It may seem absurd that a society should intentionally choose to poorly educate its children.
Yet there is a strong pull in our culture to do just that. The reason is a straightforward one. Most people do not want children to think. They want children to get good grades, obey, fit in, find a job, play sports, salute the flag, kneel in prayer -- but not think. Thinking is culturally portrayed as effete and funny but it is actually held as dangerous. Those who want to preserve their privileges, whether it's their drinking habits, their bank accounts or their fairy tales, do not want youth to ask difficult questions, dispute their authority or threaten them with exposure.
The self-interest of adults makes them secretly wish that all schools would crumble and vanish. This is why so little critical thinking is taught in schools. Educators agree at the level of lip service that teaching critical thinking skills is education's number one priority. Yet classroom observers report that in over 95 percent of the classrooms they visit, no critical thinking skills are being taught. This is understandable as an unspoken agreement has been reached by all involved -- parent, politician, school board member, school superintendent, principal, teacher -- that thinking is dangerous and should not be countenanced.
Therefore "learning" and not "thinking" is supported. Learning is safe. Nobody's feathers are ruffled if you provide your students with another plane geometry theorem or twenty new French vocabulary words. The system is set up to support exactly this sort of transaction. There is a school subject called plane geometry, there is plane geometry subject matter, there is a teacher who teaches plane geometry, there is a student who learns plane geometry and is tested in plane geometry, there are uses for plane geometry, as a pillar in a liberal education and a stepping stone to solid geometry, and it all makes perfect, seamless sense. Doesn't it?
No, it doesn't.
The tyranny of subject matter, with one subject following another from the cradle through and including graduate school, leaves little or no time for thinking. The big solution to this grave problem is to completely revamp how we educate our children, focusing on a "thinking" model rather than a "learning" model. As this big solution is certainly out of reach, a smaller, perhaps obtainable solution is the following one: that a portion of each school day, maybe as little as forty-five minutes, be turned over and devoted to thinking.
What would occur during this "thinking module?" Students would actually learn critical thinking skills. The device employed to help them learn these critical thinking skills would be "the big problem." Students would be presented with a "big problem" and asked to think about it. They would be assured right off the bat that not only were there probably no easy answers to the problem, the problem might not actually be solvable. When a student did try to solve the problem with a slogan-sized, too-easy answer, it would be the facilitator's job to say, "But what if?" -- helping the student and the whole class realize what a poor job slogan-sized answers did in addressing human-sized problems.
For example, if in an "In what circumstances would you turn a friend in to the police?" discussion, a student was to say "As a matter of principle, I never turn a friend in!", the facilitator might reply ever so mildly, "What if your friend were preparing to kill your other friends?"
If during the "How do you know if someone is crazy and should be put in an institution?" discussion a student offered up, "They're crazy if they look crazy!", the facilitator might respond, "So if an actor on stage were playing the part of a crazy person, you would lock him up?" Wouldn't such discussions help relieve student boredom and produce smarter citizens?
If we believe that reason is the primary sword that we employ in the defense of liberty, it would be wise if we added "more reason" to our current education system by lobbying for the introduction of these "thinking modules" at every educational level, from elementary school through graduate school. Since every educator pays at least lip service to the idea that critical thinking is an admirable educational goal, it should be possible to nudge at least some schools and some school districts in the direction of revising the school day to include, in addition to subject matter, some genuine thinking.
If you feel inclined to join in the fight to introduce thinking into our schools, stay tuned for my posts or contact me directly. It will take the heavy lifting of many ordinary people to make our schools a safe place for thought, given our culture-wide antipathy to thinking. But that heavy lifting is worth it, as freedom is truly served by helping our children spend at least a portion of their school days actually thinking.
Follow Eric Maisel, Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ericmaisel
Those which had advocated for thinking in the schools, which for a time included Time, Inc. and other media businesses, began to champion what they called 'critical thinking' but what was in fact obstructive to real thinking. The current result is the Tea Party, this century's 'know-nothings,' and may soon result in a constitutional despotism.
Oh, no, no. If the schools vanished, who would teach children NOT to think?!? Critical thinking is a skill that will blossom naturally when given half a chance, as your example of how to "teach" it shows. The purpose of schools is to nip that at the bud.
He's right that an over-abundance of content leaves little time for thinking. As a former high school teacher, I felt pressure to "get through it all." This often meant that my students didn't explore a topic in-depth before moving on.
He's also right that much of the curriculum is toxic. What students are learning is less often academic - English, Math, History, Art - and more often social - fit in, don't ask tough questions, blindly submit to authority. We need to re-think schools so that students don't learn these harmful lessons.
However, Dr. Maisel is wrong in claiming that "most people do not want children to think."
The problem isn't wanting or not wanting thinking. The problem is that we haven't had a practical method to teach thinking skills. Most frameworks are either fluff or cannot be taught within a standards-based curriculum.
A new method, based on 20+ years of research by Dr. Derek Cabrera, provides a method for teaching thinking skills within the context of any lesson, with any student, in any grade. It's called the DSRP Method. You can read more about it at:
www.iDSRP.com
I've had the chance to work alongside Dr. Cabrera for the past few years and observe the impact this method has on classrooms. We're seeing a resurgence of thinking skills that our country needs so badly.
I don't know what, if anything, happened about the playground incident, but Ms. Dolan has a terrific story about the time a student called her into the office!
So what else is new? Since when does an institution have your child's interests at heart? It's important to stay on top of what they learn in school so that you can teach your kids the realities of life, politics, success in the outside world at home.
Right now politicians think that they can manipulate public opinion through Management of Perception Economics (MOPE), that the economy will get better by printing money. Every middle class person in this country must look beyond mainstream media blather (which includes the NY Times), to the consequences of the actions about to happen. THINK! Money printing will result in hyperinflation and a worthless dollar. Politicians that talk in circles are trying to hide this fact.
Trust your instincts and look to the scandals of the past. This is the tip of the iceberg. Prepare to take responsibility for yourself and family. Please think, it can happen here. Look to history!!!!!!
Welcome to the new world order.
What's the real deal? Are there just people at the top collecting large salaries, with that being the only current agenda in education?
If we want better teaching, we need better policy, and that starts with repealing No Child Allowed to Excel.
Homeschooling can work but it requires exceptional parents with lots of time. Sadly, it's the fundie goofballs who don't want their kids to hear anything that contradicts their primitive literary approach to their bible who are most fond of the idea. They are the parents least suited to prepare their kids for life in the modern world.
The public school in my town has been fantastic. The kids teachers are, by and large, excellent and dedicated and even the administration seems to be mostly on the ball.
Privatization of the schools is just more of the same thievery that the righties seem to love...
http://returntoworkmom.blogspot.com/
Actually, when I was in grade school, one of the classes I was required to take made us do exactly this. I'm only twenty-four, and graduated from college a few years ago (id est, I wasn't in grade school THAT long ago). So, I think that this is already happening in at least SOME of our schools, even if the majority are not asking the students to think.
Although launched in the 70s, the program really gained momentum under the Reagan administration, and is the primary reason why critical thinking, history, and civics have little or no place in schools today. No Child Left Behind is an extension of that process.
Award-winning educators and others have written excellent books on how our young people are receiving a government and corporate indoctrination in lieu of an education, and how as a result the American populace is being systematically dumbed-down. Skills that were the norm among students decades ago are now the exception, and it's no wonder Johnny can't read or write - at least not very well - and why so many college students require remediation.
The objective of the program is, of course, control. The dumber you are, the easier it is.
Notice how we squabble amongst ourselves over what are essentially non-issues? Meanwhile, the plutocracy is looting the nation and laughing at how naive we are. How easily distracted we are. How fearful we are. How hilarious it is that we would allow ourselves to become so polarized, and rendered so powerless, through emotional manipulation. How easy we are to divide and conquer.
These are not the earmarks of an educated populace capable of critical thought. Quite the contrary. How many Americans believed the lies about WMD in Iraq? How many bought into the ridiculous non sequitur that "you have to give up your freedom to protect your freedom"? How many Americans can think far enough ahead to play chess?
I wonder when - or even if - we are going to recognize the myriad of things we share in common - including the fact that our representative republic is being systematically stolen from us, along with our wealth - rather than endlessly bickering and posturing over the differences we've been manipulated to be so angry and fearful about?
I'd think an article like this would draw far more response. But, nope. That alone speaks volumes.
Critical thinking is the priority of all the teachers I know.
But high stakes testing crowds all of that out, primarily because you can test discrete information, but you can't easily test thinking.
We have to constantly "look at the data," which is always based on concrete knowledge. We are forced to ask over and over "How will this drive up scores?"
I'm with you on making thinking skills a priority. I would far prefer it to what we're doing...
That is absolutely untrue!!! We have been held hostage to bad policies set by the Department of Education. We have Dubya and now Obama/Duncan to thank for the narrow, boring curriculum that we are mandated to deliver. Despite the fact that there is no research supporting these policies has not seemed to trouble these policy makers, none of whom are educators. You MUST understand that we (public educators) are deeply troubled by this dumb-downed, 1/1000 inch deep curriculum that leaves no place or time to develop critical thinking and creativity. And oddly, teachers have been demonized and completely left out of the discussion. We are the highly-qualified, well-researched educators who have been ignored, minimized and forced to do what we know is not good for kids. Please do lot lump us in with all of the deformers who have created this mess.
Forced? Nobody forced your ilk to be cowards. You chose to be all on your own.
"We have Dubya and now Obama/Duncan to thank for the narrow, boring curriculum that we are mandated to deliver."
If it were possible for a dumbed-down educator to know, for that would take skills beyond the conditioning that teachers accepted so that they could get a job (in teaching), the dumbing down has been policy in most schools for many decades, not just ten (or so) years.