[mnehring]

ut then again, when the govt changed the curriculum (by design) to exclude things like critical thought/’how’ to think’ and the media abandoned the 5W’s of Journalism in their reporting, the world we live in is the only possible outcome.

We need to bring FReeper LS in on the conversation. This is right up his ally.

[LS]

I have a totally different view of this---and, btw, I'm not pinging everyone, so feel free to re-ping---I think it is precisely the drift toward "critical thinking" that is killing education.

We have gotten entirely away from content. If you go to the McGuffy Readers, they didn't teach "critical thinking." They taught straight up morals, patriotism, Biblical truths, etc. The notion that you can teach "critical thinking" outside of a vast body FIRST of information and basics, is flawed.

The fact is, when we taught "only" facts, we had far smarter and more innovative people (on the whole) than we do today.

Further, "critical thinking" ALWAYS assumes two points of view, that any position has "some validity" that we must "critically analyze." Well, no. Once a truth is established as a truth, you don't continually revisit it. We don't test anew gravity every year (ie., seeking to prove it). It is now a building block upon which we rest other ideas.

So I'm extremely skeptical of teaching "critical thinking" as an end. If you teach content correctly people will learn to think critically.