How the Smart Get Smarter: My Thoughts on Chapter 2

Willingham addresses how useful should we consider factual learning in Chapter 2. This is a notion that has haunted my curriculum instruction for the past several years. In an attempt to be novel and experiential, how do I also incorporate the foundational learning necessary for my students to build up their base knowledge like I have? We might think that in today’s instant Internet environment students should be taught critical evaluation of such information rather than focus on fact building. Yet research shows that students must still have the factual base to be able to develop the critical thinking skills that will help them evaluate. This is because for our brains, critical thinking processes rely on background knowledge. Thus, the essence of this chapter is that factual knowledge must precede the skill development.

A second prominent point is how this concept shows gaps in our educational system. Although it isn’t the focal point for this book, my better understanding of how factual knowledge impacts all future learning provides a better understanding for achievement gaps (See what I did there? Super meta). This acquired knowledge base promotes reading comprehension to go deeper than the surface level. When I have the background of a topic, I can understand better what is being asked and there are less gaps in my understanding. I can use my working memory to tie pieces of information together and “chunk” them – but only when I have the factual knowledge base built.

Furthermore, when my “brain database” has facts added in, I can add at a more rapid pace than a peer who has less accumulation because of the building upon effect. Which leads to the understanding that this foundational background knowledge lets us chunk information into patterns that make sense, thus clearing working memory to make more room and allowing us to comprehend complex ideas more quickly. We need background knowledge for both cognitive skills and to improve our memory. So for kiddos who lag behind in elementary school, this gap becomes more pronounced in advanced years unless an intervention for catch up occurs.

Willingham, D. (2010). Why Don’t Students Like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How The Mind Works And What It Means For The Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.