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Texas GOP Educational Platform Opposes Teaching Critical Thinking Skills
An anonymous reader writes "Texas Republican delegates met earlier this month to put together their 2012 platform. Much of this focused on the educational system. Alarmingly, they openly state that they oppose schools teaching critical thinking, on the grounds that it may challenge 'student's fixed beliefs' and undermine 'parental authority.' Page 12 of their official platform (PDF) discusses their thinking on teaching thinking."
This is a very old argument. The /. summary links to but doesn't actually quote the platform. Allow me:
"Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."
Now go hit the 'ol Wikipedia on "Outcome Based Education".... I'll wait. For the impatient I'll summarize: This is just a re-run of the long running battles in the late '80s and early '90s over new age teaching methods/using our teachers and kids as lab animals to try radical 'progressive' new ideas in teaching how to be a good progressive doubleplus good thinker that knows everything about stopping mom from putting the trash in the wrong recycling bin but can't locate the US on a map or tell you who George Washington was.
Having read all that, if you still can't figure out why Republicans would be against it you are simply too closed minded since you shouldn't be ignorant anymore. You don't have to agree with their opposition but you should be able to understand they aren't totally off the rails either.
We have a crisis in K-12 education where most kids are graduating barely able to send a mangled SMS; 'progressive' experiments that require huge infusions of new money in a recession should be at the bottom of anyone's list in the current environment. We know how to teach Reading, Writing and Math. We have successfully done that in classroom environments most readers here would consider primitive. Get the basics right, then come talk to me about experimenting.
We KNOW what is going to happen if you let a bunch of lefty trolls loose indoctrinating K-12 kids on 'critical thinking' because we have seen it already in the colleges. Nowhere else do you find such an intolerant monoculture as the tenured elite in their ivory towers.
Democrat delenda est
That's so almost a month ago.
I know posting old news to /. is a bad thing because that's what people tell me to think.
In the section titled "Educating Our Children," the document states that "corporal punishment is effective" and recommends teachers be given "more authority" to deal with disciplinary problems.
Time outs work much better.
"We recommend that local school boards and classroom teachers be given more authority to deal with disciplinary problems. Corporal punishment is effective and legal in Texas. "
That's just one more reason (as if more were needed) that government shouldn't be allowed in business, education, health care, money, etc., oh well, eventually the society will be so dumb, it wouldn't care about anything but their daily bowl of cheese grits or whatever they eat and a 12 hours of American Football on all channels daily. Eventually... oh wait.
You can't handle the truth.
“Sometimes when faced with problems that are confusing and troubling it is easier to think what someone tells you to think, particularly something that touches a deep and dark nerve in your nature, rather than carry the burden and ambiguity of struggling with the facts and thinking for yourself. Repeating a party line is a shorthand way of avoiding real thought. And the predators are always there to take advantage of it. They welcome trouble and often foment crisis in order to advance their agendas.”
“Anyone can be misled by a clever person, and no one likes to readily admit that they have been had. It is a sign of character and maturity to realize this, and admit you were deceived, and to demand change and reform. But some people cannot do this, even when the facts of the deception are revealed. It seems as though the more incorrect that the truth shows them to be, the louder and more strident they become in shouting down and denying the reality of the situation. And anyone who denies their perspective becomes 'the other,' someone to be feared and hated, shunned and eliminated, one way or the other.”
This was cited here http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article35340.html from another website...
With republicans (and a number of conservatives).
War is Peace.
freedom is not liberty.
and most of all.
Ignorance is strength.
As it is, critical thinking skills is reserved for top party members or the executives that work in the companies that the party supports.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I knew that Republicans were basically stupid but I didn't realize they bred themselves that way. How long has this been going on? How stupid do they want to become? It would seem that mindless automaton endlessly saying Jesus loves me is the goal.
It's that ability to look beyond dogma, hyperbole, straw-man arguments, etc. and make your own decisions. Small wonder anyone in political power would rigorously fight people learning to think for themselves, they may find their beliefs change over time and switch party affiliation or (horrors) become independents - evaluating candidates based upon their ability to get things done, rather than what they like to talk about at campaign events.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
They clearly don't have much faith in their faith if they fear that something as simple as thinking would put it in danger.
Ryans Tutorials - A collection of technology tutorials.
I guess the GOP is afraid of people able to critically think! They are afraid it would be detrimental to their mission! Heaven forefend should someone be able to use rational thinking to defeat idiocy.
Really? Where is that at? And please show us an example of that.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The DNC educational platform is teaching that 2+2==3 is "not wrong" and the kid should be given praise because he tried hard. B for effort.
Where? The word "wrong" and "praise" aren't in there and I can't find anything close to what you are claiming.
No, it is not. It is NOT the GOP. It is the neo-cons and teapartiers within the GOP that correspond to Taliban.
The truth is, that many of the pre-reagan GOPers are disgusted by where their party is today.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The actual quote is:
Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.
It sounds like "Outcome-Based Education" is that you aren't graded by how many hours you spend learning or working, but by the output you can produce. So they're saying you could use this to brainwash students based on the teacher's political agenda? IE, at the end of the class you will show you understand his views, and why everyone else is wrong. When you put it like that, it doesn't seem so bad...
Of course, what they're really saying is don't challenge our creationist views with your fancy logic. And that's sad.
Ok, so Texans are proud of the fact that they can legally Succeed from the union.
Can we encourage that?????
"Today boys and girls, we learn about Texas, and why being independent, belligerent, and unarmed is bad... Who here remembers the coast before China proved the Chicxulub impact to their senate?"
Please don't feed the troll.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
Why not? It works for North Korea!
Works for totalitarian regimes everywhere. Two world wars were waged, largely manned by people who stopped thinking and did what they were told.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So, correct me if I am wrong, but independence as an individual requires thinking as an individual, and learning how to do that. It's not something you just grow into by rejecting all of that education provided to you that came before it. The teenage rebellious period of life is completely different then critical thinking. Is Texas trying to emulate China? Maybe the color of China's flag is confusing them? Anyway I guess food preperation specialists, household organizational contractors, and discarded material removal technician's don't actually need critical thinking skills so... WIN?!
But, the troll is being modded up, with out sharing a shred of evidence. That is when it bothers me. Basically, many of our moderators seem to lack the same critical thinking skill (from texas?).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I barely made it through the first page of that thing. If I didn't know better, I would call it a poe's law prank.
Seriously, how does insanity like that shit (really "sanctity of life crom fertilization to grave"? The authority of the family "defined as a man and a woman", and all that rhetoric? Wow. Heil hitler fuckers. Oh wait, this is the us. "Praise jesus!". My bad.) Manage to get taken seriously in a country *FOUNDED* on independent thought and the outright refusal of state sponsored religion?
Holy fuck batman, joker's got a jackhammer jesus dildo!
Seriously. What. The. Fuck.
The truth is, many in the GOP say they are disgusted by the neocons but they don't do anything to discourage or oppose them. Talk is cheap.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
Alarmingly, they openly state that they oppose schools teaching critical thinking...
So, from the platform, page 12:
Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.
My boldface. What they're opposing are a specific series of programs that they claim don't teach real critical thinking. It's pathetic.
Sure, you can argue the merits of OBE and such, but recent experience is that Texas's education system has been very successful compared to other states, when you normalize for social background. Texas has a hell of a lot more poor minorities than Vermont or Wisconsin, and the real measure of a public school system is how the poor kids do, not the rich white kids.
Double duh. (Things are bigger in Texas after all...)
And of course Obamacare shows that the Democrats are just puppets of the insurance corporations:
"We need 50 million new customers."
"No problem; we'll just mandate that everyone MUST buy your product." - Pelosi, Reid, Obama, etc.
"Exxxxxcellent." - corporate CEOs after they gain 50 million new customers.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
If you actually look at the platform, the Texas Republicans' opposition is to the Outcome Based Education philosophy. Proponents of this methodology sometimes label it "critical thinking skills" since after all, who doesn't favor that? The summary submitter (and about half of the comments at this point) fall into the same logical fallacy as "If you oppose the PATRIOT Act, you must oppose patriotism!", ironically due to a lack of critical thinking skills...
Hey, another ad hom lie from CPU6502
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No no no.
Don't you realize how dangerous it would be to have your fixed beliefs changed by:
a) A changing situation or
b) Your changing level of knowledge of the situation.
There is no telling where that could lead. It could lead to DANCING, for God's sake!
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
I read thru the referenced platform document and I find it baffling how any reasonable person could be against teaching critical thinking skills to kids.
What's actually ironic is that you are giving the Republican's stance on education the same grade as the Democrat's to protect your own feelings from being hurt by the Republican's failure. How "liberal" of you.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
A reason for opposing testing as the sole metric is that no one yet has found a completely fair and practical way to do it. Additionally, statewide testing usually means that all but the brightest students have to spend the majority of their schooling being taught how to take the test, rather than actually learning anything.
Are the summary and the title trolling? Or in other words RTFA. While the Texas Republican party isn't exactly an example of honesty and intelligence, in this case they are taking a stand against a particular unproven set of educational reforms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome-based_education The buzz-words they are objecting to are so ill-defined, and in practice so slippery, that I would instead read this article as an attempt to claim the middle ground and portray the Democrats as out of touch with reality.
If you want to object to their platform I would suggest looking two items up on the same page, and then bring up the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
I think most Slashdotters would oppose this opinion. Most of us know that HOTS is a very desirable way to get educated.
Someone disagrees or misunderstands you and your immediate reaction is to should obscenities and abuse. What sort of education did you get? You obviously weren't taught any manners.
From what I understand teachers are reluctant to give deserved low grades. There is so much competition to get into college that parents gasp in terror at even any bad grade. Parents apply intense pressure on teachers to elevate what should be a low or failing grade.
Outcome Based Education means only having testable results, and promoting based on achievement, not on what has been thrown at the students. Look it up yourself in Wikipedia, that's what I did. You can call names all you want, but the article is very clear on that. This is how education traditionally worked, not the "social promotion" and other programs that aren't serving us well now.
From Wikipedia:
"OBE in itself does not specify or require any particular style of teaching or learning. Instead, it requires that students demonstrate that they have learned the required skills and content."
Now, the article goes on to make unsupported claims about how OBE is praticed, but in principle, you're opposing testable results.
You need to improve your critical thinking skills.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
. . . they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that . . . that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting focked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin' years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers . . . Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitt!er jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money.
---RIP G. Carlin
The truth is, many in the GOP say they are disgusted by the neocons but they don't do anything to discourage or oppose them. Talk is cheap.
The fracture in the Republican party is between those who support the views of the "American Taliban" and the traditional plutocrats who merely want to exploit them to get elected. Neither group has any motivation to tell them to fuck off.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Testing kids does little to measure how much a kid learns nor does it measure how good a teacher is. Heavy testing leads to students only being taught whats on the test, which is a huge disservice to the student. Measuring a teachers performance by how well your students do only works if all your students are intelligent enough to understand the material.
....Power Corrupts.... Corruption is a Crime.... therefore, Knowledge is a Crime!!!
The US actually has weapons of mass destruction, and uses them.
That's *two* differences, but only for the last c. 20 years.
"Sodom" Hussein had+used them earlier. On his own people, no less.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Alarmingly, they openly state that they oppose schools teaching critical thinking, on the grounds that it may challenge 'student's fixed beliefs' and undermine 'parental authority.'
As a parent, I don't want complete unquestioned authority over my kids' thoughts. I've made a long-standing habit of flat out lying to my kids and getting them to catch me in it. When one of them says, "Dad, I think you just made that up", then I think I've done my job as a parent.
That doesn't mean I want complete, unquestioned disrespect. To channel my dad, it's my house and my rules. But I fully expect to have to defend my opinions to my kids. Even if they ultimately disagree with my point of view, at least I've taught them why I believe the way I do. And if I'm not able to satisfactorily explain and defend those opinions, maybe I need to reconsider them.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Keep reading! You can find the PDF here via the Texas GOP Convention site. I had to track it down myself because it was so unbelievable; it seemed like Huff Po had fallen for a juvenile prank.
I just goes on
and on
and on
It covers everything from banning red light cameras, opposing mandatory animal identification, and opposing Federal highways through Texas to rubbing salt in wounds like the restoration of plaques honoring the Confederate Widow’s Pension Fund to the Texas Supreme Court building. No wonder these people are so upset. They're beset on all sides by people who want to speak Spanish or burn American flags or say that gay bashing is bad or let African Americans and Hispanic Americans vote. You know, people who don't want to say "under god" in the pledge of allegiance, or who think that religious monuments shouldn't be erected on Federal land. Maybe they should feel under assault, people who think like they do are dying off because they just don't make bigots like they used to.
If one were to actually read the platform, one would note that the Texas Republicans -- and this is a direct quote -- "oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs".
They claim -- as justification -- that all those things are "simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning)", which is factually incorrect (OBE is essentially an approach to the management of education, while critical thinking skills are a skill area; the two are completely orthogonal) but independently of their justification, they do, in fact, state that they oppose teaching critical thinking skills.
And, looking beyond that, their further reason for opposing teaching all those supposed relabellings of OBE -- the potential to threaten students "fixed beliefs" -- is something that does not make sense for OBE at all (since OBE is content-neutral), but directly relevant to critical thinking skills (actual critical thinking skills, not any that would be a relabelling of OBE.)
...because they just don't make bigots like they used to.
Not for lack of trying...
but the college system does not even tech you how to run the machines no they teach the high level theory that most of the time is to much the theory side so you have a big skill gap in how to run / fix the machine.
No teaching critical thinking = tech the test.
The tech the test idea needs to go away as the extreme of that is cramming for the test with no idea on what the test covers or how to deal what you are being tested on in a real work place. Also the test needs to open book so have to do some critical thinking to find the answer.
I have a son who is autistic. Nevertheless, he recently complete a community college certificate course in Culinary Prep for Disabled Students. One of the major portions of the classroom study was "critical thinking" and covered:
Is this the right thing to do?
Is this the right time to do this?
Is this the right person to do this to/with?
etc.
You get the point. Decisions that we make daily we tend to take for granted because of our (mostly) fully functional mental capabilities. Challenged persons do not have that same level and must be taught how critical thinking.
BTW, he graduated with honors and made me one proud Dad.
They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Aaaaaaaaah... That explains why Slashdot's right-wing contingent has their knickers in a bigger twist than usual today!
The Supreme Court finally put an end to this 'ACA is unconstitutional' nonsense today and now you're all in a big snit about it.
Have fun with your e-pouting!
Yeah, yeah the usual crap. You libs still haven't come-up with a better way to see if the Teachers are actually teaching the kids, or if they are (like one of my former teachers) screwing around in class teaching karate lessons. We didn't learn crap in that class, and that would have been clear if we'd been forced to take a test, thus revealing the teacher should be fired.
I think we should continue the testing until someone comes-up with a better measurement and THEN dump the testing. To dump the tests and replace it with ______ is illogical.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I haven't read about any GOP head who argued to put the Tea Party nutcases where they belong -- to the scrapheap of history (if they don't understand history, they're condemned to repeat it).
Could you please document the GOP's resistance and opposition to the Tea Party's extremisc positions?
As far as I'm concerned, the GOP left the camp of civilized behavior many years ago. Looking from abroad, it's clear that their only aim is to give Haliburton et.al. even more power than they have today.
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
The one I read said that outcome based education was about determining what students should learn, then testing whether or not they actually have learned it. Obviously outcomes could be chosen that support progressive indoctrination, the same way they could be chosen to support conservative indoctrination. There's no fundamental reason Outcome-based Education would support a progressive agenda. Maybe they think it's progressive because it's new. If that's the case its pretty short sited to say something is bad because it is new.
Despite what the Texas GOP says Higher Order Thinking Skills and OBE aren't the same. One is a set of skills people can learn, the other is a method of teaching.
I've never understood why divorce gets so much less attention than gay marriage from these people. It's an order of magnitude more "threatening" to marriage, yet the platform gives divorce all of 2 lines. The gay bits total 26 lines--actually more than that if you include things like an oblique Boy Scouts reference.
Anyway, you some of the best parts (emphasis mine):
Immunizations All adult citizens should have the legal right to conscientiously choose which vaccines are administered to themselves or their minor children without penalty for refusing a vaccine. We oppose any effort by any authority to mandate such vaccines or any medical database that would contain personal records of citizens without their consent.
Sex Education – We recognize parental responsibility and authority regarding sex education. We believe that parents must be given an opportunity to review the material prior to giving their consent. We oppose any sex education other than abstinence until marriage.
Controversial Theories – We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories. We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.
Juvenile Daytime Curfew - We strongly oppose Juvenile Daytime Curfews. Additionally, we oppose any official entity from detaining, questioning and/or disciplining our children without the consent of a child’s parent.
Traditional Principles in Education – We support school subjects with emphasis on the Judeo-Christian principles upon which America was founded and which form the basis of America’s legal, political and economic systems. We support curricula that are heavily weighted on original founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and Founders’ writings.
Judeo-Christian Nation – As America is a nation under God founded on Judeo-Christian principles, we affirm the constitutional right of all individuals to worship in the religion of their choice. [ed: note the non sequitur]
Traditional Military Culture – To protect our serviceman and women and ensure that America's Armed Forces remain the best in the world, we affirm the timelessness of those values, the benefits of traditional military culture and the incompatibility of homosexuality with military service.
To be fair it's not universally awful; some of their positions are somewhat reasonable:
Internet Access - We support a free and open internet -- free from intrusion, censorship, or control by government or private entities. Due to the inherent benefit of anonymity, the anonymity of users is not to be compromised for any reason, unless consented by the user; or by court order. We also oppose any mandates by the government to collect and retain records of our internet activity.
Still, there's sure a lot of crazy in there.
Sounds like the controversy recently in my home province. A teacher was fired for giving high school students a zero mark on assignments and tests they did not complete. The school board defended the decision stating that the school had a policy of not giving out zero grades no matter what. Even if the student repeatedly refused to do any work at all. Apparently the teacher was supposed to assign the particular assignment a "did not complete" and then not include it in the student's final mark, instead averaging their other work.
After a significant amount of public outcry the school board has agreed to "review" the policy, but as of yet they still seem to side more with the school than the teacher in question.
I am guessing that you have never taught before. OTOH, I have.
What do you propose that a teacher teach kids, except what is on a Syllabus that supports the curriculum?
A good teacher will convey what is needed.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I've seen occasional comments from retired GOP politicians along the lines of "gee, you people are so nuts that St. Reagan-of-the-deficits would be unwelcome in his own party these days". The other day we even got something like that from Roy Blunt, current senator from Missouri.
Never you mind that Blunt's been part of that very same problem since he was first elected in '94.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Testing of kids on reading, writing, math, and science absolutely makes sense. I want to know that kids have a base knowledge before they move up the ladder. If they are not getting a decent base, then moving up does not work.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
> Could you please document the GOP's resistance and opposition to the Tea Party's extremisc positions?
Easy. They managed to cram Mitt Romney down our throats didn't they? They f*ck*ng handed Obama a second term on a silver platter rather than allow one of the more electable, but uncontrollable, candidates to get the nomination. Romney can not win. On the other hand Obama is working really hard to lose right now so we could at least get stalemate for four years.
Democrat delenda est
You are mostly right. The OP is also right. HOTS really is a left wing movement to indoctrinate the youth. If you research the idea it makes sense, its just the socratic method. If you look at the material privided, the training given teachers, and the example socratic questions (ironic that the teachers don't come up with them really), it really is a scheme to brainwash the public school worker bees towards the left. For instance one series of questions walks the students down the path to find (obvious) flaws in the pledge of allegience and suggest leftist improvements to it. The teacher's union is the largest supporter of the democratic party per open secrets, and it shows. It is run by people almost as progressive as Wilson was. That was a knock btw.
But you are also right, what the GOP is really mad about isn't that the children are being brainwashed. They are just made that they aren't the group that gets to decide what the drones believe, so they are fighting back.
Home school doesn't really help that much even if you can afford the time. Yes, they will be independent thinkers, but they won't have the networks that an expensive private school provides, which is half the point.
The solution is acceptance of our roles as peons.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
we get a source of beings that we can use in place of trying improvements in education? I tried lab rats, but all they did is gnaw on some cheese
/.tter... I think you just fell victim to Peter's.
Also, contrary to popular belief there HAVE been advances in our understanding of human psychology. The big one is that we've found that self-image is a fundamental restraint on ability. Specifically people act in a way that tends to reinforce their self image. There is science backing this, and best of all it passes the 'truthiness' test (worthless, I know, but at least the tea baggers mostly stay in the woodwork when I start talking about this).
This is where the 'precious little snowflake' movement in education came from. This might just shock you, but children are impressionable little blighters. If you want them to succeed (you do want them to, don't you?) then you need to impress on them a self image that includes success. People will throw up their arms at this and say 'What about Peter Principle!?'. The Peter Principle is a gross simplification of human psychology trotted out to excuse budgets cuts.
Look at the most arrogant fool you know. The one who's completely incompetent yet supremely confident. Ask yourself, when you strip away the bluster, don't you find he's just overcompensating for deeper insecurities? The point of OBE and similar education efforts is to raise people without those insecurities. In short, there's a difference between arrogance and positivity. Teachers spend years learning it. Could you honestly say that you've even spent as much time to consider it as you did to write your post? My dear
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Isn't jargon wonderful. If you read the Republican policy document (http://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/2012-Platform-Final.pdf) you see that terms like "Higher Order Thinking Skills" and "Outcome-Based Education" are capitalised. These are not general concepts, but specific programs in educational theory and the names could have come straight from George Orwell.
"Higher Order Thinking Skills" (capitalised) rejects students spending time on acquiring basic skills such as spelling or simple arithmetic, but launches straight into "higher order" thinking without giving the kids the tools to do anything useful.
"Outcome-Based Education" actually opposes things like testing. An "outcome" might be "reading a book". If you complete the book, you get credit for it. Nobody bothers checking of you actually understood its contents, that wasn't the "outcome".
No sensible person could oppose teaching higher order thinking skills (un-capitalised) to students. But sensible people could certainly oppose the avoidance of teaching basic skills.
= = = = =
The "Controversial Theories" paragraph is likely to generate a lot of anxiety, but I don't see a problem. Undoubtedly this will include subjects like creationism, but so what? We teach students about Thomson's and Bohr's models of the atom, even though we know both are wrong. They are part of the journey we took to our current knowledge and help us understand later, more correct theories. We need to teach Darwin, but to be honest about its strengths and weaknesses. We also need to teach Lamark and to explain why it is wrong. In that context, it is silly to pretend that creationism doesn't exist. There are many people who believe it. Of course, in teaching it we need to teach its problems. The fossil evidence, the age of the earth and other things that contradict it.
Good science can stand against lesser theories and students need to understand what is wrong in order to really understand what is right.
There will inevitably be students in a science class who do not believe in Darwinism. That's OK. Tell them "This exam is on Darwin. You can believe what you like, but of you want to pass this test, you had better tell us what Darwin says".
= = = = =
I'm not a Republican and I'll criticise them on many policies. However in this case, the criticism is unwarranted. Except, perhaps, that they should have been less ambiguous, allowing people to misunderstand them.
Michael J
As a parent, think about that. Others want to practice behavior modification on your children without your consent. Wouldn't you support those who would prevent teachers and administrators from doing that?
I guarantee you that "critical thinking skills" will NOT be applied to subjects dear to liberals. Conversely, if activist religious conservatives permeated the educational system, such skills wouldn't be applied to their sacred cows either.
You can have a great teacher and still have a majority of the kids fail if they all have shit heads for parents that refuse to work with them. That's another big issue we have in this country. A lot of parents have the belief that it's 100% the schools responsibility to teach the kids and they shouldn't have to do anything. This especially true in low income areas. The truth is a good portion of eduction happens at home and without that the kids education is handicapped.
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
Please. Can you even come up with a scenario that would mirror this?
I've heard nothing nearly as insane come out of any other party, let alone the democrats. The GOP, nationwide, currently has monopolies not just on crazy, but stupid as well.
You misunderstand. The GOP head is currently neo-con controlled. There is a 3-way battle going on within the party. Basically, you have the reagan/W neo-cons who are only interested in their party (hate to use it, but 1930's Germany should sound familiar). They constantly use patriotism to appeal to Americans to follow them. Likewise, they will SAY the right thing, such as promising to balance the budget.. Yet, if you look, reagan inherited a minor deficit/debt and then ran it up massively. W inherited a balanced budget and then destroyed it (and our economy). Under both, they built up the military and sent trillions to their friends. For example, re-doing battleships was worthless. B1 was a disaster. Likewise, DARPA is a useful defense R&D. Basically, it does loads of advanced R&D. Under W, the money was shifted from Cheap University R&D, into expensive Businesses. It is extremely wasteful. At any rate, the neo-cons are about power and making sure that they remain in power.
The religious right wingers here have a goal of making us into a theocracy. Like the neo-cons, they wrap themselves in the flag, but also the cross. They scream that they are opposed to abortions, but then work hard to deny access to Birth Control. Likewise, if a single girl has a child, then the mother AND the child are punished. These ppl are idealists simply to AQ. You do what they want, or some of them WILL kill you. Pat Roberts comes to mind. Likewise groups like Focus on the Family. Oddly, these kinds of ppl love to scream that God is punishing Gays, etc. and therefore caused Katrina. So, now with Focus on the Family area being massively burned, I am waiting patiently to hear what Robert and FotF will now claim? Perhaps that God hates liars?
Now, we have the tea party. It is NOT what it looks like. Many will claim that it is Libertarian (which is what I am still registered as, but increasingly, I am 'l' and not as much 'L'), but it really is not. The teaparty has multiple leaders. It was created by the Koch brothers and Rove (yes, the great evil one has his hands all over this one). The problem is, that many of the younger congress is supported and related to it. For example, Cantor is a major tea* member. When Obama and Boehner were close to a deficit deal, cantor came in and killed it. Why? Because it allowed tax cuts to expire, which Cantor is sworn to prevent (google for grover norquist).
Now, have you noticed the older GOPers leaving office and saying that they can not solve things? That is NOT about the dems. They have and could easily work with dems. They were typically about working on AMERICA's needs. Their problem is that their party REFUSES to work with dems, libertarians, etc. All 3 of these groups have sworn that they will NOT COMPROMISE. Gov. is all about compromise. Without it, well, we have a situation in America.
Goldwater had many things to say about groups like this
But probably the best one, would be:
Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.
At this time, the GOP is a party of some of the worse of America, that is hard at work trying to do the same to America.
Sadly, the dems are loaded with idiots at the top.
We desperately need a 3rd party that is composed of social moderates to liberals, but with STRONG fiscal conservative and a strong sense of who are nation is.
IOW, your assessment of the GOP is pretty much accurate.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Uh, no. The Slashdot crowd has its flaws, but cheering on opposition to critical thinking itself isn't one of them.
"The DNC educational platform is teaching that 2+2==3 is "not wrong" and the kid should be given praise because he tried hard. B for effort."
Citation needed.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
"The truth is, that many of the pre-reagan GOPers are disgusted by where their party is today."
Not enough to keep them from enjoying the rise of the real GOP Evangelical White Trash (rich trash are still trash) to power.
Inaction is consent is endorsement. Fuck off.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
That's not a fracture, that's a love match between Klansmen and Koch Brothers.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I can agree somewhat in that they didn't categorically object to teaching of critical thinking, though their objection to challenging of fixed beliefs comes quite close. So they could have been narrower in their objection. And they could have stated support for teaching of "real" critical thinking if it was meant as a narrow objection.
They prretend that HOTS is a relabelling of OBE and oppose it because of that. But they being politician, I would not be surprised they are against HOTS because it imply thinking, but rather than openly admit it, they cast it as an OBE reform. We have an old saying around here "If you want to get ride of a dog, pretend he has the rabbies then you shoot it".
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I can't imagine a minister managing to cram all of the subject in with the vows, but I support them trying to make it happen anyway...
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Yeah, yeah the usual crap. You libs still haven't come-up with a better way to see if the Teachers are actually teaching the kids, or if they are (like one of my former teachers) screwing around in class teaching karate lessons. We didn't learn crap in that class, and that would have been clear if we'd been forced to take a test, thus revealing the teacher should be fired.
...or the Principal should have stuck their head around the door occasionally and noticed that the teacher was goofing off in lessons. No, you're right, its better to completely distort kids education and waste hours of valuable school time cramming for multi-choice tests with no relationship to real-world skills... just for the sake of catching the occasional karate-mad teacher.
Anyway, the problem is not having periodic tests as such, its the quality of the tests (which only reward recalling little fragments of knowledge and techniques) and the disproportionate importance based on them.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Not at all. Have you not noticed the republicans who have retired over the last couple of elections and what they are saying?
These men and women were hard at work to change their party for the better and have realized that reagan brought in vipers.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The testing that we do in Colorado is 3-10, of which it is reading, writing, math (and science for 5, 8, and 10).
Now, what exactly in the tests are distorting to children?
You will note that there is nothing in there on the soft items: social studies; PE; art; Drivers Ed; etc.
So, I would love to hear how you think that math can be distorted in primary school? Keep in mind that it is SIMPLE math. It does not even hit algebra in 10th.
Likewise, WRT reading, what can be distorted? Comprehension? Speed?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Summary is FUD, selectively quoting a huffington article that links to a misleading reddit headline.
Actual statement ( http://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/2012Platform_Final.pdf ):
"Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."
The full statement clearly indiciates they oppose education programs meant to change opinions/behaviours.
Stop judging based on comments out of context.
According to my Mom who was on the platform committee, this plank was added at the last minute without a lot of debate by one person with an agenda. Also, at one point instead of saying "we are opposed to human cloning" it said "we are opposed to humans"... I honestly wish that one made it as it would have made for better lulz...
I am d3matt
>>...because they just don't make bigots like they used to.
>Not for lack of trying...
That's the purpose of this particular clause. Their getting annoyed by all those school teachings that make it harder to raise your kids to be as blinkered in their bigotry as you are.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Neither of those scenarios would prove either of the things you propose.
Nearly all the kids pass would prove the teacher cheated.
Nearly all the kids fail would prove the test was above appropriate standards OR that the teacher sucked- but not determine which.
See real classrooms follow what statisticians call a "normal" distribution. If the teacher is good and the test is on standard you will always see the exact same end result (all other things being equal):
25% of students fail.
25% of students get over 75%
The other 50% pass with average marks.
Any other distribution means something is wrong. More than 50% average and exceptional students ? Test was too easy or the teacher cheated.
Less than that: test was too hard or the teacher incompetent.
Your version of the result cannot actually exist, but even if you adapt them to the variations from normal that I just cited then they still don't prove anything about the teacher - not until you can somehow independently prove that the level of the test was correct for the material.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
The way to teach critical thinking is to teach the liberal arts.
When kids learn to analyze literature, and philosophy, and to debate, they learn all of these skills.
The "critical thinking" courses have become propaganda.
Sadly, so have most liberal arts courses. You learn more about race, gender and homosexuality than the book you're studying.
Have we gone full Soviet in the USA?
Futurist Traditionalism
Would that be the same 50 million people that these CEO's previously refused to give coverage to on the grounds of pre-existing conditions ?
The old joke goes: "A bank is an institution that will loan you money provided you can prove you don't need to borrow it."
Apparently in America a health-insurance company is an institution that will cover the cost of healthcare provided you can prove you don't need any healthcare.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
>>>A lot of parents have the belief that it's 100% the schools responsibility to teach the kids
Um. Yeah. So? I'm paying my school over $200,000 in direct school taxes over my lifetime. So yeah I expect them to TEACH my kids, just as I expect Comcast to give me working television and internet, or my college to give me an education. The customer has every right to demand results from the money being handed over.
Well whatever. ;-) LOL
Just keep repeating those DNC.NBC & union talking points about how "evil" it is to test kids and find-out if they learned anything. Heck why have grades at all? When 12 years is up, just hand them a diploma.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
There not going to teach critical thinking? That doesn't make sense. Why not teach that the earth is flat or at the centre of the universe, sounds right up the alley.
Its like how they changed...shell shock into post traumatic stress disorder
I've been out of the Army a long time, but AIUI, PTSD was never a replacement term for shell shock. Shell shock describes temporary disorientation caused by close explosions of bombs, mortars, grenades, etc. PTSD represents long-term psychological effects rooted in the violence of battle, and is not at all limited to explosions as a cause. The use of "shell shock" in the civilian vernacular to describe PTSD should not be construed to mean "they changed" the term.
Hmmm, captcha is "dynamite".
- T
will likely be born in Texas.
Table-ized A.I.
Does that mean they'll skip the Treaty of Tripoli in history class, pretend it never existed?
Table-ized A.I.
What's wrong with the "challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced" part? I thought that was one of, if not the most central tenet of the scientific method, i.e. ideas are to be regarded as theories which are to be continually challenged and improved by incorporating new data. I understand that the intent is to deny evolution and consideration of the effects of burning fossil fuels on the planet's climate, but the way it is stated seems harmless enough.
Social Credit would solve everything...
I have three problems with that plank and two with the bit you quoted.
(1) Before your quote, they singled out two particular theories out of all scientific theories, generalizing their statements to "theories such as" those two. There's no obvious pattern besides "theories that Christian fundamentalists don't like", considering the mound of evidence in favor of evolution.
(2) "challengeable scientific theories" is potentially dangerous if the challenges are given undue weight. For instance, you can present a huge amount of evidence against Newton's laws--"Newton's laws say this, but let's look at experiments A through Z that all contradict them." That's perfectly true, but Newton's laws are so "close" to true that in public school their faults should barely be mentioned.
(3) Everything is challengeable to some extent. What challenges should be presented? Some crackpot creationist's that no mainstream scientists agree with?
A strict, reasonable reading of that plank or the part you quoted is fine, but that's certainly not intended.
The GOP platform clearly says they oppose "critical thinking skills", implying that's a relabeling of OBE. And the reasons are that it's not good to challenge parental authority and fixed beliefs. You really want to defend that? If you want to defend the Texas GOP, you can still claim is was a mistake and they don't believe that.
most 1960s psychologists don't like me for it, nor does any other kind of 1960 remnant, this thing where it says the only, but the one and only ever, reason when you can 'hit' a kid, is when it hits you. I feel like learning that you can get hurt when hitting people is part of learning. However, in any other case, any kind of physical punishment is strictly wrong and forbidden since it shows the wrong pattern. And i'm talking about parents. If any teacher ever were to hit one of my kids. I'd personally go hit him back, i'm sure of that. Teachers teach their subjects, it's not their place to educate beyond that, definitely not their place to kick. If parents don't have time to educate their kids, they shouldn't have them. If they lack the skills, they shouldn't have them. If they lack the means, they shouldn't have them. You need a drivers license to prove you can drive a car without killing but any idiot can accidentaly and prematurely ejaculate at the wrong time in the wrong place and get as many kids as he wants. Bad parenting probably kills more than traffic in the long run. (i know, always the car analogies, they're so easy to make)
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?