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?

Comments

Re:Different issue

[Anonymous Coward]

And what conservatives consider to be "critical thinking" is actually thinly veiled (for those of us intelligent enough to assess it) propaganda to keep the human chattel under the righteous boot of right wing authority.

Re:What is critical thinking?

[sumdumass]

We shouldn't challenge student's fixed beliefs? Or undermine parental authority? Those sound like usual and desired outcomes of critical thinking skills.

Yes, because the last thing we want is the child to possibly believe there is or may be a god, or that sharing is good, stealing is bad, murder is bad and you will be locked up for life unless you live in a state that will kill you too, that you should look both ways before crossing a street, cussing and swearing around people you do not know is impolite and still rude with ones you do know, or anything else parents instill as fixed beliefs with their authority. Well, that unless the child comes to those conclusions on their own through trial and error or whatever process he/she may choose to develop an understanding of them.

Yes, that sounds like a great thing.

And I'll admit that "focus on behavior modification" sounds like a code phrase. You seem to like this statement; could you translate it into language that I can understand?

Politifact has a writeup on it that explains it. Some of the links are dead though but it drops the meat right in the analysis.

From this write up

Opponents said the outcome-based approach was antithetical to critical thinking. They claimed it "dumbed down" curricula and influenced students to adopt liberal attitudes because the "outcome" of their studies was predetermined by academia.

In case you did not know, most conservatives think academia is fraught with liberals pushing their agenda which is why you can get Mumia Abu-Jamal speaking at a commencement ceremony and Condoleezza Rice and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, protested to the point they withdrew from speaking. The lists goes on.

Part of this is from The Naked Communist (1958) and School of Darkness by Bella V. Dodd but more recent claims have been made

You don't have to believe those claims, but you should believe that other do. That is what is meant by behavior modification as stated.