Thinking about reflection again

Confucius once said that Learning without thinking is labour lost; thinking without learning is perilous. I reflected on the first part last week. The second part “thinking without learning is perilous” sets me thinking again. It appears to be a chicken and egg problem. How is it possible to think without learning? Isn’t the act of thinking itself an act of learning? French philosopher, Descartes once said, “Cogito ergo sum”. In English, “I think, therefore I am.” To him, the ability to think ascertains a person's existence as a conscious being. Could it be that the crux of the problem lies in the quality of the thinking. So what is the definition of quality thinking? Maybe Benjamin Bloom had the answer. Evaluating the questions we posed against Bloom’s taxonomy could help us to see the levels of children’s thinking we are actually engaging with. More questions in the higher levels may mean a better chance of bringing the pupils to that level of thinking. Just for the records, here are Bloom’s levels: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation. There’s no guarantee but we should try.