Metacognition as Part of PSHE

Jonathan Firth's Memory & Metacognition Updates #46

Recently, I ran an event focused on PSHE with my colleagues. I’m going to expand today on why metacognition can and should form part of PSHE.

PSHE stands for Personal, Social and Health Education, and is a core part of the curriculum in most schools, though the content and the way it is taught varies a lot.

Metacognition has an obvious link with study skills, and I have previously written several updates and articles (e.g. this one) on tackling misconceptions about how to study.

I believe metacognition links well with the other areas of PSHE too, however. How do relationships work? How do substances affect our behaviour, and why do people get addicted? How do processes such as thinking and creativity work? And how do we control our own actions? All of these questions have at their heart issues of human cognition and emotion, and benefit from understanding one’s own mind.

Metacognition means thinking about thinking, and, in fact, it would be strange to have a personal and social education that didn’t in some way discuss how people think and act, or have students reflect on their own thinking.

Here are a few of the insights that a cognition-informed strand of PSHE could impart to students:

• An awareness of the biases in thinking that we’re all prone to, such as confirmation bias and hindsight bias.

• Recognising that we don’t always have an accurate insight into our own thoughts and memories.

• Showing that beliefs are often flawed and humans often irrational, thus preparing students to be more sceptical consumers of news and ideas.

• A set of tools to help with self-control and self-regulation, setting students up to navigate the challenges of life and work.

To give a more concrete example of the last point, consider the work of Daniel Wegner, the late Harvard psychologist. He was inspired by the following Dostoevsky quote, and it led him to a research programme about how we control our own thoughts:

"Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a white bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute."

And indeed, Wegner’s research found that the more people tried not to think of a white bear, the more it would come to mind. It’s potentially useful to students to know that trying not to think about an issue could have an ironic, rebound effect.

There are also several strategies that can be used to help avoid unwanted thoughts coming to mind:

• Relaxation—we are better at controlling unwanted thoughts when calm.

• Deliberately distracting ourselves with other tasks.

• Postponing—setting aside time to think about the issue at a later point.

Such self-regulation tools could be very useful for private study, and for dealing with the stresses of life.

It links to more mainstream areas of PSHE, too; cognitive control is harder when we are stressed or depressed, while those with substance use problems such as smokers do worse when they try not to think about their cravings.

However, like so much of metacognition, we can’t expect students to figure these processes out for themselves. I think there’s definitely a case for a primary–to-high school curriculum focused on metacognition. One that covers memory, study skills, and much more.

I’d love to know what you think of this idea!

Jonathan

Last week: Applying Metacognition—Classroom Experience

Website: www.jonathanfirth.co.uk

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