Smart Homes + Smart Schools + Smart Kids

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Every year, tens of thousands of Canadian high-school students either
drop out of school or graduate as borderline illiterates. Many parents
blame the school system; many teachers blame their student’s home
environment. In a book written for both parents and teachers, Denise
Overall draws on her experience as a teacher, librarian, and curriculum
coordinator in arguing that parents and teachers are not natural
enemies, but rather natural allies who bear the responsibility of
creating a nurturing learning environment for children.

Using D. Edward De Bono’s “Six Thinking Hats” model as a
blueprint for cognitive thinking, Overall first explores how people
learn and respond to positive and negative environmental pressure. She
points out that a bright student’s confidence may be undermined if his
or her achievements are not recognized or valued by the school system
and/or parents. While there are several different ways in which children
learn, only rote learning is recognized and rewarded by most school
systems. Students who do not thrive under the rote system are often
regarded as unintelligent or lazy—and treated as such—by their adult
guardians.

Overall notes that most people take thinking for granted. Either you
think or you don’t, most of us believe. When people begin to think
about thinking, they discover that what they have considered the
foundations of intelligence are really just a set of acquired standards,
which work for some students but not for others. Overall calls this
metacognition: the “Aha! moment” when an opaque wall suddenly
becomes a window of insight.

In lieu of a quick fix, this concise and highly readable book offers
rational hope and a long-term game plan for students who do not flourish
in an environment of “back to the basics” conformity and rote
learning.