Think Like A Disciplinarian: The Common Problems

Think Like A Disciplinarian (sometimes abbreviated as TLAD) is a part of the Depth and Complexity framework. It helps students to look at a problem through an expert’s lens.

Why I Don’t Use “Disciplinarian” Anymore

But, I actually call this technique ‘Think Like An Expert‘. Why? Well to most people, “disciplinarian” means “someone who punishes people a lot.” Here’s my thesaurus’s entry:

Yeah. The word “disciplinarian” is probably not something you want all over your classroom.

A student teacher once meekly asked me, “Why does this school emphasize discipline so much?” I can only imagine how many parents wondered that but never asked. 😬

Just use the very clear and unambiguous word “Expert.”

Hard to Find Good Examples, Easy to Find BAD Examples

Like so much of Depth and Complexity, the creators published nothing about implementing “Think Like A.” So it’s hard to find high-quality examples. But it’s very easy to find low-quality examples. Just Google “think like a disciplinarian” and click around. You’re going to find the same problems that I ran into.

What “Think Like A” Is Not

Let’s start with some mistakes I made as I tried to implement “Think Like A” in my classroom.

• It’s not a career fair. We’re not just telling students about experts. So I removed my posters that were mere definitions of a career. “A scientist is someone who does science!” Nope.
• It’s not about school work habits. So I took down posters that said, “Mathematicians always underline important information in their word problems.”
• It’s not about promoting a growth mindset. So no posters that just say, “Mathematicians learn from their mistakes!”

There’s nothing wrong with career fairs, work habits, or learning from mistakes. But those things are not Thinking Like an Expert. We want to prompt students to consider: how does an expert think about the trickiest problems in their field?

Get Specific!

So, naturally, we need to know the trickiest problems a particular expert faces. The dilemmas. The controversial issues. These are much easier to uncover when we drill down and get specific.

Think about how different these questions are:

• What tricky problems does “a teacher” face?
• What tricky problems does a 4th-grade instrumental music teacher deal with?
• What tricky problems does a high school PE teacher have to tackle?

When we get specific, the problems become much more obvious and interesting! I can tell you exactly what that PE teacher is dealing with. But “a teacher” is way too vague. There is no such thing as “a teacher.” If you tell someone you’re a teacher, they immediately ask, “Oh what do you teach?”

Always push for a specific expert.

• 🚫 What are the tricky problems a “mathematician” faces?
• ✅ What are the dilemmas a statistician deals with?
• ✅ What are the controversial issues an economist has to handle?

It’s SO much easier to explain the problems a statistician faces than a generic “mathematician.” That’s because, well, there’s no such career as “mathematician.” People who study math go into specialized fields with clear problems to solve.

Get specific with your experts and you’ll get much better student thinking.

There’s No Such Thing As “A Scientist”

Likewise, “Think Like A Scientist” is way too broad. No one is a generic “scientist.” Instead, drill down to a specific field. Think like an astronomer or a seismologist or marine biologist.

Along the same lines, don’t ask kids to “Think Like An Author” because different types of writers think in completely different ways. What’s right for a local newspaper writer is completely wrong for a poet or a mystery novelist or a biographer. Get specific!

My own 6th-grade team ran an Egg Drop each year. We wanted it to be more than a “fun activity.” Once we added specific expert roles, it dramatically increased the quality of students’ products. We weren’t merely “engineers.” We were aerospace engineers, materials engineers, and structural engineers.

Go beyond broad, generic fields when picking an expert and you’ll find it much easier to step into their shoes.

No. Even MORE Specific!

When we thought like philosophers, we actually thought like individual people. We learned about the specific beliefs of Socrates, Aristotle, Confucius, and Descartes. You can read about that here! The results were way more interesting than if we merely “thought like philosophers.” Each philosopher is SO different. They totally disagree with each other, which (of course) sets the stage for beautiful, deep thinking.

Likewise, thinking from a particular author’s perspective yields more meaningful results than merely “thinking like an author.”

• Ask students to think like Hemingway and they’ll produce short, direct, simple writing.
• Ask them to think like Dickens and you’ll see flowery, stylish, and long sentences.

I have a Byrdseed.TV lesson about thinking like Hemingway vs Dickens here.

Your Questions Must Go Somewhere

The same problem that plagues much of depth and complexity also rears its head with Think Like A Disciplinarian: low level questions.

Consider a “Think Like An Economist” worksheet with these questions:

• What is the 🏛️ big idea of an economist?
• What are the 🚦 rules an economist follows?
• What ⚖️ problems does an economist face?
• What 👄 language does an economist use?

Every question is at the bottom of Bloom’s Taxonomy. They are “list” questions that don’t even require complete sentences to answer!

Now, it’s OK to ask a low-level question as long as you build on it. Climb up Bloom’s Taxonomy! Build a sequence of questions, not four one-offs. If a student lists the rules an economist follows, what is the next question you will ask about rules?

Here’s an opening sequence from my lesson on Thinking Like An Economist:

• Pick a situation like Goldilocks, the rainforest, or
  recess.
• What is “wealth” in this situation?
• Is the wealth unequal? Is it being spread out in a new way? How?
• What problems is this situation causing?

By the end of this sequence, students have discovered a problem caused by wealth. They’ll be ready to move to a new sequence.

• Perhaps they’ll find a parallel problem in another situation.
• Maybe they’ll compare and contrast and decide which problem is worse.
• Maybe they’ll create a possible solution to the problem and then note the problems that may arise from that solution.

Conclusion

To wrap up, my biggest improvements with think like a disciplinarian came from:

1. Realizing that “disciplinarian” is a pretty bad word to use at school
2. Staying focused on “the tricky problems” of a field
3. Getting more and more specific with the expert’s field
4. Asking a sequence of questions that move students higher up Bloom’s taxonomy, not a bunch of low-level one-off questions.

And, friend, I do hope that this helps you teach your students to think more like experts.