (ibid, p475).

I think what we can take from what is being said here is that the oftentimes
repeated rhetoric of Piaget being focussed on the individual and Vygotsky the
social is perhaps a bit simplistic and in need of some revision. Certainly in light of
what Glassman says, ‘it is a mistake to say that context is secondary to Piaget’
(Glassman, 2000, p480), it does appear there is more to this than many
commentators suggest. Having said all that I think it would be naïve to suggest that
Piaget and Vygotsky can be merged in any way. This would do great injustice to
both authors and would ignore the field of speciality of each. What concerns us
here, trying to evaluate some form of intervention for Pakistan is Vygotsky’s theory
of ZPD and Bruner’s development of that into what he (Bruner) called scaffolding.

Bruner, Scaffolding and the ZPD

Vygotsky put forward the ZPD as an alternative to intelligent quotient (IQ) as a

measure of intelligence. Instead Vygotsky proposed a thesis whereby he claimed
that if given the right level of assistance or mediation eight year children could
solve problems designed for twelve year olds, in his own words, ‘with assistance
every child can do more than he can do by himself’ and ‘what a child can do in
cooperation today he can do alone tomorrow’ (Fisher, 1995b). The whole idea here
is to create cognitive conflict within a child, to set challenging tasks that appear
difficult at first but with the right degree of intervention can be completed by the
child.

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Scaffolding is a term that was introduced by Bruner when describing Vygotsky’s
idea of mediated learning via a ‘more knowledgeable other’ (Ko et al, 2003). The
idea of a ‘more knowledgeable other’ and what function that other performs has
been the basis of much research over the years. However the latest commentary on
this focuses on the idea of coequal interaction and the results of this (ibid). In an
interesting aside here;

Piaget might disagree with Vygotsky because, for Piaget, participation

in an activity for which a child is not ready with a more knowledgeable
partner leads mainly to imposing the partners views and will not affect
the structures of child’s actions. (Hayes and Matusov 2000, p219).

This is the type of clear cut disagreement that appears to refute the claims of
Glassman and Shayer that the theories are not conflicting. Just as important
is the fact that it throws up an interesting conundrum, if we accept Piaget’s
views we should ensure that any scaffolding takes places between coequals to
prevent one peer from ‘imposing’ on another. This gives the added problem
of ensuring that students are of an equal level in any scaffolding mediation.
This may appear to be a straightforward ask in a developed society where
schools are large enough to allow setting of students based on performance in
exams or tests but not so easy in Pakistan where, like most other developing
societies, schools are privately run and small with a massive range of ability
between students in any one class.

In an article published some months ago, Ko et al (2003) investigated the

efficacy of scaffolding in an ESL storytelling task. The findings of their
research confirm that scaffolding does work and can assist students in their
ability to retell a story. However one important point that is thrown up by the
study is that not all the interventions worked. The implication here is that
believing that any scaffolding, whatever shape or form it takes, will succeed

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is naïve and dangerous. What was found to be key in this study was the
quality of the intervention. It’s important to understand this and I will refer
back to it when I come to analyse the possibilities of any intervention in
Pakistan.

Essentially what Bruner was saying when he put forward his thesis was that
in line with their ZPD children learnt best when guided by more
knowledgeable others. His proposal centred around the idea of breaking
down set tasks into manageable units. This is quintessential interventionist
theory, viewing it as a dynamic method to add value to a child’s learning
experience (Cameron, 2001). The idea is to take a difficult task, break it
down into small manageable units and offer gradually diminishing assistance.
Over time the degree of assistance falls and the child can do the tasks alone.
A number of strategies have been designed that build on the theoretical
underpinnings of Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner, I would like to consider an
approach put forward by Matthew Lipman and more recently Robert Fisher.

Why Lipman and Fisher?

Before giving a full account of Fisher’s approach it is necessary to explain

why I have opted in favour of this particular approach. When analysing all
possible interventions I found myself looking at two distinct sets of
approaches. There was the thinking skills approach of authors such as Fisher
and then there was instrumental enrichment (IE) programmes of practitioners
such as Feuerstein. As I will outline below, and as I have touched upon
earlier, this article is about what can be done in Pakistan and hence certain
ground realities need to be taken into account.

Whilst Feuerstein’s approach is widely respected in educational circles it

suffers from one major handicap that is highly pertinent to the Pakistani
context. The problem is that Feuerstein’s material ‘at present is copyrighted,

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and materials may only be purchased for school use by teachers who have
been trained by the agency.’ (Beasley and Shayer 1987, p117). The high
expense associated with the training of staff in this way is unaffordable in
Pakistan. Now there are of course alternatives which have been published
that do not carry the same degree of copyright protection. This is a valid
criticism of my decision not to look at IE. In the final analysis I decided that
the alternatives simply did not carry the same level of authenticity and
authority as Feuerstein’s original programme, anything can be copied but
whether it is any good is a different story altogether. Evaluating the copied
material is simply beyond the scope of this work, therefore I wanted to work
with something that is tried and tested. With Lipman and Fisher’s strategies I
am working with strategies that are well tested and grounded in innovative
yet proven principles. I will move to look at the underpinnings of his theory.

Philosophy in the Classroom

The Philosophy for Children (P4C) programme was developed by Matthew

Lipman in conjunction with The Institute for the advancement of philosophy
for Children (Lipman, 1991). The initial programme consisted of a set of
short stories, written by Lipman himself, intended to provide a model and
language that teachers can use with children in the classroom. The approach
draws heavily on the type of Socratic dialogue typical of the Platonic
dialogues. Importantly for the Pakistani context, where it is necessary to
provide evidence that such an approach can improve academic performance,
Lipman himself reports research that showed that his programme

‘had an effect on intellectual performance, in particular, improvements

were noted in reading and mathematics and on measures of both
creative and formal reasoning’ (McGuinness 1999, p14).

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P4C has been used as a teaching instrument in several areas of children’s
education such as developing of thinking skills and most notably the teaching
of values. Fisher discusses this in some depth (1991) but it is not relevant to
the Pakistani context since almost all the people are Muslim and hence have
an objective, externally predetermined set of values. I will clarify this in the
next section.

The type of philosophy that Lipman and later Fisher (2001) are talking about
is different, as Lipman states above, to standard academic philosophy taught
in schools and universities:

…when I advocated philosophy in the schools, I was not talking about

the traditional academic philosophy taught in the undergraduate schools
of the university. What I was talking about was a philosophy
redesigned and reconstructed so as to make it available and acceptable
and enticing to children. Moreover, the pedagogy by which the subject
was to be presented would have to be just as drastically redesigned as
the subject itself (Lipman 1991, p262).

One of the key differences is the absence of abstract jargon and concepts. It
is not necessary for the children to be aware of the specific terminology to be
able to engage in philosophical discourse what matters is that the discussion
instigates thinking within children.

The purpose behind the P4C approach is to enable children to think

independently, to arrive at conclusions and to be able to analyse the opinions
of others. Essentially;

…through philosophy children encounter at first hand a community of

enquiry, in which children are exposed to and internalise the skills and
habits of higher order thinking (Fisher 2001, p67).

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To understand what is alluded to by higher order thinking, Fisher reproduces
elsewhere Bloom’s Taxonomy of thinking as:

‘Higher order

 Evaluation, e.g. What do you think about…criteria to judge…?

 Synthesis, e.g. ‘How could we add to…improve, design or solve?’
 Analysis, e.g. ‘What is the evidence for…parts or features of…?’

Lower order

 Application, e.g. ‘What other examples are there…?’

 Comprehension, e.g. ‘What do we mean by…? Explain…’
 Knowledge, e.g. ‘Who…What…When…How
(Fisher 1995b, p18).

The idea is to establish an environment that allows children the freedom to explore the
world and expand their intellectual horizons through the medium of philosophic dialogue.
One of the main contentions to this approach has been to question the possibility of
children engaging in philosophic discourse. Those that state it is not possible allude to
the research of Piaget who conducted an experiment with a child seated at a table with
three different mountains on it. A doll was placed in a different geographic direction to
the child. The child was then asked, without success, to explain what the doll could see.
Piaget concluded that children were unable to see life from a non egocentric viewpoint
(Murris, 2000a)

This Piaget led objection is rather more specific than the numerous general objections to
children engaging in philosophic discourse. Kitchener is one example of an author who
rigidly believes that children can not grasp, for example, the ontological principle of what
constitutes identity over time in a given example (Kitchener, 1990). The problem with

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Kitchener’s thesis is that fails to recognise the major issue, which is improvements in
academic performance. Instead he becomes grounded in the quagmire of terminology,
absurdly arguing that those who favour the P4C approach have mistaken ‘thinking
critically’ with ‘doing philosophy’ (p416). Surely the issue here is one of whether or not
empirical evidence exists to prove that this approach can lead to increased academic
performance rather than are the children ‘really doing philosophy’. Since this empirical
evidence does exist then it is fair to say that P4C does develop thinking skills and hence
is a valid and proven instrument that could be used in Pakistani classrooms. There are,
however some limitations.

Education in Pakistan

The education system in Pakistan favours a system of rote learning and this permeates
every facet of scholarship. According to research carried out:

…the system of rote learning, almost universal in Pakistan, far from

favouring the less able, in fact thrusts onto the child the whole burden
of creating the relational understanding required to make sense of the
reading, writing and the numberwork covered in school. Only the
mentally mature and robust can survive the system (Pervez et al 1988,
p343).

It is with this is mind that I seek to implement an intervention in Pakistan. When

contemplating implementing an intervention in a developing country, especially when
that country’s culture differs form the one in which the intervention was designed, there
are several areas of contention that need to be looked at. Firstly there is the possibility of
the intervention clashing with established cultural practices and norms. Secondly there is
the question of availability of resources and necessary teaching staff. Thirdly there is the
question of efficacy, if it works in England does that mean it must work in Pakistan? I
will attempt to deal with these issues individually below.

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Culture Clash

The general environment in Pakistan schools is rigid and structured.

Being a traditional society, students are not encouraged to hold
discussions or seek clarification from teachers if they do not understand
a topic or concept (Iqbal and Shayer 2000, p270)

Pakistan is a conservative Muslim country. Islam is the religion of 97% of the population
(UN, 2003) In the villages the people lead typical traditional existences, very restricted
in outlook and merging culture with religion such that it is difficult to differentiate
between the two. The educational system is in decay, suffering from endemic
underfunding and gross mismanagement. Due to a land dispute with neighbours India
over the disputed area of Kashmir, most of Pakistan’s wealth is consumed by the military.
Education accounts for only 2.7 per cent of GDP and much of that is taken up by
bureaucracy and corruption (World Bank, 2003). Although the country’s constitution
prescribes free education for all this has not been achieved (Zia, 2003). There are four
tiers of schools, (a) state-influenced elitist public schools, (b) private elitist schools (c)
private non elitist schools and (d) free religious schools or Madaaris (sing. Madrassah).
(Rahman, 2001). The standard of education is generally poor with the exception being
the extremely small number of elitist state and none state influenced schools.

In line with the idea that education needs to be culture specific many leading theorists
reject outright any notion of best ways of teaching, according to Nunan ‘the search for the
one best method would seem to be well and truly dead (Nunan 2001 cited Bax 2003).
Bax is heavily critical of the approach taken by many practitioners who seek to impose
western designed systems of teaching onto foreign students with complete disregard for
native ways. The idea of throwing the baby out with the bathwater is very common in
language teaching circles, Bax talks of the newly qualified teacher who arrives in a
foreign land and becomes instantly critical of local teaching practices irrespective of their
efficacy. A more cautious approach is required as pointed out by O’Sullivan;

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 Learner-centred approaches were developed in the West and are
appropriate to the Western focus on the individual. This raises
questions about their potential relevance in developing country societies
(2003, p11).

The research carried out and mentioned earlier by Lipman and others
certainly does show that learner centred approaches can increase, in some
cases significantly, academic performance. What I am suggesting here is that
to simply take the approach as it is and to implement it per se would be a
grave mistake. In an attempt to accelerate the development of formal
thinking in Pakistani schools an intervention was attempted. A Cognitive
Acceleration Through Science Education (CASE) was attempted in three
schools. The results shown were encouraging and did indeed make the case
for continued pursuance of this approach but with some reservations;

Some teachers in other subjects said the students had become too open
minded and too often put questions to the teachers instead of merely
taking notes form what the teacher delivered from the front at the
blackboard. “Almost unteachable” one teacher said (Iqbal and Shayer
2000, p 271).

This research also highlighted some limitations most notably that ‘groupwork
was almost impossible’ (ibid, p271) as a result of the children being seated in
seating arrangements that were impossible to alter. On this point I am critical
of their approach since even in the situation described where free movement
was not possible some form of groupwork must have been possible even if
this meant that the children only worked with the students in front or behind
them.

The research concludes by saying that

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 For Pakistan schools, it appears that the CASE intervention
methodology raises cultural problems relating to general school ethos,
and future use would need this aspect to be addressed (ibid, p272).

I would conclude this section by saying that from what has preceded here it it
clear that the P4C will require some cultural adjustment to ensure the
problems highlighted above are not encountered.

The Need for Resources

One of the key issues relating to the implementation of any intervention is the
availability of resources. As you can see I have attempted to head off this
problem early on by rejecting Feuerstein’s approach that was heavily
copyrighted and required specific training before the material could be
purchased. However this does leave the problem of staff training. The
argument I make here is that one of the key areas that needs to be addressed
before considering any intervention is staff training. It would be highly
negative to even consider implementing these strategies without the
prerequisite preparation. An idea does exist that the teacher takes a back seat
in this programme and hence there is no need for training.

The suggestion that the learner centred approach equates with a hands off
approach for teachers is mistaken, as Lipman et al point out.

The philosophy for children curriculum is in no way designed to be

teacher-proof. More than anything, philosophical inquiry among
children is dependent on a teacher who understands children, is
sensitive to philosophical issues and is capable of manifesting in
everyday behaviour a deep commitment to philosophical enquiry (1980,
p84).

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The role of the teacher as ‘facilitator’ is perhaps one of the most integral parts
of the whole P4C process. Ko et al (2003) have shown how the nature of
facilitation can significantly affect student output. The exact role the teacher
should play in classroom discussions is not established with certainty as yet
as there is room for research in this respect (Murris, 2000). There are various
other contentious issues, such as whether teachers who opt for this approach
need to have a philosophical background, i.e. have a degree or perhaps an A
Level in Philosophy. From the literature I have accessed the notion that the
teacher takes a general hands off approach, comes across often but this is far
from the truth. The reality is that teachers will require extensive training to
ensure that they can move the discussions in the right direction; ‘…when
assessing communities of philosophical inquiry, how the facilitator sees her
own role in the inquiry is crucial’ (ibid, p47). One thing that is certain is that
the teacher needs to view the lesson in its correct cultural context.

In her research published some months ago, O’Sullivan sought to investigate

different learner centred approaches to teaching reading in a developing
country context. Her results show that benefits can be achieved but only
through careful consideration of local circumstances. One of the key points
to come out of her work was that ‘the use of more complex type
comprehensive questions might have confused teachers’ (O’Sullivan 2003b,
p135). Her report suggests that extensive training of teachers is required
before they are capable of delivering the lessons to a high standard. It was
not enough to simply train teachers and ask them to implement, relying on
their feedback to judge the success of the implementation:

Most teachers claimed to be implementing learner-centred approaches

in their classrooms…Lesson observations did not corroborate teachers’
implementation claims (O’Sullivan 2003a, p9)

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In reality the approaches we are considering are a major departure from
traditional teaching styles and unless significant investment in the necessary
training is undertaken then it is unlikely that any such interventions will have
the desired outcomes;

Such a radical change in teaching style could only be achieved by a

substantial investment both in pre-service training and professional
development time for teachers in Pakistan (Iqbal and Shayer 1999,
p272).

If we take into account the massive change being asked of teachers in

Pakistan it is understandable how ‘debates about methodology can sometimes
be unsettling for practicing teachers’ (Klapper 2003, p40). The conclusion
here is that appropriate levels of training are required since as Shayer says ‘It
is her [the teacher’s] job to manage the lesson so that peer-peer mediation is
maximised, a very different skill from ordinary instructional teaching’ (2003,
p483). I will finish this section with Shayer’s conclusion which I believe are
directly relevant in the case of Pakistan:

Teaching programmes only become effective through Professional

Development delivered over a period of at least a year, where feedback
is given to teachers as they gain increasing experience of the problems
which arise from the lesson activities. (ibid, p484).

Philosophy for Children in Pakistan

As outlined above the P4C approach is based on a set of short stories. These
are used as ‘triggers’ to engage the children in the Socratic dialogue. Lipman
has authored his own set of stories but I will not use these for a number of

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reasons. The main grounds for rejecting his works are financial, they will be
expensive to employ. These stories have also come under critique such that
‘not all children’s philosophy teachers believe the IAPC [Lipman’s] material
is the best educational material with which to introduce young children to
philosophy’ (Murris 2000, p277). Having rejected these, and all western
designed material for financial reasons, it left me with the option of local
stories.

I have not included any example stories. The rational behind this follows. As
mentioned earlier, Pakistan is a Muslim country. Islam is not secular in
orientation; ‘In direct contradiction to the belief of western philosophers, who
view religion as a personal matter, Islam strongly opposes such a perception
(Zia 2003, p167). Muslims believe that the role of rational is limited to
proving the existence of God and his revelation. The rational here is that
once one has proven, using rational proofs, that God exists, and have proven,
again rationally, that the Qur’an is the word of God, then the law is God’s to
be followed unquestioningly. Thus one finds historically Muslim
philosophers concerned themselves with such proofs.

One major benefit of this approach was that it freed up the Muslims to
concentrate on more concrete matters, away from the abstract. So we find
that, unlike in Christian and especially Catholic theology, there was never a
clash between reason and revelation. Many of today’s advancement were
built upon foundations laid by Muslim theoreticians (algebra, dynamics etc).
From this we can see that philosophy can play a role, and would not offend
the prevailing sensibilities. The problem lies here in designing a system that
would cater for philosophical discourse within set guidelines. Designing that
system is beyond the scope of this work. To even suggest a local story from
Islamic tradition is pointless since what really needs researching is the exact
area that philosophical discourse would cover. This can only be concluded

18
with the assistance of doctors of Islamic law who could advise on the
acceptable limits of any discourse, anything else is courting controversy.

Conclusion

In this article I have outlined the theoretical underpinnings of current teaching

theory. I have looked into the latest research of Piaget and Vygotsky,
focussing on perceived differences and similarities. I have noted that in line
with the latest commentary, the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky are held to
be complimentary and not contradictory.

Following this I moved to consider the twin and related concepts of

Vygotsky’s ZPD and Bruner’s concept of scaffolding. I explained that these
theories formed the theoretical underpinnings of the interventionist strategies
of Matthew Lipman and Robert Fisher.

I have examined the philosophy for children programme that was initially put
forward by Lipman and later advocated by Fisher. It was shown that links
between the P4C approach and increased academic performance.

Finally I looked into implementing these strategies in Pakistan and have

shown that is, with modification, possible.

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