NW -
Sure. It isn’t easy, and the aspect of transfer needs to be an explicit component (one of the biggest misconceptions is that the skills always transfer automatically).
Contrary to what many believe – it is key to start young.
Think of kids who grow up in academically oriented families, where they are challenged to think problems through carefully and thoroughly, questioned about things such as false dichotomies, intellectually stimulated, and encouraged to endure in difficult cognitive tasks, try alternative approaches, etc. We can probably all think of such families and know, intuitively, that all of that interaction is building skills (and affecting physiologically related cognitive development in ways) that transfer across different domains – even if it isn’t necessarily “taught” in an explicit manner. Then think about what might be done if you break those interactions down into their component parts and examine how they might be approached systematically and sequentially. Does anyone really doubt that it would have a potentially beneficial impact?
The problem is that often, however, such an explicit focus is pit against domain-specific content instruction with a zero sum game outlook. Unfortunately, such a perspective is basically encouraged by our dominant educational paradigm, and once that starts happening, important skepticism about issues such as transferability become stumbling blocks because people begin approaching the problem by employing some of that ol’ “motivated reasoning.”
You know – if we don’t line those kids up and give them the ol’ 3 R’s we’re going to spoil them and wind up with a bunch of weak-minded, librul, namby-pambies on our hands.