Meta-cognition Essay
In William Golding’s Thinking As A Hobby he describes the three levels of thinking. The three levels of thinking are one being a person able to analyze situations and make there own choices and desicions on there own. The second being a kind of ignorant stage when you able to contradict a situation or action without full reasoning why. The third level being a stage when you are a spunge to new material and believe whats your told and whats around you without reason. I believe that my level of thinking is mainly a level two with a lot of level one.
In Thinking As A Hobby he explains level two thinking as being the detections of contradictions. This pertains to me becuase I’m able to see whats wrong with a situation but not know exactly how to fix the problem. For example when Im underpressure instead of over coming whats going on I sometimes let it over come me and instead of trying to figure it out I instead try to forget about instead of solve it.
My level of thinking is also like level one becuase the hardships I have been through in my life have taught me more about how to handle difficult situations and made me view life and its obsticals in a way I think most people my own age wouldnt understand. Going through certain situations have changed my view on life and has made me think about things in a deeper more serious level. For example when a difficult situation comes my way instead of crying about it at school to my girl friends I instead think to myself about the good I can find in it, try and understand what lesson I can learn from it and take the time to really analyze whats going on and do my best to help myself move on.
I am also like a level two in that when a difficult assignment is put in front of me instead of trying to figure out what Im really supposed to do I feal over come, and it takes me twice as long to get the assignment done becuase I put up this mental wall and instead I spend half the time thinking about the hight of the wall (difficulty of the assignment) instead of how in going to get over it and just get the assignment done.
Although in my day to day I show a level one becuase I understand many things and am able to make most decisions for myself and unlike a level three thinker I try to make as many of my own decisions as possible instead of letting my parents decide most of what I do and where I go. William Golding describes level three when he talks about the statuette of the girl in the towel with no arms and cant understand his teacher would have a statuette of this girl that wouldnt be able to pull up her own towel if it fell. Later while he expirienced level two thinking he understands that the girl in the towel is a goddess and doesnt need to worry about her towel becuase of her pure beauty she appears to have no worries. I believe that at my thinking level I would understand that she had to be more then just a girl in a towel but I may not understand her significance.
In school I am a deffinite level two thinker for example in math I am presented with a chapter of information through out the week which in my mind I see it as something I know how to do. When it comes to test day, before Mr.Ryan hands out the test I go over in my mind what Im expecting will be on it and feal confident that I understand the material enough to do well. Once I begin I realize that maybe a few extra study sessions were a little more necissary than I thought. When he teaches us the new lesson I listen and take notes until I think Ive soaked up what is being taught and at that point I find myself doodling or planning out my after school plans. Im not doing this on purpose cuase the last thing I want is for Mr.Ryan to feal disrespected by my ignorance it’s simply my somewhat ignorant stage of thinking which draws my mind away instead of learning about the little details which will could make my whole answer wrong when 95% of my answer is right sadly 100% is what it takes to get the answer right.
