[EMAIL PROTECTED] (William J. Foristal) writes:
On Thu, 30 Apr 1998 05:04:47 -0500 Jackie Fellows <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
writes:
>Jackie Fellows <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>
>Hi Bill
>
>What you say is true that people do need to ecourage critical
>thinking.
>However, IMO, we start to late in teaching the fundamentals of
>critical
>thinking. From grades 1-2, children are rewarded for being passive,
>sponges
>soaking up information. This is needed I grant you, but during that
>oh so
>important time in human development, the children are also
>internalizing the
>values they wil base their opinions, etc. on. Often these values are
>unquestioningly accepted simply because parents, teachers, etc. say it
>is
>so. Then they hit college and the first day the prof comes in and
>wants them
>to do critical thinking. What in heavens name do we expect--Voila,
>instant
>critical thinker?? I am not blaming teachers in the elementary and
>secondary
>schools. They have to teach them an information base to start from as
>well
>as be expected to teach a whole lot more. I just wonder if there
>isn't
>another way that we can encourage that in the younger grades. And I
>don't
>have any answers. I think of some of the programs we have for trying
>to
>instill moral values in the elementary schools and I wonder what
>information
>they receive. This might be a good opportunity to start to encourage
>critical thinking, if that is not being done.
>
>For example, does the D.A.R.E. program only present the "evilness" of
>drugs
>without the scare tactics and do they really explain the lure of drug
>use??
>Do they make a blanket generalization of drugs? Do they gloss over
>the
>effects of alcohol? Do we as a society really set the stage for
>critical
>rational thinking?? We have laws that put marijuana distributors in
>jail for
>longer terms without possiblilty of parole that we do murderers in
>some
>states. We infringe on spousal rights of not testifying in drug cases
>through coercion. And, then we wonder why children treat killing so
>lightly. And we wonder why they learn that bullying can get the job
>done.
>Sorry to ramble on so.
>
>jackief
Hi Jackie,
Oh I love it when you ramble. :) You make some good points here. I
still remember a situation when I was in the grade school and the
supervisor of the nuns who were teaching in the grade school visited our
class. She said that she had two pies and wanted to know what was
bigger, 1/2 of pie one or 1/4 of pie 2. Of course the answer depends on
how big each pie is. This was my first example of critical thinking
although they did not call it that at the time.
There is an entire series of questions that have been published in books
to illustrate something called lateral thinking. Some of them are quite
challenging to figure out.
There was a group in town that gave a sports type presentation for kids.
Herschell Walker was on the panel and he said he doesn't preach to kids
about the evils of drugs and alcohol. The kids already know that. He
preaches about the positive side of life and how important it is to set
goals and take care of one's health. I think he has a point.
Bill
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