Texas Republican party wants to remove the teaching of critical thinking skills in schools

[Humodour]

Vehemently disagree with Nepenthe that critical thinking can't be taught and hence vehemently agree with Hurlshot.

 

If anything, the stance on homosexuality they published is even more shameful than the education "oversight." What a pack of bigots.

 

Yeah, it's pretty disgusting.

 

Hey Krezzie you've been reading Daily Kos I see. And here I thought you had started thinking for yourself. Imagine my suprise

 

I read it on Slashdot. Slashdot is a tech website run by Americans. But from time to time they comment on things like religious extremism and the damage it is causing to America's education system and scientific institutions, such as the banning of teaching evolution, and the teaching of creationism in science.

 

http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/06/28/2059203/texas-gop-educational-platform-opposes-teaching-critical-thinking-skills

 

With that in mind, will you retract your crude attack on my intelligence, or are attacks on people's character your preferred mode of operation? I'm definitely starting to believe that, since in another thread you were ranting about me being a Marxist socialist and other weird things which I can only assume are meant to be dread insults in the USA.

Edited July 4, 2012 by Krezack

[Orogun01]

Vehemently disagree with Nepenthe that critical thinking can't be taught and hence vehemently agree with Hurlshot.

Reluctantly agree with Nepenthe, critical thinking is something better learn with real life experience rather than on the classroom.

[Oblarg]

The idea that "critical thinking can't be taught" is false - the single most important step towards a more accurate appraisal of the world around you is the ability to recognize the biases inherent to human psychology. This can very clearly be taught, and the general lack of such education is one of public schooling's greatest failures.

Edited July 4, 2012 by Oblarg

[Humodour]

Vehemently disagree with Nepenthe that critical thinking can't be taught and hence vehemently agree with Hurlshot.

Reluctantly agree with Nepenthe, critical thinking is something better learn with real life experience rather than on the classroom.

 

Then you're not agreeing with Nepenthe. He stated critical thinking skills can't be taught. But if you can learn them through life experience (which I agree with you is the primary means of learning them) then you can learn them. Bit of a tautology, but eh.

 

The classroom (or any teacher including one's parents) are still a powerful force for teaching the basics of critical thinking. The one important thing I came away from my English literature class with from high school was the ability and confidence to absolutely dissect advertisements and recognise power plays and manipulation attempts (which are skills that extend far beyond just the thousands of advertisements we are bombarded with daily), for example. These are critical thinking skills that were developing, slowly, on my own, but which were given a significant boost from this 1 year of English class. Similarly the classes at school which encouraged me to apply systems thinking to looking at and solving problems have further nurtured an important critical thinking skill which everybody has intuitively but which few practice properly.

 

The classroom is a place to seed the concepts of critical thinking and allow them to develop properly over one's lifetime.

[Hurlshort]

The idea that "critical thinking can't be taught" is false - the single most important step towards a more accurate appraisal of the world around you is the ability to recognize the biases inherent to human psychology. This can very clearly be taught, and the general lack of such education is one of public schooling's greatest failures.

 

Every single credentialed teacher takes multiple courses on cognitive theory. Showing bias and identifying poor judgement is actually built into my curriculum. I do agree it is a major failure that many students do not come away from public school with this education, but it is not for lack of trying on many teacher's part. You can lead a horse to water, as the saying goes.

[Hurlshort]

Funnily enough, I just read this from a coworker:

 

While my students were partner-editing their essays today, I overheard a little argument in one corner of the room. Apparently, one student did not believe that Francis **** Major invented the mechanical pencil, as was stated in his partner's essay. This provided an excellent, albeit awkward, example of why we do not use wiki.answers.com when researching our essays.

 

edit: The starred out word starts with a pen and ends with an is.

Edited July 4, 2012 by Hurlshot

[Nepenthe]

Vehemently disagree with Nepenthe that critical thinking can't be taught and hence vehemently agree with Hurlshot.

Reluctantly agree with Nepenthe, critical thinking is something better learn with real life experience rather than on the classroom.

 

Then you're not agreeing with Nepenthe. He stated critical thinking skills can't be taught. But if you can learn them through life experience (which I agree with you is the primary means of learning them) then you can learn them. Bit of a tautology, but eh.

... No.

 

To refine/amend my earlier statement (), I believe that there's a large amount of people who simply can't think critically, and it does make sense from an evolutionary perspective (easier to keep the herd going). Apart from that, Orogun's closer to what I had mind for the rest.

Edited July 4, 2012 by Nepenthe

[Rostere]

Oh, well, no problem then.

 

If anything, the stance on homosexuality they published is even more shameful than the education "oversight." What a pack of bigots.

 

You don't say?

[HoonDing]

 

Ah yes, "Critical thinking"

[Oblarg]

Every single credentialed teacher takes multiple courses on cognitive theory. Showing bias and identifying poor judgement is actually built into my curriculum. I do agree it is a major failure that many students do not come away from public school with this education, but it is not for lack of trying on many teacher's part. You can lead a horse to water, as the saying goes.

 

You misunderstand me. Were I to design a high school curriculum, there would be a mandated course in basic statistics, followed by a mandated course on common cognitive biases. I do not think I have ever heard of a public school system that actually does this. Mine certainly didn't, and it was regarded as one of the best in the country.

 

Having teachers well-versed in the subject and rigorously teaching the subject are not the same thing.

Edited July 4, 2012 by Oblarg

[Nepenthe]

"A person who is highly suggestible in a negative direction is as much in bondage to others around him as is the person who is positively suggestible." And this is what I really referred to earlier. That a lot of self-professed critical thinkers are, in-fact, "highly suggestible in a negative direction".

 

And an Aldous Huxley quote from the same source "Perhaps men of genius are the only true men. In all the history of the race there have been only a few thousand real men. And the rest of us--what are we? Teachable animals. Without the help of the real man, we should have found out almost nothing at all. Almost all the ideas with which we are familiar could never have occurred to minds like ours. Plant the seeds there and they will grow; but our minds could never spontaneously have generated them."

Edited July 4, 2012 by Nepenthe

[Hurlshort]

That quote is brilliant.

 

 

 

I am also clearly a person who is positively suggestible.

[Nepenthe]

That quote is brilliant.

 

 

 

I am also clearly a person who is positively suggestible.

Maybe, but "gaming circles" in general have a ton of negatively suggestible people.

[Malcador]

It is true, Hurlshot needs to drink the haterade more.