Teaching students how to think - not just what to know
Haaretz
August 28, 2006
By Yulie Khromchenko

According to Prof. Anat Zohar, who was appointed last week to chair the Education Ministry's Pedagogic Secretariat, "schools must change their goals from instilling knowledge to developing the tools for in-depth understanding and thought."

Zohar has set two major goals for her tenure: to teach students how to think, and to reduce the amount of material they are required to learn.

In her first interview to Haaretz, Zohar argues that the mandatory curriculum in Israeli schools is too broad to allow for in-depth learning, and focuses on studying for the tests.

"In the U.S., where for years people have been complaining about the poor quality of the schools, the common description is 'a mile wide and an inch deep,'" Zohar says. "The broad scope of the curriculum is conducive to superficial study. If we want to deepen our study, we must decrease its breadth."

The chair of the Pedagogic Secretariat is the third-most important position in the Education Ministry, after the minister and the director-general. It encompasses all areas of content in the education system: all curricula and testing, teacher training and the underlying pedagogical concept guiding them. It is responsible for determining what graduates must know and be able to do after completing school and what goals the system should achieve.

Zohar says the thinking-oriented approach to teaching is appropriate for all students. "Some teachers believe that thinking is great, but that it's only for the good students. That is not true, and we have proven this through research. Even poor achievers show very great academic progress when the study method is based on thinking, asking questions and discussing subjects that are relevant to them. Poor students do not deserve boring lessons."

Thinking-based learning emphasizes individual projects, research and problem solving. When she headed the Thinking in Science project, Zohar wrote a curriculum for studying biology that focused on ethical dilemmas linked to genetics. In addition to studying the material itself, students also learned debating and discussion skills: how to present an argument, how to challenge it, how to distinguish between facts and opinions.

Another project taught nutrition through ads for diets, during which the students examined advertising content to determine what was based on sound science, what was false, and how to identify half-truths.

One study carried out by Zohar showed that students who studying with this method performed better and demonstrated greater command of the material than those in a control group who learned using conventional methods. "Studying this way makes learning interesting, relevant and useful for the future," Zohar says.

Zohar replaces Dr. Yaakov Katz, who stepped down as chair of the Pedagogic Secretariat shortly after the Israel Police fraud unit launched an investigation against him on suspicion of committing fraud.