> "In England, few are well trained in the basics of extended writing or mathematical and scientific modelling and problem-solving," he writes. When people tal

> "In England, few are well trained in the basics of extended writing or mathematical and scientific modelling and problem-solving," he writes. When people talk about teaching problem-solving, they need to justify whether they actually know what they are talking about. I'm not going to say that problem-solving can't be taught, but most of the people who talk about it are just using a meaningless buzz-word. Problem solving is mostly about domain knowledge. There's domain-specific strategies which can be taught. There's also a small number of more general strategies. And there may be ways to encourage students to find strategies, and try to transfer ones from other domains, but this isn't a field where you can assume that anyone who just happens to be using a few of the right buzz-words is going to be helpful. But just saying "teach kids to solve problems" is arrogant and moronic. Kids already know how to solve problems - human beings are pretty much problem-solving machines. And most teachers already try to get kids to think for themselves - it's just not that simple (especially when there's a lot of pressure to get exam results, set lots of assessment, and to prove to some public servant that they are teaching problem solving). As for genetics; he might be confounding "genetics, home environment, and other stuff which doesn't happen in class".