Adler, Alfred, Understanding Human Nature.  Greenwich, Connecticut, Fawcett, 1927, 1954.

Adler confirms that children’s games are the primary mechanism whereby the child learns how the universe operates.

 

Allport, Gordon, The Nature of Prejudice. New York. Perseus Books. 1979.

            Allport proposes a set of concentric circles whereby the child continually expands her

            circles of loyalties.  Prejudice represents a failure to expand one’s circles of loyalties..

 

Binet, Alfred, The Experimental Study of Intelligence. Paris. Ancienne Librairie Schleicher, 1922.

            The father of intelligence testing describes his critical studies of children’s reasoning abilities.

 

Bruner, Jerome, The Process of Education. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966.

            Bruner offers the “proposition that the foundations of any subject may be taught to anybody 

at any age in some form.”      (In effect, young children will love statistics or history, etc., if taught. properly .)

 

De Bono, Edward, “The Cognitive Research Trust (CoRT) Thinking Program,” in Maxwell,

            William, Thinking:  The Expanding Frontier.  Philadelphia: Franklin Institute Press, 1983.

            De Bono is the pioneer in the deliberate teaching of thinking skills beyond Aristotelian logic.

 

Erikson, Erik, Childhood and Society.  New York: W.W. Norton. 1950

Probably the best introduction to human development ever written.  Erikson saw skills in reasoning as flowing from how one relates to one’s family and culture.

 

Gardner, Howard, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.  New York: Basic Books, 1983.

   Gardner dismisses the earlier notion held by many psychologists that there is one general 

   Intelligence (g) that remains fixed throughout one’s life.

 

Haggerty, J..B., “Kalah: The Ancient Game of Mathematical Skill,” in Readings from the Arithmetic

            Teacher. Smith, S.E., Jr. and Beckman, C.A., (Eds.) Washington: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. 1979.

    Haggerty reported that Kalah was played at least 5,000 years ago in Sumer (now Iraq).  It is 

still played in most of 

    West Africa and the Philippines and pleasurably teaches all the basic

 arithmetic principles.  Children who play this      game generally have no fear of mathematics.

           

Henry, Jules, “A Cross-Cultural Outline of Education,” Current Anthropology. Vol. 1, Nr. 4,  July, 1960.

Henry summarizes and classifies how the 6,000 known human cultures teach what they regard as essential Survival skills.  “Who teaches the children – the status of  the teacher” is important,  for example.

Jansson, Laura, “Mental Training: Thinking Rehearsal and its Use, in Maxwell,

            William, Thinking:  The Expanding Frontier.  Philadelphia: Franklin Institute Press, 1983.

            Mental rehearsing is a thinking skill that great athletes, actors and successful people of all

            Fields develop

 

Jung, Carl, Modern Man in Search of a Soul. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd. 1933, 1979.

            Jung insisted that humans are spiritual beings and must be studied and treated as such.

 

Kobayashi, Victor N., “Mind and Nature: Teaching and Thinking,: in Maxwell,

            William, Thinking:  The Expanding Frontier.  Philadelphia: Franklin Institute Press, 1983.

Gregory Batson’s book on Mind and Nature was the subject of a symposium chaired by Professor Kobayashi. Bateson’s view was that if one’s culture is diseased, one’s thinking will be flawed.

 

Levine, Robert A., “Africa” in FL.K. Hsu (ed), Psychological Anthropology. Homewood, IL.:Dorsey Press. 1961.

   Levine studied and compared the three largest tribes of Nigeria, the Hausa, the Yoruba and the Ibo, and found a high    correlation between the achievement drive (ambition) and the structure of the family and homelife.

Maltz, Maxwell, Psycho-Cybernetics. New York; Pocket Books, 1960.

            This is one of the best “self-help” books ever written.

“Confidence is built upon an experience of success.”

 

Maslow, Abraham, Toward a Psychology of Being.  New York: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1968.

            Self-actualization, the highest achievement of thinking, occurs only if the basic needs, such

            as affiliation, are met.

 

Maxwell, William, “Games Children Play: Powerful Tools that Teach some Thinking Skills,” in Maxwell,

            William, Thinking:  The Expanding Frontier.  Philadelphia: Franklin Institute Press, 1983.

            An study of 435 children in various activities showed that games was the most powerful stimulus

            for the intellect (or IQ).

 

Maxwell, William, SuperParenting:  Child Rearing for the New Millennium:  Phoenix: Badi Publishing,

            2005.

            This book marshalls evidence from over 200 research studies and from several long-lived cultures

            to make a case for a revolution in the way we raise our children.

 

Macrae, Kristina, “The Analysis of Problem Solving Strategies: Implications for psychometric testing,” 

   in Maxwell,William, Thinking:  The Expanding Frontier.  Philadelphia: Franklin Institute Press, 1983. 

The author    presented a case for using testing as a way of improving the efficiency of teaching and 

and learning.

 

McClelland, David C. The Achieving Society.  New York.  The Free Press. 1961.

            This is the definitive study of the need for achievement, or ambition.  The richness of this

            study is that it is cross cultural and looks at different periods of history.

 

Mead, Margaret, Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: Perennial Classics, 2001

            (Originally published in 1928).

This book popularized anthropology and opened the door to the possibility that each of the 6,000 human cultures has something to teach the rest.  While this book’s authenticity has been questioned, some of Dr. Mead’s findings have proven to be very helpful in understanding how Culture influences reasoning patterns.

           

Montessori, Maria, The Secret of childhood New York:  Ballentine. 1972.

            One of the greatest thinkers of the 19^th and 20^th centuries taught us to see in children

            the seeds of future genius and greatness.

 

Ninnes, Leonard E., “Hegel on Pure Thought,” In Maxwell, William, Thinking: The Expanding

            Frontier.  Philadelphia: Franklin Institute Press, 1983.

            Ninnes showed that Hegel held out the possibility that humans are capable of “pure thought.”

 

Piaget, Jean, Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood.  New York: Norton Library, 1962.

            Piaget is the first scientist to begin the deliberate observations of children’s development.

            Piaget found a pattern that seems almost “hard-wired” into the genetic/brain structures.

 

Pinneau, Samuel R. Changes in Intelligence Quotient.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962.

            Pinneau’s is a report of the longest running study of IQ anywhere in the world.  The study

            Followed Berkeley residents born in 1929 with annual IQ tests.

 

Ridley, Matt, Genome:  The Autobiograhy of a Species in 23 Chapters.  New York: Harper/Collins, 1999.

Human genes are like a history book that details our evolution.  With the invention of speech and thinking evolution accelerated.

 

Ridley, Nature vs Nurture.  New York: Harper/Collins, 2003.

            Ridley,

Once the science editor at the Economist, Ridley dismisses the race- IQ controversu as a red herring.

 

Roe, Anne, The Making of a Scientist.  New York: dodd Mead. 1952.

            This classis is almost a “cook-book” on how to raise a high achieving person.

 

Rosenthal, Robert, and Jacobson, Leonore, Pygmalion in the Classroom. New York: Holt, Rinehart and w  Winston, 1968.

            Professor Rosenthal once sent me a file of over 900 research studies verifying the “Self-Fulfilling Prophecy”    phenomenon.  The Phenomenon was first discovered in his laboratory at Harvard with white mice and has been shown to    work in the classroom, in the home and in the workplace.

 

Whimbey, Arthur, Intelligence can be Taught. New York: E.P. Dutton,  1980.

   The title sufficies.  The Author is a professor of mathematics and has constructed many mental exercises to improve    one’s thinking skills.

 References (by thinking domains)

 

1.       Logic, Deductive (What Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes was good at.)

As recommended by Wikipedia:

· Vincent F. Hendricks, Thought 2 Talk: A Crash Course in Reflection and Expression, New York: Automatic Press / VIP, 2005, ISBN 87-991013-7-8

· Philip Johnson-Laird, Ruth M. J. Byrne, Deduction, Psychology Press 1991, ISBN 9780863771491jiii

· Zarefsky, David, Argumentation: The Study of Effective Reasoning Parts I and II, The Teaching Company 2002

2.       Logic, Inductive (What Nobel Prize winning scientists are good at.)

Halpern, J. Y., 2003. Reasoning About Uncertainty, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

3.       Everyday Problem Solving (What competent mothers of many children and great managers are good at.)

Sternberg, R. J. (1997): Successful intelligence. New York: Plume

4.        Inferential reasoning  (What shrewd reporters and winning businessmen  and women are good at.)

Wagner, R. K., & Sternberg, R. J. (1986). Tacit knowledge and intelligence in the everyday world. In R. J. Sternberg & R. K. Wagner (Eds.), Practical intelligence: Nature and origins of competence in the everyday world (pp. 51-83). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

5.       Critical Reasoning (Since our world has lots of tricksters and deceivers, particularly deceivers with high IQ’s, everyone needs this skill to protect themselves.)

6.       Application of Scientific Principles (Great engineers and inventors like Thomas Edison and George Washington Carver  can find practical applications within a great theory.

7.       Imagination and Inspiration ( Cecil B. DeMille and J.D. Rawling exercised their imaginations and inspired others.)

Rudolf Steiner Autobiography: Chapters in the Course of My Life: 1861-1907, xvi Lantern Books, 2006 ISBN 0-88010-600-X [1]

And any of Maria Montessori’s books.

“All meaningful and lasting change starts first in your imagination and then works its way out. Imagination is more important than knowledge.”  -- Albert Einstein

Source:  http://en.proverbia.net/citastema.asp?tematica=174&page=2

8.       Memory and Knowledge Acquisition (Jeopardy champions exercise and improve this skill all the time.)

Lorayne, Harry and Lucas, Jerry, The Memory Book: The Classic Guide to Improving Your Memory at Work, at School, and at Play [Paperback] New Yokr Ballentine, 1996.

9.      Personal Relationships (People who get along well with others are nearly always popular.  This skill starts in the family)

10.   Carnegie, Dale, How to Win Friends and Influence People  New York:Simon and Schuster. 1934.

11.    Observational Skills (Marco Polo and Charles Darwin were good at this.  Read them and learn some techniques.)

Read Marco Polo and Darwin.

12. Creative Thinking Skills.  (Watch children at play and you will see this all the time.)

13. Self Awareness

                                Study one’s own dreams.

14.Ability to read others’ intentions and to cooperate with others.

Morris, Desmond, The Naked Ape. London:  Delta, 1999.

 

15.Verbal Reasoning (Great poets, writers, journalists and  politicians are good at this.)     

Any college freshman English Reader and writing manual.

 

 

 

16.    Mathematical/Statistical Reasoning  (Believe it or not, research has shown that babies are good at  this.)

The regime recommended is that one starts over.  Spending a few minutes with a Grade One arithmetic book, and moveing gradually up to Calculus.

 

17.    Spatial Reasoning

Improvement in this domain is likely to come from hands-on experiences rather than from book.

 

18.    Musical Thinking (Most abies have perfect pitch. Einstein kept this ability because his mother played music all day)

Improvement in this domain is likely to come from hands-on experiences rather than from book.

19.     Kinesthetic Thinking (Great athletes and dancers develop this skill.)

Improvement in this domain is likely to come from hands-on experiences rather than from book.

 

20  Ecological Intelligence (Polluters are weak in this area.)[1]

·  The World of Rene Dubos: A Collection from His Writings, 1990, Henry Holt & Co, ISBN 0805013601

21.    Curiosity (One reason babies resist sleep is that they know they might miss something.)                                            

Gelb, Michael, Think Like DaVinci.  New York:  Dell. 2000.

 

22. Achievement Drive

                        McClelland, David C. The Achieving Society.  New York.  The Free Press. 1961.