Notes from the Director, July, 2009

I am writing this from Barcelona, Spain, where I am about to give a workshop on skillful thinking to a group of parents whose children attend Colegio Montserrtat, a school that I have worked with for close to two years on infusing critical and creative thinking into content instruction, enhanced by various habits of mind. This is what we now call Thinking–Based Learning, a rich concept that I, and four of my colleagues, developed in the book of the same name that was published in the spring of 2007. Colegio Montserrat is one of a cluster of schools in Spain, two more in Barcelona, two in Madrid, and three on the Canary Islands. They have all embraced thinking–based learning and I am delighted at the fine job they are doing implementing it. In many of the schools it has changed the character of the education that is provided across the whole curriculum and across all of the grade levels being taught (Colegio Montserrat is a pre–K – 12 school).

This has been a trend in my work, and the work of NCTT, over the past few years. While I continue to give generic workshops for teachers and college faculty, and while NCTT continues to offer its summer institute at Tufts University in the USA, I have also worked in extended projects, some of which are still ongoing today, with the Birkdale Intermediate School in Auckland, New Zealand, the Al Tarbia School in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Hendricks School in Jacksonville, Florida, King Abdulaziz University, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Saint Phillips Community College, in San Antonio, Texas, the Building Blocks School, again in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and The University of the United Arab Emirates, in Al Ain, UAE. Rebecca Reagan and Christina Steffen, from the group of certified NCTT trainers, along with other local NCTT-certified trainers, have also joined me in these projects.

One other project that is about to start is well worth mentioning. Dr. Khalil Khalil, of the University of the United Srab Emirates, one of the NCTT certified trainers who has assumed a leadership role in thinking–based learning over the past few years, is about to initiate a wonderful new project in UAE that he calls "The Thinking-Based Generation", based on the work I have done through NCTT. This is a project for high school students that will take place in the summers in which the goal is to create a generation of students who have integrated skillful thinking into their lives. I will help with the training of the staff who will instruct these students, and Khalil will be its overall director. May this project grow and flourish!!

And looking further ahead, during 2009–10 NCTT will be doing long–term staff development projects on infusion with schools in Utah, Virginia, Kentucky, and Massachusetts, in the USA. Teams of NCTT–certified infusion trainers from the USA will be running these programs, all using the standard NCTT format for staff-development, NCTT materials, and providing NCTT certification.

As I reflect on the scope of all of this work three things stand out. First, and obviously, there continues to be a growing international interest not in the creation of separate courses or units to teach skillful thinking but on infusing instruction in critical and creative thinking into content instruction. Second, it is our work at NCTT that is now recognized as the leading work world–wide on infusion. And third, dispite sometimes vast cultural differences between the countries I have worked in, the kinds of skillful thinking we promote in our work seems to be a common value that cuts across these cultural lines. Whether it be in the USA, in New Zealand, in Spain, or in Saudi Arabia, we all recognize that it is important to think about options when we make decisions, to consider both positive and negative consequences in making these decisions, to weigh these before we make a choice, and to do these things skillfully and well. And we all recognize and value the importance of seeking and finding evidence in determining what caused something important to happen so that we can support our judgments about causes with good reasons and not jump to conclusions that can lead us astray in trying to improve things that are not working well or enhance the frequency of things that we value. And we all recognize that true creativity involves putting together things that are familiar to create new things that serve human purposes well. These are some of the substantial thinking–related concepts that every one of the schools and colleges that I have worked with embrace, and that they all recognize can be taught in ways that enhance content learning drammatically by infusing direct instruction in these aspects of skillful thinking into the content curriculum, whatever that content is (and it does vary widely in these schools). This is a silent worldwide revolution taking place in education that rises above our cultural differences and provides the underpinning of the 21^st Century skills that all students need to live and thrive in the global community our world is rapidly becoming.

Let me close with a few other upbeat announcement. Because the demand for TBL programs has become so intense in various communities, NCTT is in the process of opening offices in Amman Jordan, Riyadh Saudi Arabia, Valencia Spain, and Al Ain, UAE. These offices will use the materials and staff–development structures that NCTT has developed for the staff–development projects we do, and will offer NCTT cetification, including a new Model Thinking–Based Learning School certification. As local sites, they will be better able to staff and coordinate these local projects, while maintaining the high standards for this work that NCTT–USA represents. I will keep you posted on these new developments as they become operational.

I would also like to mention the new "Teachers of Thinking Collaborative" that has been started in New Zealand, prompted by interest there in infusing thinking skills into content instruction. The collaborative now has over 250 members. It produces a regular newsletter ("The Skilful Thinker") and sponsors thinking–based learning events, including workshops. The newsletters, which include updates on collaborative sponsored events, are available on this website.

Robert Swartz, Director, NCTT
July, 2009