Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 328 posts

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#151

Post by cryoshon »

arethuza wrote: post #115
thebspatrol wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd actually be really interested in knowing what percentage of people read opposing rhetoric. I easily spend far more time listening to and reading right-leaning rhetoric, despite being left leaning. I already know "my side". Why would I want to live in an echo chamber?

I've started doing that far more over the last year or so - I'm definitely "left leaning" but it's good to try and understand the viewpoint of others even if you don't agree with their conclusions. Echo chambers are boring.

echo chambers are boring, but so is ruining terrible malformed arguments.

neither side has a monopoly on those, to be sure.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#152

Post by cryoshon »

RachelF wrote: post #51
jseliger wrote: post #2

I've taught college. This study is wildly unsurprising. I've written about this in various places (e.g. https://jakeseliger.com/2014/04/27/paying-for-the-party-eliz... ), but most colleges have evolved majors and paths that are designed to move students through the system, collect their tuition money, and graduate them. In re-reading the previous sentence, I think I sound opposed to this. I am a little bit, maybe, bu…

Much depends on what you choose to study in college. One can easily get an advanced degree without picking up critical-thinking skills. Whether critical-thinking skills are actually valuable for making money or personal happiness are something perhaps left to philosophy or theology departments.

>Whether critical-thinking skills are actually valuable for making money

if you know when to keep your mouth shut and when to speak up, i'd say yes.

>personal happiness

certainly not. an analytical mindset rarely exposes the happy truths, which tend to be self-evident

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#153

Post by cryoshon »

xchip wrote: post #142

Critical thinking skills are not taught because they teach you how to question authority, and that means criticizing parents, teachers and the system. Socrates already tried doing that and was accused of corrupting youth (and got him condemned to death)

critical thinking also incentivizes discontent, generally speaking.

better not to ask the difficult questions

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#154

Post by raleighm »

ThomPete wrote: post #131

Critical thinking is an important skill but I'd like to caution against this fixation on critical thinking thought in collage as some sort of beacon for society. Critical thinking is something people develop over the years and it starts early IMO. It's not just a 4 year course. It's a whole approach to the world around you. There are many critical thinkers in my experience outside of collage. And I don't see it a pro…

Reading philosophy is valuable but most people are passive when they read. Critical thinking is a skill that develops through practice, debate.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#155

Post by adrusi »

zigzigzag wrote: post #113
learc83 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're really agreeing with the OP. The OP didn't say anything about not making you take classes that aren't directly focused on your career. Those classes are what make college different from trade school. You may think it sounds like a meaningless platitude now when you just want hurry up and be done with the whole thing, but many of those "extraneous" classes will make you a more rounded person if yo…

The problem with insisting on roundness, which has been a focus of the education system for years, is that it generates tons of generic shapeless people who specialise in nothing and find themselves unable to obtain the best, high paying jobs. In my family, myself and my brother have been successful by focusing on one or two skills and honing them. That was made much harder by the education system, which fought us th…

I'm a humanities student and not on the left. My experience with leftist professors is that even if they try to actively push their politics on students, they will still give As to papers with well-reasoned dissenting views on highly political topics, immigration for instance. The only unfairness is that students who just repeat everything the professor says in their paper will get an easy grade without much thinking but I don't know what can be done about that, unless professors are to penalize unoriginality. The groupthink isn't an obstacle to critical thinking, it's just an excuse to avoid it.

Critical thinking skills aren't something to have on top of domain-specific skills, they're something to have as a foundation for them. If you focus on critical thinking skills in lieu of anything domain specific, and expect to get a job without further learning, you're foolish, but you'll have an easier time learning the specific skills you need for practical work anyway.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#156

Post by walshemj »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #86
poikniok wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly did a Stanford professor end up homeless? And why in the world would they be taking classes afterwards?

I expect that most cases of people going from a solid social position to homeless involve mental illness and/or addiction.

or an unlucky illness

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#157

Post by cf »

afarrell wrote: post #38
closure wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. It took me until several years out of school to realize that learning to think should have been a primary focus of university. 25 years on I am realizing that although it got me work and very decent pay I probably would have been much better off if the entire focus of university had been: 1. Learning how to think 2. Learning how to learn Really the focus of earlier schooling probably should have been:…

> Learning how to write so that others can understand me I'm in the middle of the book Towards Style and Grace and it is fantastic. It is everything that High School-me was trying to find an education about.

This book and Ross-Larson's Effective Writing series are the books that finally taught me how to write. If you write as part of your job. These books are gold.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#158

Post by [deleted] »

afarrell wrote: post #38
closure wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. It took me until several years out of school to realize that learning to think should have been a primary focus of university. 25 years on I am realizing that although it got me work and very decent pay I probably would have been much better off if the entire focus of university had been: 1. Learning how to think 2. Learning how to learn Really the focus of earlier schooling probably should have been:…

> Learning how to write so that others can understand me I'm in the middle of the book Towards Style and Grace and it is fantastic. It is everything that High School-me was trying to find an education about.

[deleted]

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#159

Post by ThomPete »

raleighm wrote: post #154
ThomPete wrote: post #131

Critical thinking is an important skill but I'd like to caution against this fixation on critical thinking thought in collage as some sort of beacon for society. Critical thinking is something people develop over the years and it starts early IMO. It's not just a 4 year course. It's a whole approach to the world around you. There are many critical thinkers in my experience outside of collage. And I don't see it a pro…

Reading philosophy is valuable but most people are passive when they read. Critical thinking is a skill that develops through practice, debate.

Sure but we were talking about learning in collage here so you would never just read something but exactly debate it after you read it.

I was fortunate to have a 24 year old high school philosophy teacher a real wiz "kid" who was able to teach how to approach philosophy teaching so it doesn't just end up as ethics class of opposing opinions.

He had me write my high school master assignment about Frege and Wittgenstein.

Anyway don't disagree debate is important but sometimes the arguments are book length long and the only way to respond is with another book.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#160

Post by 6stringmerc »

If I'd used my critical thinking skills to go to an HVAC vocational track, following years of hourly / labor Summer jobs as a teenager, and took out a business loan half of what I've spent on University studies, I'd probably have a small empire by now.

Universities are great for a liberal arts study track, but that's kind of it. I'm not even sure most require Students to study Retirement Planning or "How to Understand a Car Loan" in practical terms.

Post reply on HN