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Employers Worried About Critical Thinking Skills

Posted by Soulskill on from the employees-worried-about-it-too dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes: Every company needs employees who can analyze information effectively, discarding what's unnecessary and digging down into what's actually useful. But employers are getting a little bit worried that U.S. schools aren't teaching students the necessary critical-thinking skills to actually succeed once they hit the open marketplace. The Wall Street Journal talked with several companies about how they judge critical-thinking skills, a few of which ask candidates to submit to written tests to judge their problem-solving abilities. But that sidesteps the larger question: do schools need to shift their focus onto different teaching methods (i.e., downplaying the need for students to memorize lots of information), or is our educational pipeline just fine, thank you very much?

23 of 553 comments (clear)

  1. What is critical thinking? by magarity · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To way too many people "critical thinking" seems to just mean criticizing the establishment just because it's the establishment.

    1. Re:What is critical thinking? by Lilith's+Heart-shape · · Score: 5, Insightful

      IMO, the fact that the establishment is the establishment should be reason enough to subject them to constant questioning and criticism. Nobody in authority should be able to do so much as fart on the job being expected to justify their actions -- in front of a jury if necessary.

      --

      I write sci-fi for metalheads

    2. Re:What is critical thinking? by mtrachtenberg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Way too many people don't realize that our current economic and political system would not survive if critical thinking skills became commonplace.

      We are destroying our own planet in the name of making 0.01% wealthy, and most of us, most of the time, are perfectly content to participate in the process in any way that pays decently and offers "interesting" work.

    3. Re:What is critical thinking? by jedidiah · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The idea that the Wall Street Journal and the corporations they represent are worried about "critical thinking skills" is just laughable. Those kinds of corporations actively discourage independent thinking. They want everyone to be a trained monkey so that they can devalue your labor and replace you easily.

      The LAST thing they want are people with hard to replace cognitive skills or tribal knowledge.

      They want COGS.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    4. Re:What is critical thinking? by UnderCoverPenguin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      have the purpose of challenging the studentÃ(TM)s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority

      I am reasonably sure none of my teachers purposefully challenged my "fixed beliefs" or undermined my parents' authority. Their purpose was to help me to enhance my ability to think for myself and investigate the world around me.

      I did my own challenging and undermining.

      --
      Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
    5. Re:What is critical thinking? by nine-times · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's a good question, but I don't share your dismissal that it's just, "criticizing the establishment just because it's the establishment."

      As someone with experience hiring/managing/firing people, I think there is something to the criticism that our schools don't prepare people for the need of critical thinking in the "real world", and it's a criticism that I've made many times. As I see it, it's very common to see workers in the position of having been given instructions on how to deal with a problem, and then encountering a situation where those instructions don't apply. How does the worker respond?

      In my experience, very often the worker will just follow the instructions anyway, even if they notice that they're doing something that makes no sense and will obviously cause problems. A fair amount of the time-- again, at least in my experience-- workers will follow the instructions up until a point, figure out that they can't proceed, and then do some other things that also don't make sense, and then pretend that they've finished the job. Every once in a while, if someone is smart, they'll stop and ask for further guidance, but that's rare because nobody likes to admit that they don't know the answer. Even more rarely, someone will actually come up with a comprehensive solution that actually solves the problem.

      And really, all that is just one symptom. Another symptom is the extent to which people will come to work, do exactly what they've been asked to do, and nothing more. Often, there's no curiosity about the role that they're playing within the company, about how their role could be expanded or refined, or somehow changed. Even the better employees are generally those who just follow instructions, and those people rarely seem to grasp why they were provided those specific instructions, let alone figure out a better set of instructions for themselves. And if they had come up with a better solution, they rarely suggest it to their boss.

      So what is "critical thinking" in this context? I think it involves "problem solving", which might be no less vague. It involves a sort of curiosity, to want to know what's actually going on, and why those things are going on. I'm not sure what else...

      But school often doesn't prepare us for that. We're trained to sit down, shut up, do exactly what we're told and no more. Don't ask questions. Don't imagine that you might be able to come up with a better solution. Just do what you're told, and don't think too much about it.

    6. Re:What is critical thinking? by Tyler+Durden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sure. But the problem is that far too many people who question established institutions or doctrines refuse to listen when they get answers.

      --
      Happy people make bad consumers.
    7. Re:What is critical thinking? by Gavrielkay · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think they mean exactly what the grandparent thinks they mean and they just worded it to fool people who aren't thinking critically.

  2. Too Late by sexconker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The people doing the hiring don't have the critical thinking skills necessary to identify people worth hiring.
    If you're a retard, just apply everywhere you can and be polite and enthusiastic - you'll get an offer.
    If you're not a retard, apply everywhere that may interest you and treat the interview in reverse - answer their questions but make sure you ask your own to assess if you want to work there or not.

  3. Want Critical Thinking? Fix the Public Schools by Lilith's+Heart-shape · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The government-run schools still run on a nineteenth century industrial paradigm designed to take children and churn out standardized, obedient, punctual factory workers. Fix that first if you care about kids getting critical thinking skills.

    --

    I write sci-fi for metalheads

    1. Re:Want Critical Thinking? Fix the Public Schools by tomhath · · Score: 4, Insightful

      schools still run on a nineteenth century industrial paradigm

      It's worse than that. It's okay for a school to spend extra time and money on slow students, but getting extra resources for top performers is discrimination.

    2. Re:Want Critical Thinking? Fix the Public Schools by Lilith's+Heart-shape · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Having done time in a "gifted and talented" program in elementary school, I think the best thing the schools can do for top performers is give 'em a library card. Turn 'em loose once they know how to read and work with a card catalog and a search engine. Smart kids don't need to socialize with kids their own age. They need to socialize with the adults they'll eventually become.

      --

      I write sci-fi for metalheads

    3. Re:Want Critical Thinking? Fix the Public Schools by PvtVoid · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Compulsory public education is a mass violation of individual rights (those of the students compelled to attend).

      It's finally happened: whackjob libertarians have come full circle and are nicely in alignment with the Taliban.

      Education is a civil right, which is why girls in fundamentalist Muslim societies are risking their lives to access it. Compulsory education doesn't violate children's civil rights, it ensures those rights, even if it is parents who want to deprive their own children of the right to an education. You have a right to be an ignorant asshole if you like. You do not have the right to force your own ignorance onto your children.

    4. Re:Want Critical Thinking? Fix the Public Schools by thrich81 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Smart kids do need to socialize with kids their own age for a lot of reasons. But two groups of other kids their age they especially need to socialize with are other smart kids (to learn early on that they aren't the only or the smartest kid around) and other kids with talents which the smart kid doesn't have (to learn that there are other valuable talents besides being "smart"). Perhaps the best thing about "gifted programs" is it gets the smart kids together to hopefully push and reinforce each other. However a real shortcoming there is getting the smart kids to appreciate other types of talents in others.

    5. Re:Want Critical Thinking? Fix the Public Schools by blue9steel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Education is a civil right

      Education is a public good, that isn't the same thing as a civil right.

  4. Be careful what you wish for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    An increase in critical thinking skills leads to:

    Contract renegotiations in which the employer is expected to pay more.
    High employee turnover, since the second you stop treating them like a valued employee they will begin looking for another job elsewhere.
    Resistance to overtime and an insistence on work/life balance.
    General insubordination when the employee realizes he's smarter than his boss.

  5. Exactly who wants critical thinking skills? by jovetoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What's the point of critical thinking if what your boss really wants to hear is whatever answer he thinks is going to benefit him (personally) best?

  6. teachers teaching teachers by Twillerror · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My problem with school is it always felt like teaching too abstractly. A certain level is good and I do want people to learn to innovative, but I do not think there is enough application.

    Don't teach calculus, teach engineering. I feel like i spent months doing super complex math that I wouldn't even use as a rocket scientist. I would have loved to predict planetary motion than solving random math problems for hours and hours only to never use those skills.

    The real world is generally open book. If I forget how to solve an equation I look up a solution on the internet or even my old math text books. I think if kids learn how to solve problems vs solving problems we'd be in a better place. I'd rather just give kids a problem and help them solve it vs give them a predefined example and make them solve it correctly the first time or get an F.

  7. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  8. Re:Here's one reason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    People who can think don't vote libertarian unless they're sociopaths. It's a philosophy for selfish teenagers.

  9. And now the opposite view. by khasim · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Way too many people don't realize that our current economic and political system would not survive if critical thinking skills became commonplace.

    Possibly. Although the same can be said of every other economic and political system as well. Which is a bit of a problem. People are messy. And each person has his/her own priorities and beliefs and weirdness.

    We are destroying our own planet in the name of making 0.01% wealthy, and most of us, most of the time, are perfectly content to participate in the process in any way that pays decently and offers "interesting" work.

    Just because someone exercises critical thinking does not mean that that person will come to the same conclusions that you have. They probably aren't starting with the same objectives as you.

    Which is why companies DO NOT WANT real critical thinking skills.

    They want people who think like they do and who come to the same conclusions that they do based upon the same information that they have.

  10. Re:Right... by meta-monkey · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You're just a little ray of sunshine aren't you?

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  11. Employees who can "just figure it out" by QuasiEvil · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not a manager-manager, but I am a technical manager and - at the end of the day - basically the guy who gets the hiring decision whenever I need more people.

    I don't care about what you know beyond the basics, and I also don't care where (or if) you went to college or that your degree is even slightly related to what we're doing. The things I look for are that you have some talent with system design, architecture and programming, a passion for technology (aka, it's not just a 9-5 job thing, but you eat, live, and breathe it), and the capability to go learn and figure things out on your own. Along with the third thing, a general, broad set of knowledge is good, but as long as you can use Google or books or experiments to figure things out, I'm okay. I'd much rather you be able to learn and adapt.

    You'd be amazed how many people fail at least #3. I don't want to hand-hold you or have to spoon feed you answers. Don't know? Go look it up. Go try something. Just don't come over and ask for help right away. If you've gotten stuck somewhere, I'll help, but you damn well better have beaten your head against the wall for a few hours/days/weeks (depending on problem complexity) before asking.