Recently, I have been in spaces where people have asked me about my weekly writing and how I maintain a blog while juggling so many other responsibilities.

The answer is actually pretty simple.

Learning is important to me.
Growing is important to me.
Thinking is important to me.
Writing to think through ideas is important to me.

Going through the process to discover what my learning is uncovering is important to me too.

Some weeks, the words come easily. Other weeks, I need to sit with an idea for a while. I read books and articles, listen to podcasts, have conversations, and intentionally curate my social media feeds with ideas that inspire, affirm, reaffirm, or challenge my thinking.

And that is exactly what happened this week.

I came across an Instagram post from Daniel Pink titled “13 Modes of High-Level Thinking That Separate Sharp Minds From Everyone Else.”

It made me pause, continue scrolling, and then go back again and again to reread it, not only to better understand the different types of thinking, but to consider how I might apply them to educational contexts… one of the things I love to do most!

You can find the post I’m referring to HERE, and I’ve also embedded it below so you can explore it as you read:

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Associative thinking. Critical thinking. Abductive thinking. Lateral thinking. Janusian thinking. Divergent and convergent thinking. Systemic thinking. First-principles thinking. Inverted thinking. Second-order thinking. Analogical thinking. Metacognitive thinking.

Some of the terms were familiar. Others made me stop, reread, and think about what they really meant. Are you with me?

But what stayed with me most was not the terminology. It was the question I found myself asking:

When we say we want people to think, what kind of thinking are we actually talking about?

And then, because I tend to bring almost everything back to the spaces where I spend my professional time, I started thinking about these modes through three lenses:

Students. Teachers. Leaders.

Those are three audiences I have been thinking and writing about often lately. And suddenly, this list felt much less theoretical and began to feel like education in practice. And, as a bonus, it gave me something to write about this week!

So here are the types of thinking Daniel Pink shares and more of my thinking about how they relate to education.

Associative Thinking: What can I connect?

Associative thinking is about linking ideas across seemingly unrelated spaces to generate something new.

For students, this might happen when an idea from science changes how they understand a text in ELA. Or when something they learned in history helps them make sense of an issue in the world around them.

For teachers, it can happen when a strategy learned in one content area sparks an entirely different instructional move somewhere else.

For leaders, it can mean looking beyond our own schools and even beyond education and asking: What might this teach us about our own work?

Sometimes the next idea we need is hiding in a place we didn’t expect to look.

Critical Thinking: What evidence supports what I believe?

Critical thinking asks us to examine evidence, question assumptions, and reason toward a sound conclusion.

For students, it sounds like: How do I know?

For teachers: What evidence tells me this practice is helping students learn?

For leaders: What assumptions are shaping this decision?

That last question matters.

Sometimes practices survive in schools not because they are the strongest practices, but simply because they have been around for a long time.

Thinking critically gives us permission to ask whether what we believe is actually supported by what we see.

Abductive Thinking: What might be happening here?

Abductive thinking asks us to form the most plausible explanation when we do not have all of the information.

And education is filled with incomplete information. A student disengages. A lesson does not land. Assessment data shifts.A teacher is struggling with something that once worked.

For students, abductive thinking means using the evidence available to make a reasonable inference.

For teachers, it means looking beyond the first explanation for why a student may be struggling.

For leaders, it means resisting the urge to make a judgment before getting closer to the situation.

Sometimes our first explanation is not the right one. We have to stay curious long enough to find out.

Lateral Thinking: What if we approached this differently?

Lateral thinking asks us to look at a problem from an unexpected angle rather than automatically reaching for the most obvious solution.

For students, that means having opportunities to solve problems in more than one way.

For teachers, it might mean rethinking the learning experience when doing more of the same is not producing a different result.

For leaders, it means questioning whether the traditional solution is still the right one.

According to George Couros, author of The Innovator’s Mindset, innovation is a way of thinking that creates something new and better. He stresses that innovation is a mental framework and process, not physical “stuff” or a piece of technology.

So perhaps innovation begins with a very small question: What if we tried this another way? 

Janusian Thinking: Could two things be true?

This one stayed with me. Janusian thinking is the ability to hold two seemingly opposing ideas at the same time.

Education is filled with those tensions.

We can believe in high expectations and deep support.

We can value consistency and personalization.

We can create clear structures and professional autonomy.

Students can experience productive struggle while also receiving scaffolds.

Teachers can honor what has worked while remaining open to what might work better.

Leaders can hold a clear vision while also being willing to change their thinking when new information emerges.

Perhaps some of our best ideas develop when we stop trying to choose between two truths and begin asking how they might work together.

Divergent and Convergent Thinking: What are the possibilities, and what will we choose?

These two feel connected. Divergent thinking opens possibilities. Convergent thinking helps us narrow them.

Students need opportunities to imagine, brainstorm, design, and generate multiple responses. But they also need to evaluate those ideas and decide which direction makes the most sense.

Teachers do this all the time: What are all of the ways I could support this learner?

And then: Which approach makes the most sense right now?

Leaders do it too. We need spaces where possibilities can expand before decisions narrow them.

Because if we move to a solution too quickly, we may never discover a better one. And sometimes, we do need to make a decision quickly, knowing we can revisit, reevaluate, and refine it as we learn from what happens next.

Systemic Thinking: What else is connected to this?

Systemic thinking means seeing how parts interact within a larger whole rather than viewing each piece in isolation.

In schools, almost nothing exists in isolation. Curriculum connects to assessment. Assessment connects to instruction. Instruction connects to professional learning. Professional learning connects to leadership. Leadership connects to culture. Can you see it?

And ultimately, all of it reaches students.

For students, systemic thinking helps them recognize patterns and relationships.

For teachers, it means seeing beyond one lesson, one student, or one data point.

For leaders, it means asking: If we change this, what else might move?

Sometimes what looks like one isolated challenge is really telling us something about the larger system.

First-Principles Thinking: What is fundamentally true here?

First-principles thinking asks us to strip away assumptions and return to the most basic truth underneath a problem.

Before asking: What program should we use?

Maybe we ask: What do students actually need in order to learn?

Before asking: What professional learning should we provide?

Maybe we ask: What conditions actually help adults grow and change practice?

Before adding another initiative, leaders might ask: What are we ultimately trying to accomplish?

Sometimes getting back to the heart of the work changes how we see everything around it.

Inverted Thinking: What could make this fail?

Inverted thinking turns the question around.

Instead of only asking what will make something successful, we ask what could get in the way.

Imagine asking students: What could make this group project completely fall apart?

Or teachers: What might make this instructional change difficult to implement?

Or leaders: If this initiative is unsuccessful a year from now, what will probably have caused it?

That is not negative thinking. It is anticipatory thinking.

Sometimes identifying the barriers before we encounter them is one of the best ways to remove them.

Second-Order Thinking: And then what?

Second-order thinking moves beyond the immediate result and considers what happens after that. We make a decision. And then what?

We change a schedule. And then what?

We adopt a new resource. And then what?

We add an assessment. And then what?

For students, this helps them recognize that choices and actions have consequences beyond what happens first.

For teachers, it means anticipating how one instructional decision might influence what comes next.

For leaders, it means thinking beyond implementation toward impact.

Sometimes the first result of a decision looks great. The more important question may be what happens next.

Analogical Thinking: Where have I seen something like this before?

Analogical thinking uses something familiar to understand something unfamiliar. It is one of the reasons stories, metaphors, models, and examples can be so powerful.

Students connect new learning to something they already understand.

Teachers use familiar examples to move students toward more complex ideas.

Leaders look at another classroom, school, organization, or even industry and wonder:

What might their experience teach us about ours?

We do not have to replicate what someone else is doing. Sometimes we simply need another lens.

Metacognitive Thinking: What is happening in my own thinking?

And perhaps this is the mode that strengthens every other one. Metacognition is thinking about our own thinking. It is noticing what we understand, where we are confused, what strategies we are using, and when our thinking needs to shift.

For students: What helped me learn this?

For teachers: What did I notice about the decisions I made during that lesson?

For leaders: What am I noticing about the way I am approaching this situation? What assumptions am I carrying? What might I need to reconsider?

Reflection is not something that only happens after learning.

Reflection is part of the learning.

And maybe that is what stopped me in my tracks when I encountered Daniel Pink’s post.

We talk so much in education about helping people become critical thinkers.

But thinking is much bigger than one mode.

Sometimes we need to connect.

Sometimes we need to question.

Sometimes we need to generate.

Sometimes we need to narrow.

Sometimes we need to hold two truths at once.

Sometimes we need to zoom into the fundamental question.

Sometimes we need to zoom out and see the whole system.

Sometimes we need to ask what happens next.

And sometimes we simply need to notice what is happening inside our own minds.

Which brings me back to where I started.

Learning is important to me.
Growing is important to me.
Thinking is important to me.
Writing to think through ideas is important to me.

But perhaps the question is not simply whether we are thinking. Perhaps it is: What kind of thinking does this moment require?

And for those of us who have the privilege of designing learning experiences for others, maybe there is one more question worth exploring: What kinds of thinking are we intentionally creating space for in our students, our colleagues, and ourselves?

Because preparing people for a world we cannot fully predict may not be about teaching them what to think. It may be about helping them discover how many different ways there are to think.