While most students in middle childhood have achieved the Concrete Operations stage
education
Description
Abstract Thinking
While most students in middle
childhood have achieved the Concrete Operations stage, they have not yet
reached the level of reasoning about more abstract concepts that will occur in
adolescence and early adulthood. Young children cannot easily consider
complicated hypothetical situations or make sense of intangible ideas. For
example, they may have a basic understanding of the concept of freedom, but
will need help with the concept of liberty in the context of social freedom
from oppression.
Spatial reasoning exercises in
mathematics can support the development of abstract thinking. Abstract thinking
in mathematics could involve finding patterns in statistical data. In
literature, students who are concrete thinkers can recognize that John likes
Jane, while students who are abstract thinkers can reflect on John’s emotions,
such as affection, and how they are represented. Students who are abstract
thinkers are able to perceive analogies and relationships their peers may not
see and thereby understand higher levels of abstraction.
While spatial reasoning or
other mathematics exercises may help to promote higher-order thinking in middle
childhood, they will not necessarily aid the student in abstract thinking about
social concepts being taught in a social studies class because abstract
thinking is domain specific. A student can be a reasonably flexible and
abstract thinker in one area (e.g., literature) and remain a concrete thinker
in another area (e.g., sports). Because of this, attempts to facilitate
increasingly abstract thinking should be made within all relevant academic
areas of mathematics, literature, science, social studies. The teacher cannot
expect that improvements in one area will automatically yield improvements in
another. Teachers support their students in developing abstract thinking by
linking abstract concepts to concrete things. To avoid overwhelming students
with complex language and ideas, similar language and analogies should be used
by teachers across all subjects.
