CHAPTER 4 Twelve Cognitive Processes That Underlie Learning Those who know how to think need no teachers. —Mahatma Gandhi Not everything we would like to teach can be taught, as we have seen. Similarly, not everything we would like to learn can be learned, espe- cially if we are taking the wrong approach to learning. In the previous chapter we discussed what can’t be taught. Now, let’s talk about what can be taught. One problem in such a discussion is that we are used to (because we went to school) thinking about what needs to be taught and learned in terms of subjects (English, math, science, etc.). We think this way because school originally was organized by professors who had spe- cialties in these subject areas. These professors were scholars and they set up the lower schools on the basis of the specialties that they had. When I was working in artificial intelligence, I began to realize that what I needed to teach the computer to do in order for it be smart was a far cry from what people thought needed to be taught. People assumed that we needed to tell the computer facts about the world of the type that children learn in school, and that this would make the machine smart. (Quite recently, I attended a meeting of AI people who were planning a project to allow computers to pass SAT tests as a way of showing that the computer was smart!) But what computers lack is intelligent capabilities, not information. It is easy enough to fill a machine with information, but when you are done, it would be able to tell you only what you told it. (If that was what a child did, you would think that he was brain damaged.) Intelligence and the learning required to create useful new knowledge are really a result of an amalgamation of cognitive processes. Intelligent computers, and intelligent people, need those processes to be working well. 45 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_023791