That reminds me of a pet peeve of mine: Why are we assuming kids will learn about learning through osmosis? Cognitive maps (or mental models) are part of that.

That reminds me of a pet peeve of mine: Why are we assuming kids will learn about learning through osmosis? Cognitive maps (or mental models) are part of that. I struggled a lot with this, and other meta-learning topics. Got it eventually, after much independent reading and testing, but why was this never a topic in school? I'd have gladly sacrificed a year of schooling just to learn about it, and I'd have made it up within another. It's also the reason why I no longer believe that intelligence is the most significant factor in our capacity to learn. The same course done by the same person may be finished within a decade, a year or a week, with the only difference lying in approach. The difference is so striking that calling kids that fail at it dumb or the more politically correct challenged is lazy pedagogy. It shifts the issue onto something outside of our control. But I don't think it is. We can do a lot better. And it may be due time for a new approach. We don't need a large populace educated enough to man machinery or a filing system, as they're starting to man itself. We need youth that is confident in its ability to stride across vast depths of knowledge without getting lost. And current processes of education seem ill engineered to that goal. Like I said though, pet peeve of mine. I'm sure we'll figure it out.