Discussion of a meta-analysis of studies about teaching critical thinking: http://lesswrong.com/lw/dhe/to_learn_critical_thinking_study... (argument mapping wins).
Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach? [pdf]
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Re: Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach? [pdf]
#12Critical thinking is easily taught, but people who aren't thinking critically can not teach it. "Critical Thinking" is infectious. It shows through in jokes that you can't help but emulate, in pranks that exploit foolish assumptions. Critical thinking is inherently one of the most interesting things you can do, and there is nothing your brain would like to do more. So why don't people think critically? Because, like…
You imply that something inherent or "natural" about the human brain gives it an affinity for critical thinking. Is there evidence to back that up? It certainly does not seem to be the "natural" state of human thought.
Re: Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach? [pdf]
#13Upton Sinclair's classic quote gets to the source of resistance to critical thinking: I used to say to our audiences: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" And often the costs are far beyond financial, including ostracism, shunning and shaming. Critical thinking, as a mass movement, is about the most dangerous idea there is to any existing power…
I've heard Hilde Domin say something similar in an interview I listened to yesterday, paraphrased: "When you're young, you can still act on your insights [in this case, leaving Germany because of the rise of Hitler], but older people have more relations/commitments; and in fact many people don't even want insights, that's sadly true." It came to mind because people can be very defensive and petty even when no salary…
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Re: Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach? [pdf]
#14"Virtually everyone would agree that a primary, yet insufficiently met, goal of schooling is to enable students to think critically." Well that is a questionable presupposition. Government schooling is about teaching group think. It is about creating citizens that don't question what they're taught. Government school is about teaching kids to think emotionally. Teaching students to think critically might be what scho…
I'm sure there isn't a government conspiracy to turn schools into sheeple factories.
Re: Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach? [pdf]
#15"Virtually everyone would agree that a primary, yet insufficiently met, goal of schooling is to enable students to think critically." Well that is a questionable presupposition. Government schooling is about teaching group think. It is about creating citizens that don't question what they're taught. Government school is about teaching kids to think emotionally. Teaching students to think critically might be what scho…
Sure, a lot of what school does is teaching compliance. Yet, I have heard a lot of speeches about how school teaches children to be critically thinking citizens and you can probably find the term “critical thinking” in most mission statements of educational institutions. I would even say that school usually want to raise critically thinking students, they just don’t want to deal with the implications this has for running the schools. It is a lot easier to teach students when they don’t question what and how they are taught.
Re: Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach? [pdf]
#16A course in programming would be a great way to teach critical thinking, especially if you spend several weeks specifically working on debugging skills.
Re: Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach? [pdf]
#17The title of this post may be part of the problem.
Re: Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach? [pdf]
#18Critical thinking is hard to teach, because people have it beaten out of them. Where I came from, raised in a church during the formative years of my mind, I was trained that Critical thinking, Scepticism, using logic and thinking very deep into things were considered sin and to be reprimanded.
So the question becomes, why is it so hard to undo the damage that Religious powers in this country have worked hard to achieve: transmogifying segments of the populations into rule-obeying sheep that follow commands from others, without considering that the right/wrongness of an action is based on what God says, rather than an analysis of the thing itself.
Re: Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach? [pdf]
#19"Virtually everyone would agree that a primary, yet insufficiently met, goal of schooling is to enable students to think critically." Well that is a questionable presupposition. Government schooling is about teaching group think. It is about creating citizens that don't question what they're taught. Government school is about teaching kids to think emotionally. Teaching students to think critically might be what scho…
"Government school" is a wonderful example of how snappy terminology short circuits critical thinking. It may be rewarding on some level to assume that every school operated by the government is part of a monolithic agenda to turn the nation's youth into unquestioning robots to staff our various production lines. That is simply not true.
Re: Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach? [pdf]
#20"Virtually everyone would agree that a primary, yet insufficiently met, goal of schooling is to enable students to think critically." Well that is a questionable presupposition. Government schooling is about teaching group think. It is about creating citizens that don't question what they're taught. Government school is about teaching kids to think emotionally. Teaching students to think critically might be what scho…
"Government school" is a wonderful example of how snappy terminology short circuits critical thinking. It may be rewarding on some level to assume that every school operated by the government is part of a monolithic agenda to turn the nation's youth into unquestioning robots to staff our various production lines. That is simply not true.
That is simply not true.
Please elaborate.