“How We Think” Reading Response #7

When talking about skill, it is common to think about something someone may be good at. With that being said, if someone is good at something or has skills in something that means he or she has come upon the same events eventually allowing to have experience within it. This type of thinking also known as empirical thinking contains three disadvantages that Dewey explains. These include, habits of expectation and belief, skills that enables a man to deal with the same circumstance that he has met before, and mental inertia, laziness, and unjustifiable beliefs. On the other hand, scientific thought makes a person deal with an event or circumstance that they have never been in. With this new circumstance in place, a person using scientific thought can apply an old experience. Experimental thinking becomes a method of this as  experimental method throws in the possibilities of the future where empirical method is influenced by the past. Children are great examples of this type of thinking. Childhood is filled with wondering and experiment. A child’s brain is ultimately plasticity and it is important that education preserves this experimental thinking approach. With that being said, learning shouldn’t be a “boring” thing for children. It needs to be interesting and reframed, to spark their interests so they eventually ask questions and want to become involved.