Importance of image thinking in training of chemistry

Recently, the thesis about the need to implement a person-centered approach in school education, which involves taking into account the student's psychological resources, is increasingly being put forward. In other words, the logic of the educational process should be determined not only by the content of the studied subject (as a projection of the corresponding field of scientific knowledge), but also by the psychological characteristics of the trainees. The main and fundamental contradiction of the modern education system - the proclamation of high humanistic goals and the inability to ensure achievement of these goals in practice - is associated with the phenomenon of development of human thinking. A significant influence on the success of the student's learning activity is provided by the features of his figurative thinking.

Thinking is divided into theoretical and practical. Theoretical, in turn, can be conceptual and figurative, and practical - visually-figurative and visually-effective. Theoretical conceptual thinking (verbal-logical, abstract) is a kind of thinking, using which in the process of solving a problem a person does not turn directly to the experimental study of reality, does not take practical actions aimed at real transformation of reality. He discusses and seeks the solution of the problem in the mind from the very beginning to the very end, uses knowledge expressed in concepts, judgments, inferences.

In contrast to the conceptual process, the process of visual-effective thinking is a practical transformative activity carried out by a person with real objects.

Visual-figurative thinking is a combination of ways of imaginative solution of the problem, presupposing visual observation of the situation and operating images of the constituent objects without real practical actions with them. It allows you to fully reconstruct the entire variety of different actual characteristics of the object. An important feature of this type of thinking is the establishment of unusual correspondences between objects and their properties. In this capacity, visual-figurative thinking is indistinguishable from imagination. Thinking visually-figuratively, a person is attached to reality, and the images necessary for thinking are represented by short-term and operational memory.

This form of thinking is most fully and fully represented in preschool and primary school children, and high brain activity is required to formulate attitudes to the logical perception of the world.

Theoretical figurative thinking differs from the conceptual one in that the material that the person uses here to solve the problem is not concepts, but representations and images are usually visual, so often this kind of thinking is called visual. In the course of solving the problem, these images are extracted by the person from the long-term memory and mentally transformed so that in the new situation one can directly see the solution of the problem of interest. This thinking continues and completes the process, started by visual-efficient and visual-figurative thinking. Spatial thinking is a kind of figurative.

In terms of their complexity, according to the requirements that these types of thinking impose on the intellectual and other abilities of man, they are not inferior to each other.

The concepts used by science are complex. Each such concept is simultaneously a thought (an abstract construction), and an experience (an emotional-sensual image). The thought process proceeds simultaneously in images and in concepts. It is necessary to reveal the real mechanism of this connection, to make it accessible for mastering. We should not talk about the opposition of figurative and conceptual thinking, but about preferential operation of this or that form of knowledge in the process of solving problems.

Recently, the chemistry course has to be reduced all the time. Teachers do not reduce the theoretical level, because they believe that this is the basis of everything, without theory there is no real understanding of the essence of the matter. They start to throw out the facts. There is not enough time for experiment, for experiments, for some information about scientists, etc., in other words, from the practice of teaching chemistry, the last elements of figurative thinking are removed. It's no wonder that the children are losing interest.

Achieving the dominance of the left-hemispheric thinking style, we end up limiting the development of the personality, because with the right hemisphere style of thinking is associated not only sensory perception, orientation in space, artistic thinking, but creativity. Inflexible, limited thinking can not correctly reflect the ever-changing external world.

The whole modern education system is aimed at developing formal-logical thinking, mastering ways to construct an unambiguous context. This leads to a paradox: the more effort is put into the process of education to the dominance of logical-sign thinking, the more efforts will be required in the future to overcome its limitations. In other words, in order to liberate imaginative thinking and liberate creative forces, we must do the reworking of what was laid in the school. And it is more difficult to re-educate than to educate. "

In the book of H. Hadamard, the results of a survey of many well-known mathematicians are given, most of which expressed the opinion that the images play a significant role in the process of their thinking. For example, Einstein stated: "Words written or pronounced do not seem to play the slightest role in the mechanism of my thinking. Mental elements of thinking are some, more or less clear, signs or images that can be "at will" reproduced and combined ... These elements I usually have a visual or sometimes motor type. Words or other conventional signs have to be found (hardly) only in the secondary stage, when this association game yielded some result and can be reproduced if desired. "

The brain is accustomed to perceive everything as it is - in a variety of colors, sounds, other qualities. Perceiving something, he in the right hemisphere makes an image, in the left - corresponding to this image of the word. However, ninety percent of the information is delivered in a truncated form - the teacher's voice, the text of the book, the fragmentary pictures, etc. Children's perception breaks down precisely because of the truncated information. Hence - uncontrolled forgetting, attention deficit, memory gaps.1

Observations show that in this case many pupils have a rule for composing formulas of substances for a very short time, and then have to remind it again and again. As a result, it takes quite a long time for this rule to remain in the long-term memory, i.e. formed the skill of composing formulas of substances.

The teacher interacts with students who have different styles of thinking in the educational process, and the traditional approach immediately directs to the operation with symbolic symbols, does not allow the student to "see" the various aspects of this chemical phenomenon at the macro and micro levels. In the logic of the right hemispheric approach, one must go from the general to the particular, operating not only logical, but also imaginative types of thinking. First, you must either draw on the board a mix of atoms, or work with models, speak with words, put forward various hypotheses - create a perceptual image. Atoms of different chemical elements in a model or figure must necessarily differ in size, color, designation.

Then, students should be encouraged to visualize what is being studied (to create a mental image of the phenomenon), to clothe the actions performed in chemical terms, to speak (to create a verbal image), only then can we refer to a sign description (a symbolic image) and consider possible ways of composing a formula. This approach will not be algorithmic, but based on holistic thinking.

Logic children can use the standard proposed algorithm, but, with this approach, the right-hemisphere children will have their own way of composing formulas - through a comparison with the memory image.