Minding Your Mind

 

Umay imo dakan himoon kun ya kaw kasabot?

When you are inside academic community, you seem to be using your mind all the time. But what if it is not trained for critical analysis? There seems to be a progression of deepened analytical movements at present. But what if the mind cannot cope?

Cognition is a term referring to the mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension. Some of the many different cognitive processes include thinking, knowing, remembering, judging, and problem-solving (Block, 2023).

What affects cognition?

Research indicates that age, selective attention, cognitive biases, genetics and memory limitations are factors that affect the cognition process. These are some things that a facilitator/teacher put into consideration for the studied concept, theory or processes can be understood.

Some people think learning and thinking differences only affect children. But adults can have them too. That’s because learning and thinking differences are lifelong issues. Learning and thinking differences aren’t something you outgrow.

Mindfulness is a type of meditation in which you focus on being intensely aware of what you're sensing and feeling in the moment, without interpretation or judgment. This activity must be understood by the individual to work on the constant functioning of the brain. Keeping notes on the things that you observe, the feelings you have will later allow the person to proceed to some sort of analytical reflection.

Donald Schön (1983) based his work on that of Dewey and is most widely known for his theory of reflecting in and reflecting on one’s practice. His theory was grounded in reflection from a professional knowledge and learning perspective (Bolton, 2014.p.6). In simple terms this is described as reflecting as the experience is occurring or reflecting on the experience after it has occurred. Reflecting in action refers to situations such as: thinking on your feet, acting straight away, and thinking about what to do next. Reflecting on action means you are thinking about what you would do differently next time, taking time to process (Bolton, 2014.p.6).

The local academic community now requires reflection journals among teachers, school heads and supervisors. There are those who have negative attitude towards the activity since for them it is basically an additional burden. They probably do not understand the theories behind the required actions.

Aside from the aforementioned factors, the act of NOT doing something to improve cognition through mindfulness might be the missing link why some learners and adults have the difficulties in understanding even a simple framework.