Counterpoint Thinking: Connecting Learning

and Thinking in Schools

Timothy M. Melchior

The human mind seems to work as a categorizing device..., as a dichotomizing machine, constantly partitioning the world into dualities...This deeply (perhaps innately) ingrained habit of thought causes us particular trouble when we need to analyze the many continua that form so conspicuous a part of our surrounding world..., We therefore falsely choose these crucial episodes as boundaries for fixed categories, and we veil nature's continuity in the wrappings of our mental habits. (Gould: 1994, p. 12).

How can a school attend to the mind problem that Stephen Jay Gould describes and help its students grow in abstraction? How can a school help students to make connections among the many disparate learning experiences that they have in school? How can a school design a program so that ALL of the adults, from English teacher to art teacher to science teacher to administrator to guidance counselor to football coach, can participate in it? Finally, how can a school connect growth in abstraction to existing programs in thinking skills and study skills?

At Memorial Junior High School in Valley Stream, New York, we have introduced Counterpoint Thinking, along with a holistic framework, which we believe attends to these problems. Since the late 1970's, we have used a variety of commercially available programs that teach thinking, especially de Bono's CoRT Thinking Program (de Bono: 1987), and we have found that the available programs do not fully address the needs stated above. Therefore, in 1991, we developed Counterpoint Thinking and the holistic framework to address these problems, and we now have three years of experience with the Counterpoints.

What is a Counterpoint, and how is it taught?

A Counterpoint is designed to address Gould's focus: the problem of apparent dichotomies and dualities which are really continua. As a musical term, a counterpoint is defined as a combination of two or more related but independent melodies within a harmonic texture; a foil, a contrasting element or item; a device using significant contrast or interplay of distinguishable elements. An example of a thinking Counterpoint, as we use it, would be static/dynamic, but to understand Counterpoint Thinking and how we use the Counterpoints, it is necessary to create a context.

Counterpoint thinking is derived from conceptual systems theory (Harvey, Hunt, and Schroder: 1961) and related psychological research (Hunt and Sullivan: 1974) and literature (Glatthorn and Baron: 1991) (Schroder, Karlins, Phares: 1973) (Melchior: 1983). It is best understood through a model we developed that outlines traits of effective and ineffective thinkers. We use the model below to guide us in the design of lessons and learning activities for our students, and our goal is to help our students to grow developmentally so that they exhibit and demonstrate effective thinking traits. We believe that this can be accomplished through the direct teaching of thinking skills and the use of the Counterpoints.

As can be seen in the model above, Counterpoint Thinking is designed to help students to resist their proclivity to want certainty and to perceive either/ors (dichotomies and dualities). More importantly, the Counterpoints help students to tolerate ambiguity and to perceive interdependencies.

To illustrate, when junior high school students are shown terms such as individual/group, freedom/responsibility and fantasy/reality and asked what they perceive, they tend to respond that they see the terms as opposites, which is consistent with the ineffective thinking traits in the model, especially the either/or perception. The teacher's task, therefore, is to focus the students on the interdependencies.

How can this be accomplished? The teacher could present the students with the terms individual/group and ask, "Suppose you are the author of the Bill of Rights. Do your laws protect the rights of individuals or the rights of groups?" With a little knowledge and a little reflection, the students should observe that the rights of both are protected, so then the teacher might ask, "So how can they be opposites?"

Similarly, the teacher might then ask about freedom/responsibility, "You just received your driver's license. Is this a new freedom or a new responsibility?" Again the students should realize that both terms apply and that they are interdependent because they learn that freedom is inherent in the concept of responsibility and that the reverse applies as well. Finally, with fantasy/reality, the teacher could have the students simulate situations that make them aware of the daily interplay of fantasy and reality in their lives.

What are the Counterpoints, and do they really work?

The staff at Memorial Junior High School built its program around ten Counterpoints which were developed by the consensus of the entire staff. The Counterpoints, therefore, represent all curricula and all programs within the school and were developed from an initial list of over 60 possibilities generated by the staff.

Independence/Dependence
Impulsivity/Reflection
Individual/Group
Fantasy/Realism
Freedom/Responsibility
Reactive/Proactive
Inhumanity/Sensitivity
Chaos/Cosmos
Objective/Subjective
Static/Dynamic

Teachers use the Counterpoints when they plan lessons and learning activities and incorporate these terms into their teaching. Sometimes Counterpoints simply emerge during the lessons, and students even create their own to explain their insights and views on academic problems. The repeated use of the counterpoints over time and across curricula provides our students with a common vocabulary of abstraction, with a wallowing in ambiguity, with applications, with continuity, and with transfer. Most importantly, we believe that the Counterpoints challenge our students' need and desire for certainty.

A frequent question asked of us is: "Do the Counterpoints really work?" What we have found is that they promote thought provoking discussions, meaningful challenges, articulate use of language, and interesting lessons. In addition, we find our students' thinking to be more abstract and more profound. To illustrate, when we ask seventh grade students when they enter the school, to respond to the question, "What is thinking?" Typical responses are:

"Remembering things that you learned."
"Following steps."
"Finding answers."

When we ask our ninth-graders, after two and one-half years with us, to respond to the same question, we obtain responses such as:

"The ideas that pop-up through strategies."
"Thinking about things in different corners of your mind."
"Seeing connections."
"Thinking before leaping."

What is the holistic framework?

The Counterpoints are designed to help students attend to some of the complexities inherent in the human condition. Conflict and tension are central to the arts and the sciences, to daily life, and to everyone's mental processing. We believe that the Counterpoints help our students to manage the confusion in their lives and to resist the need for an impulsive rush to judgement.

We also believe, however, that the Counterpoints work most effectively when supported by additional strategies. We teach de Bono's CoRT thinking tools (de Bono: 1987) to all of our students, and we believe that these tools (thinking skills) help our students to address problems, to generate ideas, and to organize their thinking. This is consistent with previous research on CoRT (Edwards: 1991). In addition, we have researched our work with CoRT, and we have documented its effectiveness with our students. (Melchior and Edwards: 1989).

In 1991, we introduced our holistic framework which combines CoRT tools, Counterpoints, and study skills, which is the third component of our program.

We teach study skills directly because we believe that students do not naturally develop and/or learn strategies that maximize their learning. Therefore, we teach our students a variety of strategies for taking notes in class, such as Cornell note taking technique, and divided page; reading strategies such as SQ3r, outlining, highlighting, and summarizing; and the use of homework and study guides (Devine: 1987) (Gall, Gall, Jacobsen, and Bullock: 1990).

Most importantly, we teach our students to ask themselves a constant question: How can I maximize my learning now? In any learning situation, our students are encouraged to draw upon their repertoire of CoRT thinking tools, study skills, and Counterpoints and to reflect on the effectiveness of their learning strategies.

At times all three components are used interdependently, and the following illustration demonstrates this interconnectedness:

An English class has read John Steinbeck's The Red Pony and the teacher has taught the terms fantasy/realism (a Counterpoint). The teacher then provides photocopied portions of the story that contain text about Jody Tiflin, who is a young boy, and Billy Buck, his father's ranch hand.

The teacher than asks the students to skim (a study skill) the text and highlight (a study skill) descriptive terms and phrases that provide Jody's view of Billy and the author's view of Billy. Next the teacher would ask the students to reflect on the information and to organize it using their thinking tools. The students would probably apply contrast (a thinking tool), develop a CoRT OPV (Other Points of View: a thinking skill) for Jody and the author, and possibly use a graphic organizer (a study skill) to organize their thoughts.

What should emerge as a result of the students' work is the contrast between Jody's view (fantasy) of Billy Buck as a virtually infallible hero and Steinbeck's description (realism) of Billy as "...a broad, bandy-legged little man ..." whose belt showed ''...the warm shiny places opposite each hole, the gradual increase of Billy's middle over a period of years," and other descriptions.

The teacher then reinforces that Jody's perception of Billy was real to Jody because Billy Buck knew horses and "kept his word." Yet when Jody went off to school and questioned the possibility of rain on his gift, the pony, in the corral, Billy assured Jody, "She's rained herself out," and "...a little rain don't hurt a horse." Jody left for school and trusted Billy's promise, "... it won't rain today." Yet, unfortunately, it rains, the pony dies, and Jody learns some hard lessons about life. Like Jody, the students learn about the interdependent, complex connections between fantasy and realism, about ambiguity, and about the human condition.

Are There Models of Counterpoints?

We have developed a variety of visual models that demonstrate various types of interplay between terms in contrast. Some of these are illustrate below along with focus questions.

We believe that the concept of the Counterpoints helps our students to become less impulsive and more reflective, more tolerant of ambiguity and less certain, and more open and more flexible in their thinking and less categorical in their judgments. In addition, we try to teach students to resist what we call the certainty principle and the hardening of the categories, to be open to problems, new ideas, and new challenges. Most importantly, we try to teach our students that confusion is not something to be abhorred and that it can be an opportunity for growth.

This provocation from Gertrude Stein captures the spirit of our endeavors very well:

There ain't no answer. There ain't going to be any answer.
There never has been an answer. That's the answer.

References

de Bono, Edward. (1987). CoRT Thinking Program. Workcards and Teachers' Notes. Chicago: Science Research Associates.

Devine, Thomas G. (1987). Teaching Study Skills. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc.

Edwards, John. (1991). The Direct Teaching of Thinking Skills. In G. Evans (editor). Learning and Teaching Cognitive Skills. Melbourne, Australia: Australian Council for Educational Research.

Gall, M.D., Gall, Joyce P., Jacobsen, Dennis R., and Bullock, Terry L. (1990). Tools For Learning: A Guide to Teaching Study Skills. Alexandria, Virginia, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Glatthorn, Allan A. and Baron, Jonathan. (1991). The Good Thinker. In Arthur L. Costa (editor). Developing Minds: A Resource Book for Teaching Thinking Vol. 1. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development: 63-67.

Gould, Stephen Jay. (1994). The Persistently Flat Earth: Irrationality and Dogmatism are Foes of Both Science and Religion. Natural History, 103 (3) 12-19.

Harvey, O.J., Hunt, David E, and Schroder, Harold M. (1961). Conceptual Systems and Personality Organization. New York: John Wiley.

Hunt, David E. and Sullivan, Edmund V. (1974) Between Psychology and Education. Hinsdale, Illinois: The Dryden Press.

Melchior, Timothy J. (1983) Conceptual System Theory: Highlights and Educational Implications. In Timothy M. Melchior (issue editor). Impact on Instructional Improvement: New York State Association for Supervision and Curiculum Development: 18 (2) 4-10.

Melchior, Timothy M. and Edwards, John. (1989) The Effects of the CoRT I Thinking Skills Program on Student Self-Concept as a Thinker. Paper presented to The Fourth International Conference on Thinking, San Juan, Puerto Rico, August, 1989.

Schroder, Harold M., Karlins, Marvin, and Phares, Jacqueline. (1973). Education For Freedom. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

This paper was presented at The Sixth International Conference on Thinking at M I T, Cambridge, Massachusetts, July, 1994.