this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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I like that it's a critical thinking subject, but it would be much better if you taught generic critical thinking, and used "recognising fake news" as one of the applications for critical thinking.
Every school already teaches generic critical thinking.
Lots of people don't learn it, but lots of people don't learn basic algebra either. It's still taught.
"Write 3 to 5 sentences explaining Gatsby staring across the bay at the green light of the far pier."
This is a common type of prompt that most school systems use and in theory it fosters and develops critical thinking. Why would Gatsby stare at the light? What must he be thinking about? Why did the author choose a light? But (american) school systems never actually explain what critical thinking is. Only a set of minimum requirements that students struggle through.
I hated those prompts. They seemed like the teacher was just fishing for a specific answer. Sometimes the color doesn't mean anything and the author thought it just looked nice. It wasn't until I had a sociology teacher explain it with a poignant example that it really clicked.
He asked us "Is suspending a student good punishment?" He went on to elaborate that a student that skips class gets detention. Well if he skipped class why would he go to detention? So he skips that and gets suspension instead. This student didn't want to be in school so the school ultimately punishes him by not having him in school.
Reductive and simplistic, sure. But the idea that you approach a problem or thought from many different angles to see all facets of it didn't really gel with me until that moment. We need more of that. We need the "why" of critical thinking.
Throw in science too...
Don’t lots of people complain when education is too theoretical and they don’t get a sense of “how are we ever going to use this?”
What would "generic" critical thinking even look like? You need some subject matter to apply critical thinking skills to. News is already a very, very broad subject. What kind of critical thinking do you think is important but not teachable in the context of news?
Teaching about logical fallacies, how the scientific method is supposed to work, etc.
Not so much that it couldn't be taught in the context of news, but there are far more areas where critical thinking is needed.
Yes. In college libraries I remember opening handbooks on critical thinking and they were as you said.
Here is one that is available online for free as an open access PDF and has all of the best and current science on many aspects of rationality from cognitive science to philosophy: https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-edited-volume/5525/The-Handbook-of-Rationality
I agree. That's what I learn when I was in school. We also had to identify objective and subjective texts
Yeah we had to do something like that in History class, but I took the IB curriculum. I don't think most standard secondary school History classes make you assess the "Origin, Purpose, Value, and Limitation" of a source.
Science classes already exist. I was also taught about logical fallacies in high school—probably in English but I don't really remember.
Here's the syllabus for the Cambridge Critical Thinking AS & A level
https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/Images/597412-2023-2025-syllabus.pdf
They used to offer it as an end of GCSEs subject in grammar schools in the UK when i were younger (Maybe they still do, i don't know). My Ex took it.
I (a pleb) went to a plebs school though so didn't get the opportunity
That's pretty much what you get from an English (or history) class in HS. Can you extract information from a text, can you synthesize information from multiple sources, can you interpret what the text means and support your interpretation based on evidence, can you understand motivations and perspectives of characters, and recognize information from unreliable narrators, etc.
Sometimes when a problem becomes immediate enough, teaching the general case isn't enough. Not sure whether we've reached that point, but there's a lot of general teaching that people complain isn't specific enough. "Why don't they teach how to do taxes?"-- because they teach math and following directions, and it theoretically shouldn't be more complicated than that.
Except education is not general, it is hyperfocused on topics that lead into higher education.
I can agree with that to a certain extent, but how is math not general? How is understanding characters from a book not general?
The general math and reading skills I learned stopped at 8th grade(or earlier in the case of English)
I didn't need to write a 10 page paper on 3D trig for general math. Nor how to transpose a matrix.
I didn't need to learn about, well actually in English I didn't learn anything, we just kept doing the same imagery fan theorizing from 8th grade to graduation.
I don't think that's what most people learn in terms of math. If you're not going to college you probably don't need trig or calc, but a basic understanding of algebra and geometry is useful IMO.
Sounds like a problem with a shitty school or poor teachers, rather than a defect of English lit education in general. All the stuff I mentioned above is written into Common Core standards.
A significant share of people finish common core curriculum long before graduating. That's why AP, IB, and other advanced courses exist.
As for English, I don't think so, I just think there's only so much to cover. I got a 35 on act reading, and many of my classmates were similar. How're you going to teach them basic reading better?
I meant Common Core in terms of English, like the basing your interpretations of a text on evidence, etc. Catching students up in basic reading skills is a real problem, but I don't think that's an issue with how the curriculum is designed, but rather a problem with the basic economic functions of the country, where parents don't have time to meaningfully interact with their kids because of job pressures. Starting kids on literacy young is hugely important, but a parent with 3 jobs isn't going to have time to read to their kids every night.
So there's pressure on the school to get kids up to grade level without economic support, and there's pressure on the parents to help their kids without having any time to deal with it... turns out stagnating wages in favor of the millionaire class for 50 years wasn't the solution after all.
Is it not also a problem to wastes years of millions of students lives on education of specifics far beyond what they need or want, merely to fill time because they want everyone in highschool until 17 or 18?
I'm not quite understanding your point. Should we stop educating most kids at 14 or 15? Then the prospects for them are starting full time work a few years earlier or something?
If mandatory education is really about basic knowledge, if they can demonstrate that basic knowledge at any age they should be free, rather than continuing to imprison them now for no point at all. Of course they could choose to study more if they wanted to.
As a former teacher, this is not how educational standards work at all.
What did I say about educational standards?
That's what common core is. A curriculum is built from a set of standards.
I never talked about common core itself. I said many students take classes beyond what is covered in common core because they already have learnt the content long before graduating.
... I literally quoted you.
You don't seem to understand what common core, educational standards, or a curriculum are. Perhaps you should not have strong opinions on this topic
You quoted me saying that people took courses beyond what is covered in common core. You said I didn't understand educational standards, but I never made a claim about the content of common core other than AP and IB courses cover more specialized topics than what are in common core. And that is simply true. If you disagree actually articulate it rather than saying, "No, you don't understand but I won't elaborate"
I too can edit my comment to add insults! Multiple times!
Yes because this is impossible. Standards re the roadmap by which curricula are built. This is sort of like saying "I'm not made of atoms, I'm made of amino acids."
AP and IB cover standards more deeply, but the standards are the same.
Also I've never insulted you.
In the field I work in I read a lot standards, have contributed to a couple, very minor changes though. A standard how I perceive it and I think many others is a number of clearly defined conditions that something must meet to be compliant with the standards. Something can usually fulfill more than what is prescribed in the standard, that is going beyond the standard while still complying with it. I haven't read Common Core, you're right on that, but I can read a summary of what is taught in different topics to comply with it, and those things I was taught long before graduating.
And this is where I disagree, looking at summaries of what is prescribed in common core, much of what I was taught is never mentioned. Of course it's not precluded, but an elementary school math standard doesn't preclude teaching calculus- but calculus is beyond the standard.
An insult doesn't need to be, "you're dumb". Think about it like this, if you were telling your friend a story about how you personally witnessed someone do something ridiculous and you're friend insisted that no one would do that so you are clearly wrong- would you feel insulted?
No. If I'm wrong and you explain how I'm wrong, I do not feel insulted. I generally do not speak about things I'm not informed about, however, and rather ask questions to learn more.
Regardless, I apologize if I've hurt your feelings, full stop. That being said, the facts here are the facts. You are wrong about the initial point, I just don't intend to make you feel bad about being wrong.
I strongly recommend you review standards for 6-12 - it will immediately become obvious that what I'm saying about deeper application is correct. The standards are quite broad, and there are entire guidelines and supplementary materials written for how to design curricula for varying standards. A single glance will make this picture clear for you, I'd guess.
Also fun little side note: the second-worst human being I've ever personally met was our curriculum director at the high school I taught at. It was her job to organize curricula for varying performance levels based on the educational standards. She was a terrible human being.
Once I got to college and took real critical thinking classes in philosophy I was shocked at how pathetic the English classes were where we imitated the tools and concepts we would learn and apply in college. I think that people who study English do not learn critical thinking well enough in most cases and are better at teaching composition and the reading of fictional stories.
I found why you think school doesn't teach things that school definitely teaches.
Learn anything past 8th grade yeah. I took as advanced courses as were offered, but it didn't teach anything new. Just a higher burden of homework. (That's largely what IB classes were)
Yes this means that you failed to apply yourself appropriately, because you failed to learn.
Fun fact, I used to teach high school. I am literally an expert in what you should have learned.
Or maybe, just consider, my experience and perception had been different to yours? This is absolutely stupid to reference because I'm an adult and this is highschool, but if I don't say it you will continue to attack my academic performance to invalidate my argument. My overall ACT score was a 33, as I said 35 in reading. I took all IB courses for the final two years of highschool, with majority As although a couple B's. You're saying I failed to learn, that means my teachers and standardized tests completely failed to evaluate learning.
Fun fact, okay? There are thousands of teachers who also disagree. My mom is currently a teacher, my grandma was a magnet teacher and has now written 2 massive(in terms of content and actual weight) books on teaching philosophy. But, sighting "I'm an expert" means nothing on the internet, and especially "my mom and grandma are experts". But what you clearly must recognize is that I know more about my own experience than you a stranger on the internet does. But if you insist on exports how about John Gatto? Or Ivan Illich?
If this is about your personal experiences, then why are you making generalizations about the school system as a whole?
Getting good grades does not mean you internalized the content (ideally, it would, but generalized assessment is this whole thing). A teenager failing to apply themselves is hardly an indictment on that person as an adult.
I'm saying true things, not insulting you. When you were 16 you missed the abstracts of your lessons and assumed that means the lesson wasn't taught. That's incorrect. It's, ultimately, not a huge deal - you're just wrong about the information not being taught.
If it helps you feel less insulted, I got great grades in HS and went to college on an academic scholarship, I still failed to apply myself in several subjects in high school, and had to relearn several concepts in college. That's what kids do
I will literally discuss Russian lit with you all day. I love it.
Edit:
It's more apt to say that their assessment wasn't tailored specifically enough to assess your gaps. See my above assessment grumble.
It might be a bit of an indicator they did apply themselves or at least did learn though.
Unfortunately you don't determine the truth, no matter how condescendingly you phrase it. Condescension yes is a form of insulting, as you are trying to deny the experience I lived, based on your own experience, y'know the one that had nothing to do with my own.
But, you failed, because I didn't say it was never taught. Not once did I say it was never taught. I said it was already taught, and continually repeated.
You don't understand basic empathy if you think that my problem was saying I didn't apply myself. - See how that feels like an insult? But based on my observation of you in a very limited interaction + a lot of assumptions from me, that's true. That is what you're doing, since my personal experience contradicts your preconceived notion you are denying my own experience.
Did you just hear the name Ivan and assume Russian?
Which would mean it failed to. So why do you assume you after briefly talking to me on the internet are able to?
I thought you were discussing The Death of Ivan Ilyich, a famous Tolstoy work
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Ivan_Ilyich
I think more practical examples and lessons would work better if they only allocate a couple lessons for it.