Integrative Essay 4

Professor Lappin

4/16/01

Metacognition

An infant possesses a complex mind with an aptitude for showing "positive biases to learn types of information readily and early in life" (HPL 81). The conceptual development of a young human is based on acquired or learned information in broad categories including: "physical and biological concepts, causality, number and language" (HPL 82). The community of a developing human impacts the mental representations by expanding on or limiting the zone of proximal development of its aging citizens. Vygotsky held that people, tools and cultural objects surrounding a child influence its development of thought. Metacognition is innate in humans because infants are born with an active mind able to function in a world of ideas and feelings. The social distinctions between the rich and the poor, educated and the illiterate, and black and white provide support for the need to revise society more effectively due to the educational advantages that some have over others. Prejudice results from cultural influence and the projection of one’s own lacking characteristics onto another based on misjudgments and misunderstandings. Either way, it is one way that keeps the views of many people from seeing past their cultural box. Many people trudge through poverty, make it without ever enjoying the luxury of reading someone else’s ideas, and fail to understand and learn from another race. One cause of these conditions is the failure of society to implement change because two political parties govern it around the economy and trade. Nevertheless, an infant should be provided food and nurturance from a kibbutz or a permanent family to promote healthy development and competent learning skills. Equally advanced schooling must be available for each child, enriching the population that would emerge from combined knowledge. The concept of metacognition would be somewhat different if everyone born in such an advantageous society had equal opportunities to choose, so nobody would have to carry on an internal dialogue concerning the outcome of a decision. The doubt spurring one to contemplate a decision results from the desire to achieve something better based on limited knowledge and support coupled with the natural tendency to learn. The potential for a person to learn depends on their upbringing in an environment. Several factors that affect the knowledge and progression of humanity include parental guidance, cultural influence, equality and change.

Metacognition is the internal thought process of an individual. Before language has been acquired, an infant processes its experiences and senses with a complex mind coming to terms with reality. It perceives simple concepts and gradually grows to understand more complex representations of knowledge that is in depth and only learned through experience. A developing child’s understanding of the world is necessary in acquiring competent knowledge. Once school begins for a child, the world begins to take on an entirely different meaning based on language, math, history and science. The path towards a deeper, symbolic representation of the principles of mankind leads a child to achieve competence. Revision and change are vital to the progress of society because economic and educational inconsistencies suppress the development of metacognition. Many people are deprived of well-developed metacognitive thought processes because of lack of experience with cultural support and tools such as computers, books, and art. The thought that people of one nation allow prejudice and depend on others’ ignorance for economic support reflects the greed and problem with money that people must overcome.

Racism dwindles, but it persists because people live and experience it. Parents and communities of people pass on prejudicial views to children eager to learn and identify with people. My grandfather is racist. His comments never have any logical sense to them because he has found it profitable to think of black folks as inferior and useless. He uses the black population as a container for the projection of what he considers bad deeds. For example, when I was leaving for Florida and he told me not to get into any trouble like a "black." The association he made between trouble and black folks shows a warped mental representation based on his experience. People do not have a natural tendency to be racist, but if they are not provided with an understanding of life and morality, their representation of knowledge leaves them incompetent in a changing world. The educational experience from birth until graduation from school forms the basis of the mind for understanding how to learn and how to act. The upbringing and development of children relates to the progression of human understanding; it would be faster with change and a metacognitive understanding, helping each generation to make better decisions about issues such as racism.

Learning with understanding allows the transfer of knowledge from one domain to the next. This complex understanding occurs formally in school, and informally outside school. Transfer of knowledge is the goal to make efficient learners that have a deep sense of understanding, allowing them to approach the world like an expert approaches a problem in his field. Metacognition comes easy to a person who understands a situation in depth. For example, an architect could carry on an intelligent conversation all day about architecture. His title shows that he is an expert in the field, suggesting that expertise allows people to handle things dealing with their common knowledge. An apprenticeship or schooling can be seen as acquiring the metacognition necessary to function in society with an appropriate role. While "metacognitive approaches to instruction have been shown to increase the degree to which students will transfer to new situations without the need for explicit prompting" (HPL 67), our advanced apprenticeship called an educational system has to focus on the development of metacognitive skills in children.

In conclusion, the teaching of expertise and metacognition throughout a child’s life must be improved and equal for all children. Beginning with a generation of people in the educational system, the prospects for humanity would increase and improve if the system teaches children to understand concepts and ideas that would promote the transfer of knowledge gained by experience to new situations. The concepts and ideas behind expertise, leading to transfer, can be taught from a metacognitive approach so that gradual understanding will grow and metacognitive thought will develop. As the average intelligence of the group grows, and the gaps in equality become narrower, the zone of proximal development will rise faster for each generation of people because of more effective communication and more complete understanding between people.