for a long time now (this started long before No Child Left Behind, but NCLB is making it even worse) many (most?) public schools have not been teaching critical thinking skills, and rather have been teaching to the test.

Students cram in a bunch of (often useless) factoids instead of learning how to THINK and actively evaluate claims and situations.  These isolated factoids and knowledge nuggets are apparently a subsitute for a solid conceptual knowledge base, which is fine for trivial pursuit and some TV quiz shows, but horrible in most other situations.  BTW, that also helps explain in part why so many "educated" people have nothing insightful or interesting to offer.

Being able to spit out factoids can come in handy, but it takes more than that to be truly smart in my book. I notice Cenk often makes remarks like "so and so went to (fill in the blank university), so they must be really smart" (and he means it). 

There's *some* truth to that, but I hesitate to assume that higher education always equals an insightful and interesting person with something to offer, because sometimes it just means someone did a really good job of studying and taking advantage of their academic opportunities.  I applaud that obviously, but the "smart" thing is a different question IMO.

Anyway, back to K=12 education. Many schools have (again, for a long time but it's getting worse and worse) dropped or de-emphasized subjects like art that encourage individual creativity and exploration, etc.  And civics?

Civics?! Civics?! You wanna take about civics?!  They don't teach that anymore, do they?  ;)

by Tom Hanc on 04/18/2008 08:23:59 AM EST

[ Parent ]