Children themselves often have the old-fashioned view that intelligence is a fixed thing that you are born with.  We now know that this is not true and children need to know that their minds are not empty vessels to be filled up by the teacher.   Their brains are parts of their bodies - they need to live, work and be fed and exercised if they are to thrive.

Educators can be the worst influence on a child's learning. They can either promote a learning and creative atmosphere or they can be oppressive and damaging.  Some educators believe that they are doing a good job.  They may use open questioning techniques and feel that they are making learners think. But some of them do not have the patience to allow their learners to arrive at answers themselves or to form their own questions.  If they insist on only one correct answer then they are not promoting critical or creative thinking amongst their learners.

Another problem, is that some teachers view intelligence as being fixed and only important if it is in the linguistic or mathematical area.  We now know that there is no single form of general intelligence and that a person's intelligence takes many forms.  If you wish to read more about this you can follow this link to Gardner's Multiple intelligence theory. This has implications for thinking skills because they need to be applied to all the different forms of intelligence, including linguistic mathematical, spatial, musical, physical, emotional, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic.