Have you ever thought about all the different kinds of thinking we do every day?  The brain is an amazing thing, storing and retrieving information, working to make connections with things we know and searching for connections to things we may not know at all.  Three of my personal strengths from the Gallup Strengths Finder are, Learner, Ideation, and Input, so basically I live in my head.  And quite frankly, I like it there.

Seriously, let’s just think about thinking.  According to Merriam-Webster, thinking is something you can form or have in your mind, it can be an intention, an opinion, something to consider, ponder, remember, suspect or anticipate, you can reason, meditate, have a point of view or a concern.  You can think purposefully or you can just let your mind wander.  You continue to think even while you sleep, with the brain basically controlling your life.

So, after sitting in meetings for two solid days doing nothing but well, thinking, my brain hurts.  It’s a good hurt, much like I imagine a good workout must feel, but I would have to rely on my healthy friends to confirm that statement.  I’m amazed at how others around me think and how ideas just pop up and bounce around the room, sometimes allowing us to come to consensus, other times just raising more ideas and questions, but the thinking never stops.  Even for lunch when there are multiple desserts to choose from.  Life is hard, people!

So many times we hear someone talk about people who “just don’t think”.  Well, yes they do, they just don’t think the same way you or I might think.  And what others think may not seem to make any sense, but in the context of how the brain stores and retrieves information, it makes absolute sense.  My brain takes everything I’ve experienced, seen, heard, tasted, and touched and pulls that information out when I need it.  The way I might troubleshoot a certain situation and the way someone else might are based on our experiences stored in our brains.  We question how on earth someone could believe a certain thing or vote a certain way or love broccoli and it all comes down to previous experiences stored in their brains.  I’m sure some of those people look at me and think, how could she NOT believe this or vote for this person or like broccoli.  How we think and what we think about makes us the wonderful individuals we are.

This is not to say that someone can’t change their way of thinking.  Adding different experiences, meeting different people from different places and backgrounds, and questioning preconceived notions can all tweak the data in the old database, giving us new eyes to see with and hearts to feel with.  I know that the more I listen to others and ponder, mixing the new with the old information, that I can do one of two things.  I can either begin thinking differently or it verifies the way I’ve always thought.  It’s certainly not an exact science and we all look at these experiences and conversations through different lenses, but the more information we can accumulate, the more connections the brain can make and perhaps we in turn can see more options with which to come to consensus.

This is a concern I have in terms of education, especially at the elementary level.  If we, and I mean the educational community, in the name of equity, insist that all children learn and think exactly the same thing in the same way, we’re really trying to create little robots. If a child reads a book, we want them all to comprehend it in the same way or they’re wrong.  If they don’t solve a math problem just the way they’ve been told they should, then they’re wrong, even if the answer is right.  We don’t take into account all of the data that they have accumulated up to the point where they start school and the environments that produced them.  Each individual thinks differently,  I believe we were all put on this earth because we bring a unique gift to the world.  Are we allowing our children to do that?  While you might believe we are, I would beg to differ when I have children coming up to me with a piece of trash they’ve found or a pencil and they have to ask me what to do with it rather than just do it.  They are not thinking for themselves, we are doing the thinking for them and after a while, I’ve discovered they become fearful of thinking for themselves because they’ll be “wrong”.

My apologies – if I think too long about this I tend to get up on my soapbox.  I think we should celebrate the diversity of thinking.  It’s not changing how someone thinks that is important.  We’ve got it all wrong.  It’s allowing people to find ways we can come to consensus through civil discourse.  Quite frankly, there’s nothing better than shoving some ideology or political agenda down someone’s throat or telling someone they’re wrong or stupid to see a mind close.  You see, the other thing about thinking is that we don’t have to take in any new thoughts if we don’t want to.  Another perk to being human I suppose.  We can enrich and inform, but the way to really get people to think is to get them to talk and then finding some common ground.  It’s never going to be completely the same, after all, the data input is different, but it could lead to compromise or consensus and actually get something accomplished.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m a lucky girl.  I work with people who challenge my way of thinking every time we meet.  For someone who lives in their head, this is crazy stimulating.  And sometimes, stimulating thinking hurts.  But the best part of this group is that they listen to what I think as well, and rather than just dismiss it, they think about it.  So, maybe my thinking can affect the way others think.  You think?