My Cognitive Theory – “Thoughts from an average guy…”

By Bradley Evans

“Thinking about Thinking…”

This blog isn’t all it seems. It’s not often that the average working person gets a chance to take some time out to write something that may or; quite possibly may not be read by others. You could be forgiven for thinking that writing a blog article can be a waste of time, or a fruitless attempt at self-importance. This point of this blog post is not to inform someone about some fact or event, it’s not even to get people to like me. The point of this blog and its subsequent posts is about expressing my thoughts, my life, my walk, and essentially me.

“I’m an average guy who thinks…”

I love to think. I love to clarify my thoughts. I love to explore my imagination and marvel at where it takes me. I don’t always act on my thoughts (thankfully), but I do delight in them. This is because my thoughts are my own, they are no one else’s; and therefore “are a reflection of my being…” I don’t expect others to agree with me, and I certainly hope they don’t some of the time; otherwise my thinking might stop short of something GREAT!

I spend much of my time thinking about learning, I think about how I learn; and about how others learn. Many would assume that because I am an educator; I am required to do so, and thereby justify their own lack of thought. I say to you, “thought is the basis on which you make decisions, lead your life, and become the person you are meant to be.” 

“Thoughts are multilingual.”

As an educator, it is my job to quickly identify a student who does not understand a concept or who is struggling to put a predefined set of instructions into practice.  I must make a judgement based on the information set before me. Sometimes that information is obvious, while other times can be veiled in silence or masked through counter-productive behaviour.  As true as this is for children, it still resonates with the actions of many adults that I see today.  The point I am trying to make is that “our thoughts cannot be hidden.” In fact there are certain indicators that a trained eye can locate at a glance (body language, vocal tone and language use) and either use to encourage – or unfortunately – exploit. The questions you need to ask yourself are:

-       “What thoughts am I hiding?”

-       “Why am I hiding them?”; and most importantly

-       “What amazing potential could those thoughts have on my life if I stop trying to hide them?

People often say that we are “The sum of our experiences”, I believe we are “The sum of our thoughts”. Experiences bring about thought, imagination and creativity, and who we are is not what we have done, it is what our mind is doing with what we’ve done.

I have intentionally not quoted any third parties in this article; and although my work may be influenced by the thoughts and writings of those I look up to or who inspire me; these thoughts are mine, shared in my way, through my lens that I have carefully refined through my own thought life.