ABSTRACT
If you want to bring children’s thinking and learning into top gear, the spoken and written texts that we call ‘discussion’ and ‘persuasion’ will help enormously. Both are to do with argument and because their structure is logical rather than chronological they are often thought to be challenging for younger learners. In their mature, written form they are likely to be difficult for the under elevens. But even very young children can argue for a viewpoint orally, especially if they are talking about things they care about – issues that arise in everyday contexts at home and in the classroom. As children move through the primary years, they encounter different points of view in a variety of lesson topics. Exploring these makes learning exciting and gives real point to children’s discussion, to their research in books and to their investigations on the internet. Of course, children are not going to get excited by the bland or commonplace. They need to be fascinated, provoked, sometimes even shocked to bring their thinking into top gear. It was Jean Piaget who most powerfully suggested that learning occurs when we feel unsettled by a situation or by some information. He calls this unsettled state of mind ‘disequilibrium’ and believes that seeking out answers to our questions restores that balance of mind he terms ‘equilibrium’ (Piaget, 1952). How do teachers bring about situations in which children genuinely and passionately want to find out? I believe that it is by helping them to seek out the controversial, mind stretching issues that lie at the heart of so many topics and then to explore those issues through reading, talk and writing. Thinking about different points of view and encouraging open ended tasks helps develop flexible and creative thinking and their ability to make new connections. And children’s interests and activities outside the classroom can be drawn on to energize learning. They can bring much knowledge to school – gleaned from websites, films and television programmes as well as from print material. The trigger for children’s engagement with a controversial topic is sometimes not an information text, but a story, poem or picturebook which raises compelling issues, and this is recognized in this chapter.
