***Revised Blog***Reasoning/Decision-Making

“Reasoning draws a conclusion, but does not make the conclusion, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.” (Roger Bacon) Reasoning skills/decision-making skills are one of the most important skills that need to be developed at a young age. This gives the child more time to connect the reasoning skills they have learned to the many experiences they will encounter. On the other hand, if we chose not to teach these fundamental concepts in Elementary/primary School then we are asking our youth to figure things out for themselves as they are in the most vulnerable stage of their lives. Therefore it is imperative that we introduce these skills early in order to give our youth the chance to be socially successful as well as successful in their respective lives.

Reasoning / decision-making is the process of considering the possible consequences of different choices. There are many other things that go along with reasoning and decision making, which I will provide in the link. (Basic Reason Skills Elaboration) Basically this process helps us categorize, match patterns, see similarities in different objects, develop logic, infer information, problem solve and create new information to express an idea. As you can see these are all things that we commonly use throughout our lives, but what if we haven’t been taught these things until middle school or high school? How far behind in the learning curve are we in life? These are questions we must ask ourselves if we do not teach these basic skills to children in Elementary/primary School. 

The first question that usually comes to mind when people think about this subject is : Why does it matter whether they learn it now or later, as long as they are taught it eventually? We must understand that at this age (5 -11) children learn how to interact with others and start to build their perceptions, or at least their foundation, of the world. The next stage after this is the teen stage,which is critical as well. " The choices teens make may drastically affect not only their own lives, but the lives of others as well (Ganzel, 1999). Some of these choices may include which career to pursue, whether or not to have sex or use contraceptives, whether or not to use alcohol, cigarettes, or other drugs, or whether or not to engage in violent or risky behaviors (Fischhoff et al., 1999; Ganzel, 1999)."( http://cals-cf.calsnet.arizona.edu/fcs/bpy/content.cfm?content=decision_making).The next stage after the teen stage is the adult stage where we must make decisions in the real world on our own. So, as you can see from the information provided getting an early start on reasoning/decision-making can make a big difference in someone's life. It can mean the difference between someone having the knowledge to look at the facts of smoking before jumping into it because of peer pressure. If one does not have the ability to make a serious decision about such a matter it could lead to health problems that could have been prevented. All in all, the earlier we can get the ideas of reasoning and decision -making into the minds of our youth the more time they have to build connections with their experiences and the skills they have been taught.

On the other hand some of the objectors of teaching critical thinking/reasoning skills believe that teaching these skills is near impossible or a terribly difficult task. As I read one article about teaching these skills it was stated that, " Students do not come to us as blank slates". It continues to state that we students have biases and when trying to be taught about subjects we reject things that go against our original beliefs. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=QvVQqNuiKzAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA181&dq=Objections+to+teaching+reasoning+skills&ots=XmQ6Bu6G8X&sig=5iSw7hddr6tBF8O47depAHzK-I0#v=onepage&q=Objections%20to%20teaching%20reasoning%20skills&f=false . I believe that some students do come as a blank slate. Personally I walk into every class trying to rid my mind of the ideas that I've been taught. At this stage in my life I have found out that most of the things I was taught early on were a lie ( i.e story of Christopher Columbus). Therefore children in primary school are "blank slates" because most of them have yet to be in a real school other than kindergarten.  

 

In conclusion there is no question that reasoning/ decision-makings skills need to be taught in primary/elementary school. The positives definitely outweigh the negatives in this situation.In my opinion it is true that reasoning does draw conclusions even though it does not make them, but if we do not learn the ability to draw conclusions then where do we start?