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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."
Interesting rant.
So, one would rather have a mindless zombie with the old style "dont question authority and stay on that production line" from the 50s.
Pray tell.. where did all the thinkers come from then?
You know why China's kids want to be more innovative and inventive like American kids? It is because they teach like you are preaching.
You want innovation, critical thinking, you want drones to put tube in hole, you teach as proposed by Texas.
"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. "
an intolerant monoculture as the tenured elite in their ivory towers
Achievement unlocked: buzzword combo!
Has anyone ever actually seen a tower made of ivory? Where did that come from? The "tenured elite" at my small school with only 50,000 students worked in some pretty shitty offices. It would have been pretty sweet to go to class inside an ivory tower instead of the crappy linoleum-tiled brick cages we had the privilege of occupying. As long as they also had ivory elevators.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
LIBERALS! History's greatest monsters. Hitler was a liberal. Satan, too, is a liberal. As we all know since Hussein Obama was elected, Liberals (or "progressives" as they like to be called) sacrifice babies and drink their blood during the weekly satanic rituals they hold in the new, official, Sovereign Kenyan room of the white house. And that, folks, is why critical thinking skills need to be eliminated. Anything less, and you will let the Kenyan baby eating liberal progressives rule over you forever more. LIBERALS!
“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...
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.
Good question. ....... From the 19th century it has been used to designate a world or atmosphere where intellectuals engage in pursuits that are disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life. As such, it usually carries pejorative connotations of a wilful disconnect from the everyday world; esoteric, over-specialized, or even useless research" - wikipedia
"In Judeo/Christian tradition, the term Ivory Tower is a symbol for noble purity. It originates with the Song of Solomon (7,4) ("Your neck is like an ivory tower")
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
It's that ability to look beyond dogma, hyperbole, straw-man arguments, etc. and make your own decisions.
And, you know, read a paragraph.
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.
You lose.
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'm a liberal and i agree with your point. it's just impossible to codify "critical thinking," even before you add the realities of education: overworked, underpaid and sub-meritorious teachers (btw, i think these problems are endemic to our society; privatization/voucherification will mostly just let parents choose among desired flavors of substandard nutjobbery) who will inevitably use a mix of personal biases and bureaucratic checklists to evaluate "criticalness."
unfortunately, the gop rejects science pretty much as an axiom (science != engineering, though they're both great), and this isn't new, see e.g. hayek's why i am not a conservative. i think that doing a good job of teaching science is the almost the only way to get to real critical thinking. it's not easy, and i don't think the Ds could manage it either, but from what i can see the gop just throws it out immediately.
i can't help thinking that we're just fucked.
and i recommend that everyone read the linked gop pamphlet. it's hilarious in its populist pandering; lines like ``We strongly oppose the listing of the dune sage brush lizard either as a threatened or an endangered species." are almost onion-like. yes, i'm sure that the dems' pamphlets are also full of silliness, but this is the exhibit of the day.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Do not fool yourself: through the tenuring process your values will change and you will feel you are special (and by special I mean 'better' than the rest of 'normal' people).
Frankly, that sounds a lot like Wall Street, and the "financial elite". I'm trying to figure out how being valued for your knowledge and wisdom became a bad thing in this country.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
"sanctity of life crom fertilization to grave"
Actually, it's only from the moment of conception to the moment of birth. After that, tough shit if you starve, die from a treatable disease, get shot by someone from a higher social class, die in a war for the benefit of the rich and powerful, or get executed for a crime you didn't commit.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Sadly, what you just said has nothing to do with the actual platform document. They say quite explicitly that they oppose the teaching of "critical thinking skills". That's not the name of some taxpayer funded propaganda campaign, nor is it some modern "left-wing pseudo-intellectual" idea. That's a standard, widely used term that has been around for many many decades, and simply refers to the idea that you shouldn't accept whatever someone tells you without considering it carefully. The fact that they consider it "a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education" shows just how wacky they are. There is nothing novel or experimental about it. Teaching children to think critically and question beliefs is exactly what good teachers have been doing for centuries, and has long been considered to be one of the essential goals of education.
And that is exactly what they don't want people doing, as they state very clearly. They say these curricula "have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs", and they consider that a very bad thing. They want students to believe whatever they're told to believe, and never question it. In short, they support "a policy of teaching children to have a pavlovian "yessum massa!" response" to whatever the authority figures in their lives tell them, and how you can possibly twist that around in your mind and claim the complete opposite is a mystery to me.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
And this is why the left in the US is completely being clobbered by the right. Too often insults, redefinitions and logical fallacies by the conservatives are met by "well, if I can figure out what they're really saying, we can maybe come to an agreement" by what amounts to the left. In other words, they're being nice in response to what is basically bullying.
Here's the problem: anyone who argues like the initial poster is not looking for a rational discourse, for an enlightening discussion, or even for a solution to a problem. They are merely looking to get enough people onto their side.
Definitely read up on the issue. But don't mistake the original post for an opening in a an honest discussion. It isn't.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
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.
The
Alarmingly, they openly state that they oppose schools teaching critical thinking, on the grounds that it may challenge 'student's fixed beliefs'
The PDF you quoted (ellipses and emphasis mine) :
We oppose the teaching of...programs...which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs
The Texas GOP does not oppose "critical thinking skills" that may challenge religious beliefs, they oppose things named "critical thinking skills" but are really just a packaged curriculum designed specifically to challenge religious beliefs. Basically all they're saying in this quote is they don't want schools teaching that there is no Jesus. They do not oppose critical thinking skills, just things called critical thinking skills so their opponents can create headlines just such as this.
This article is an alarmist red herring. Spun back around, it would be like the Texas GOP creating a program called "Fluffy Cuddly Bunnies" that uses Outcome Based Education, and tests students to make sure they've achieved the outcome of professing their faith in Jesus. Then you came along and say, "I oppose this program" they can write articles with the summary "Myrdos2 wants to impose atheism on all students, hates fluffy cuddly bunnies and is so ignorant that he opposes rigorous testing to make sure our kids are learning!"
Disclaimer: I am an agnostic atheist and not a Republican. But I don't like misleading articles that use linguistic games to make people look like they said things they didn't.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
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.)
Funny that, you didn't highlight the other part of it which is just as much relevant if not more.
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.
They are explicitly saying that they oppose this HOTS/OBE/whatever because, I quote, it "have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority." I don't care what OBE is. It may well be that it can and should be challenged on common sense grounds. But these dicks are saying that they're challenging it because it doesn't let them indoctrinate their kids.
OBE isn't a teaching technique, its a system for evaluating educational systems and students within them (obviously, how you assess effectiveness will, in an ideal world, inform what approaches you take down the line, but OBE is not in itself a teaching technique.)
Critical thinking skills also aren't a teaching technique, they are a subject matter that is taught. They can be taught within a system that uses traditional input-based methods of system evaluation and traditional relative-performance based evaluations students, or within a system that uses objective outcomes-based measures for both systems and students, and by any of a variety of teaching techniques independently of the system of evaluation.
The only relation between the two is that OBE is an application of critical thinking skills to education, rather than equivalent to teaching critical thinking skills.
(OBE, incidentally, isn't particularly a liberal thing; its more of a "run education like an efficient business" thing. Ideologues on the left and right both often oppose it, because it threatens to reveal that practices driven by ideology that are sold as effective actually, objectively, are ineffective.)
You may be interested to know about this paper, remarkable for its perception of the conservative mentality. Its a tad frightening. The author basically posits that conservative mindset is actually based in a psychology that drives society via politics, religion, etc.
C|N>K
They want students to believe whatever they're told to believe, and never question it.
I doubt it. I imagine they very much want Muslim students to question their beliefs. What you probably mean is that they want students to believe whatever Christian and conservative doctrine they're told and never question it.
I'm guessing he was taught who George Washington was and how to find the US, but little about applying critical thinking to a discussion. And he clearly prefers it that way.
Maybe he's right about "higher order thinking skills" being broadly applied as a label for general (and not well tested) education reforms; I wouldn't know. But encouraging children to challenge their fixed beliefs is crucial in my books, even if it potentially undermines parental authority (speaking as a parent myself). Any party that explicitly discourages that should be kept well away from positions of authority.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
not a troll; the poster speaks the raw truth. hard to swallow if you are on the other side, but it really is true.
current republicans are the poster children of doublespeak.
clinging to 2000 year old mythology does not help their case, either. its part of the problem, in fact.
modern man needs to pull himself out of this religious stupor. the more you try to keep this myth and 'us vs them' mentality going, the more you set us all, collectively, back.
the word 'progress' is in progressive. note that progressive movement is 100% opposite of the current republican and so-called conservative movements. some of us want to move forward while quite a lot of americans are hell-bent (heh) on keeping us back in the middle ages.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I just said that terms like "Higher order thinking skills" are a bunch of linguistic BULLSHIT attached to what is effectively a policy of teaching children to have a pavlovian "yessum massa!" response to politically correct buzzwords.
If you had bothered to consult any of the literature pertaining to the concepts you are so quick to condemn, you'd know that your entire take on higher-order thinking skills is incorrect.
To elaborate, in the past, psychologists and educational specialists have found it meaningful to partition thought into two groups, referred to as higher and lower, both of which have been rather well characterized. For instance, N. R. F. Maier ("An aspect of human reasoning", British Journal of Psychology, vol. 24, pp. 144-155, 1933; "Reasoning in rats and human beings", The Psychological Review, vol. 44, pp. 365-378, 1937), who used the terms learned behavior and reproductive learning in lieu of lower-order thinking, found that learned behavior came from contiguous experiences with previous repetitions of the relationships involved in the learned behavior pattern, e.g., memorization of multiplication tables via repeated practice. In contrast, behavior integrations that are made up of two or more isolated experiences are qualitatively different, as they arise without previous repetition, and hence constitute "reasoning" or higher-order thinking. To phrase this in a slightly different manner, "reasoning", is used to solve problems that arise when behavior is blocked because a desired end is not immediately attainable. A good example of "reasoning", that is in line with this description, is when a student that knows how to compute the area of simple geometric shapes, e.g., triangles and squares, and can see how to apply that knowledge, without guidance, to solve for the area of general polygons; in that scenario, the student has happened upon a combination of events that may have never been previously associated.
As a second instance, F. M. Newman ("Higher order thinking in teaching social studies: A rationale for the assessment of classroom thoughtfulness", Journal of Curriculum Studies, vol. 22, 41-56, 1990) defined higher- and lower-order thinking, in virtually the same manner as Maier, based upon observations in classrooms and interviews with teachers and department chairs. That is, lower-order thinking demands only routine or mechanical application of previously acquired information, e.g., inserting numbers into established formulas or regurgitating lists of facts. On the other hand, higher-order thinking "challenges the student to interpret, analyze, or manipulate information". Furthermore, he pointed out that since individuals differ in the kinds of problems they find challenging, higher-order thinking is relative: what one person finds challenging another may find elementary; as such, to determine the extent to which the individual is involved in higher-order thinking, one would presumably need to know something about that individual's background.
Beyond the above two examples, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of articles in education and psychology journals that touch on higher-order thinking and critical thinking (which are sometimes used interchangeably). In all of the ones that I have skimmed over, the overwhelming consensus is that higher-order thinking skills are critical, logical, reflective, metacognitive, or creative processes activated when one encounters unfamiliar problems, uncertainties, questions or dilemmas, and certainly are not, as you erroneously stated, "linguistic bullshit" designed to indoctrinate students.
Oh, and before you fly off the handle and claim that I'm some brainwashed, leftist moron, let me state that all of the higher-order thinking skills I learned when I was in primary school and at university prepared me rather well for publishing papers in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Journal of the American Statistical Society, Biometrics, Biometrika, and Annals of Statistics, i.e., the top statistics journals.
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.
The really fascinating issue in this submission to me is the part about schools doing things which challenge "'student's fixed beliefs' and undermine 'parental authority'"
Do we have to conceed that parents should have some control over the things their children are taught in public education?
Do we have to conceed that students should be allowed to have fixed beliefs which should go unchallenged by educators?
There is so much essence of civilization in these questions. On one hand you want to have some continuity in belief systems because they are an anchor for civilizations. If you completely throw them out and start over every generation it will be chaos. The Texas Republicans are advocating this continuity and its not totally unreasonable.
On the other hand, what happens when parents and students have belief systems that have gone totally rigid to the point of being dead or worst case gone, completely off the rails. Using education to maintain bad belief systems just because they are the prevailing belief system seems like a truly horrible idea.
I personally wrankle at the concept that this party platform seems to advocate locking children in to the belief system of their parents until they are 18. You ever wonder why kids tend to veer hard left when the hit college. Its because they are compensating for being locked in to the usually conservative belief systems of their aging parents, along with churches they were compelled to attend, and schools many of which are idealogically suffocating due to the often conservative tendencies of state and local school boards.
Seems to me there is a chance the idealogy being promoted in Texas might produce two divirgent sets of children.
A) Reactionary automatons who are going to go through life locked in to the ideaology they were indoctrinated in to as children and fear or hate everyone not adhering to it
B) Radicals who are going to reject everything the system attempted to indoctrinate in to them and probably try to blow up that system every chance they get.
The two group will eventually land on /. and proceed to troll the crap out of each other, like tonight.
@de_machina
Of course. If one is able to embrace the nonsense of religion, any other lie is second nature.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."