kitchen table math, the sequel: instructivist weighs in

Saturday, June 30, 2012

instructivist weighs in

re: Texas Republican Party's purported opposition to 'critical thinking'
The indignation exhibited in the [NYT] comments is misplaced. In the bizarre Thoughtworld of educationists nothing is what it appears to be. Being indignant about a ban on "critical thinking" is like being indignant about a ban on "democracy" in The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea).

In the Thoughtworld of educationists there is endless prattle about "critical thinking" but this "critical thinking" is taking place in a vacuum. Educationists are notoriously hostile to knowledge. They want "critical thinking" to take place without anything to think about. These so-called higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) are the pretentious upper parts of Bloom's Taxonomy with the lower parts typically cut off.

1 comment:

Instructivist said...

Thanks, Catherine. You are fast:-)

I once posted a SAT problem on my blog that I like a lot because it shows what real critical thinking is: the interaction of knowledge and -- cough, cough -- critical thought.

http://instructivist.blogspot.com/2007/08/sat-challenge.html