The Tools System

I came across a schooling system called Tools of the Mind in the book 'Nurtureshock: Why everything we thought about children is wrong' by Pro Bronson and Ashley Merryman.

Tools of the Mind or the Tools system was designed by neuroscientists. The curriculum mainly focusses on developing two important skills:
1. Children should be able to maintain undistracted focus on the task at hand
2. Children should have enough practice in higher order thinking from a very early age

The system is introduced at the kindergarten level. Most of the learning happens through play-acting. For instance, while learning about a hospital, children play out the parts of various associated characters. Significantly, each child puts down her part of the play including the minutest details. Teachers would help them out in creating the script. The details would include drawings and words. Later while acting, children are encouraged to meticulously follow the script. Distractions are weeded out by reminding them of what is in the script and what is not. The whole exercise provides them excellent practice to shut out distractions and have a single-minded focus.

Scripting out details of their part of the play also helps them develop planning skills. This stimulates the part of the brain responsible for executive functions. The part of the brain that deals with executive functions and self-evaluation are critical to the child's ability to assimilate and concretize advanced and abstract topics.

Likewise the Tools system also has the exercise of grouping children into pairs and making one of them narrate a story. The other child is mandated to listen and comment on the story. This develops the child's evaluation skills, which gradually help make judgments on own work.

Many components of the Tools system could be relevant in countries like India. It may not be easy for schools to change systems, but they could try and add some parts of the system, at least at the very junior levels. At the same time, parents can adopt these ideas to have novel learning sessions with kids. Simple exercises can be designed to encourage the child to practice objective evaluation.