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gungadin09 -> RE: Why our kids are failing (12/29/2010 5:00:18 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
Critical thinking cuts both ways folks, and it can bite those in the ass who have an agenda. That is why "educatuion" is based primarily on memorization. My friend, and I helped, taught his kids that even if they know the answer is wrong in school, just give them the answer the want. The elder (son) guaduated from a top university with honors after an illustrious high school experience at an academically tough high school. With homors of course. One of the few accepted into EVERY university to which he applied.
More later. But sufficew it to say he learned critical thinking in the home NOT the school, no matter how good it was.
i would have to agree. Critical thinking was not encouraged in my high school, much less in elementary school. What was encouraged was conformity, sucking up, and blind obedience. That changed in college- but by that time, most students didn't care anymore. We were just trying to get through it, pass, with as little effort as possible. The professors wanted us to think critically, have ideas, but couldn't get us to do it. We were too used to just parroting, having our thinking done for us. It's a shame. i learned critical thinking eventually, but i didn't learn it in school.
For the record, i do think it matters that elementary kids are given accurate information. i disagree with the camp that says that "it won't affect the rest of their lives". i think it will. There is a reason we teach history in school. If it didn't matter, why would we bother?
But what appalls me is that even the teachers didn't seem to recognise that this information was false. What did it say, that "...teachers are not reading the textbooks front to back..." and are therefore missing these errors? WHY aren't the teachers reading the textbooks front to back? How can they teach what they haven't even read? Apparently, the state textbook approval people didn't read them too carefully either. And the textbook was written by someone who's not a historian, and collected her information off of the internet, and whose book was chosen simply because it was the cheapest option.
What bothers me about this situation is not the textbook errors themselves so much as the clusterfuck of administrative errors in allowing this crap to even get to the classroom. It seems like everybody involved was just sleeping, on autopilot. Nobody was thinking for themselves. Nobody was taking responsibility. It never even occurred to them that they ought to. This sort of half assed, cursory, go with the flow, follow the path of least resistence, kind of attitude. And i think THAT is what's causing American children to fail.
pam
P.S.- For the record, i've seen college textbooks that were just as full of errors. The professors own textbooks were required reading for the course, so professors, the university, and the publisher made a hefty profit on what was, often, a sloppily written and ineffective book, that was churned out in different "editions" every six months, to keep everybody's pockets lined. (Except the students, of course).
Look, i have no problem with being required to buy a book the teacher wrote as part of the class. But so often it seemed like there were no standards for these books. They were written with the minimum possible amount of effort to make the maximum possible profit, and the teacher was pretty much guaranteed to have his/her book approved for publishing, no matter how crappy the book was. Capitolism is taking down our educational system, i guess. i just don't know.
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