Teaching Thinking Dispositions: From Transmission to Enculturation
             Shari Tishman, Eileen Jay, and D. N. Perkins
             This paper was written as part of a project funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The authors thank the foundation for its help, acknowledging that the ideas expressed here do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of supporting agencies.
             Correspondence may be sent to: Shari Tishman, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 219 Longfellow Hall, Appian Way, Cambridge, MA 02138
             Teaching Thinking Dispositions: From Transmission to Enculturation
             Can you play the piano? Do you play the piano? These are different questions, and your answer may well be "yes" to the first and "no" to the second. The first question asks about ability: If you sat down in front of a piano, could you play a tune? The second tacitly asks much more „Ÿ it goes beyond ability and asks about inclination: Are you disposed to play the piano? Do you like to play? Do you play regularly?
             Playing the piano is like higher order thinking in at least this respect: in both cases, ability alone is not enough to ensure ongoing performance. Just as having the ability to play the piano does not guarantee the disposition to do so, having certain thinking skills does not mean that one will use them, and in fact, research shows that students often fail to use the thinking skills they are taught. For example, research on reasoning and argument shows that, when explicitly asked, people can easily give plenty of reasons opposite their favored side of the case „Ÿ that is, they have the ability. But typically they fail to do so „Ÿ that is, they lack the disposition (Perkins, Farady and Bushey, 1991).
             The teaching of thinking is acknowledged by many as an important goal of education, and underlying this view is a conception of what constitutes good thinking. By and large, this is a skills-centered conception: It says ...