One of the books in my teacher-training program was called "Teaching for Thinking" by Louis Raths and Selma Wasserman. This book suggested that there were different types of thinking. Some thinking activities were considered more advanced or more complex than others. The book said that, in schools, often simpler thinking skills such as memorizing and regurgitating memorized material were rewarded while more complicated forms of thoughtfulness, such as searching for relevant material, classifying information, analyzing data, comparing alternatives, drawing conclusions, and a whole list of other thinking skills needed attention. I imagine that is still true in some classrooms. To me, thoughtfulness involves much more than having opinions. In particular, thoughtfulness involves looking for and questioning underlying assumptions, especially our own.Most people know what it is to be thoughtful
That's true, of course, because humans have thoughts. Our heads are thought-full. The problem with my original questions in this post is that I did not define "thoughtful," but I know I mean more that full of thoughts.