ABSTRACT
It was when I started teaching in the early 1980s that I comprehended the significance of the different ways people think. Teaching small children to read, write and calculate challenged my hitherto unexamined ways of thinking, and I started to reflect more deeply about differences in thinking. It may be that I was particularly naïve or that the easy-going nature of my family and friends provided a cocoon that protected me from having to defend my decisions or ways of thinking. Even three years of ‘teacher training’ did not challenge me to interrogate my comfortable and seemingly successful ways of thinking. The act of teaching with the requisite skill of communicating clearly new ideas and ways of learning to a large group of six-year-olds removed any assumptions I had about the homogeneity of thought! It was a revelation and catapulted me on a pathway of learning that continues today.
