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Employers Worried About Critical Thinking Skills
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?
To way too many people "critical thinking" seems to just mean criticizing the establishment just because it's the establishment.
or "You're wrong because your way doesn't use the new shiny I use but some old thing ..."
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Perhaps it's time to downvalue memory and detail retention?
With the internet always available, knowing what to do seems to be the key to success, while figuring out how to do it can be achieved with a quick search (I personally start with wikipedia). What cannot be found on wikipedia is how to model a problem such that it can be deconstructed into smaller pieces. That's where a broad and comprehensive education comes in. I'm all for requiring less memory intensive tasks, and more 'from-start-to-finish' problem solving tasks that require active creativity and input.
As for critical thinking, hell yes. The world as a whole can only benefit from critical thinking and questioning beliefs. Stop with the 'listen and believe', start with the 'independently verify'. This would help in matters ranging from 'whom can I trust with my life savings?' to 'what political candidate isn't a twisted sadist lying bastard hellbent on screwing the whole country?'.
And to sweeten the bargain, once the citizenry starts practising this type of behaviour, politicians and corporations will have to follow suit if they wish to retain their voters/consumers.
The problem with critical thinking is that it makes people... critical.
It's nonsensical to do an awful lot of things that the average business will do. Critical thinking questions that. Rightly so, but that's not compatible with the way many do business.
And I dispute that you can "teach" critical thinking. You can expose students to it, and ask them to practice it, but teaching it is another matter.
I work in schools, including private schools. The difference is clear - private schools take no shit and make the kids work at learning - by rote, critical thinking, free-form learning and even attaching themselves to the IT guy outside of lessons to "help out" if they are keen geeks. They allow this, and encourage this, and aren't constrained by what's on some table of what must be learned.
They also know that they are there for the children, not solely to get "Five A-C's" so that the league tables look good to next year's parents.
Ok... Now please explain what that huge difference you percieve is, the one that warrants the use of the words "highly doctored". Because to me this looks like just a longer version of the same thing. "Don't teach them to think, teach them to accept whatever the parents and the church want them to". Quite hard for me to find any redeeming aspect of that line. It's just a combination of catering to not-so-bright parents afraid of losing authority because of their own stupidity and to everyone in power, political, religious or any other, as dumber people are easier to control.