think

from Glen:

I don't know whether the Texas GOP is objecting to the program of political indoctrination or the deprecation of knowledge, both of which are labeled "critical thinking" by progressives to give themselves political cover, but either way, I'm with the GOP on this one.

On arrival, our school district's new "science specialist" sent a letter home to parents in which she claimed to be specially trained in "progressive education" and "constructivist learning," whose goal for our science classes was, "to instill in students a commitment to defending the environment."

The notion of "critical thinking" was central to her mission, and I happened to see one of her classroom critical thinking tests. It asked, "How many of the following human activities cause global warming? (check all that apply)". Not "are claimed by some to cause" but "cause." Critical thinking apparently consists in regurgitating the approved answers, not pondering the questions, when the answers are provided by a sage who's progressive. The options were such things as "driving cars", "consuming non-local foods", "non-sustainable manufacturing", etc. The right answer from a "critical thinking" perspective was, of course, all of the above.

I wondered at what point knowledge of physics, chemistry, or biology might play a role in the class. Mere knowledge was "fine," but engaging in environmental activism was worth extra credit toward your grade. What about chemistry experiments at home or go see the meteor collection at a museum? Good activities but not relevant to your science grade. What IS applicable to your science grade? Get involved in environmental activism, find examples of non-green behaviors among your neighbors and complain, or participate in an Earth Day activity.

At the end of the year, the top science prize awarded by her was not to the kid who knew the most about physics or chemistry but to the "Most Green" student. The prize was a coffee mug. Just what a 10-yr-old girl needs most, a coffee mug, right? Well, not just any coffee mug. The "science specialist" and expert on "critical thinking" told us from the podium that this mug displayed a very important map of the world that showed "which parts of the world will be under water in 2050." Wow. We already have the map showing where in Appalachia to buy your future beachfront property. It's right there in the shaking hands of the little green girl with the latte. I wonder how many critical thinkers are buying.

[snip]

And my brother-in-law, a Life Flight helicopter paramedic for years, wanted to get a nursing degree so he could spend more time at home raising his kids. California required nursing students to pass a "critical thinking" class to get their degree. Sounds like a good idea. And who best to teach our nurses to think critically? Dr. House-style clinical pathologists? Physicists? Experts in statistical analysis? No, when mistakes may cost lives, we turn to--the English Department.

So, he took the class from one of the staff marxists and made the mistake of challenging some of her claims. He thought the point of critical thinking was to engage in back-and-forth discussions, reasoning about an issue from various perspectives. BIG mistake.

The critical thinking instructor graded assignments on "insight," which is to say, how much evidence for leftist dogma the student managed to "discover" during an assignment. I begged my brother-in-law to stop analyzing and pretend to experience leftist religious conversion. For the final assignment, which was, inevitably, "to analyze from a marxist-feminist perspective," he did as I suggested, and got an A in the class.

But not just an A, but a gushing letter from the instructor about how utterly inspiring it was to see the light of understanding finally dawning in his formerly benighted middle-aged, white, male brain. In the end, her urging him to "think more critically" had enabled him to see the "class contradictions" and "injustice inherent in" blah, blah, and he had given her hope for the future.

So this is what state-enforced "critical thinking" means in California: deprecation of factual knowledge and promotion of various progressive theories.

The NY Times is counting on a lack of actual critical thinking skills by its fan base. They label a collection of bad ideas "critical thinking," then label anyone who opposes those ideas opponents of critical thinking. Ha, ha, those Texan rubes. What's the point in even arguing with people like that? (So now, in Orwellian fashion, we don't have to.)

I'm quite sure I would part company with the Texas GOP over other issues, but on this one, they're right. Real critical thinkers should be saying no to phony critical thinking.

in which Glen encounters the 6th grade

As Amy P says, suitable for framing:

Chinese is the only language offered to sixth graders at the school my son will start attending in a few weeks. Many of us at middle school orientation were happy to see that Chinese would be offered to our kids. In fact, from the look of the group, it appeared as though we would have to fight each other to get our kids into the class.

Until they described the class. The kids would be "introduced" to Chinese language and culture. They would read stories about China. They would practice a few characters. They would memorize some greetings. They would even get to go on a field trip to local Chinese restaurant to witness the culture firsthand.

In a room full of Chinese parents jaws dropped. A few memorized greetings and a trip to a Chinese restaurant? WTF? (I think that stands for "What's That in French?")

We'd been afraid that competition for the Chinese class would look like Walmart on Black Friday. We were no longer afraid.

I suspect our school district will end up concluding from this that the demand for Chinese language isn't as strong as they had thought.

Glen on the flood

In a comment on another thread, Glen writes:

SteveH asked: But how about the MITx degree? What's the catch?

The catch is that nobody at MIT (that I know of) is talking about an MITx "degree". These and the new Stanford online classes only give you credit toward a degree if you are an admitted MIT or Stanford student.

Otherwise, the idea is to give you some sort of acknowledgement that is carefully designed to make it clear that it is NOT MIT or Stanford credit. Both institutions are desperate to avoid diluting their own brand equity.

However, these projects often take on lives of their own. Some Stanford students are now complaining that they have to pay $5000 to take the same online class that non-students take for free. No difference at all in the educational experience, assignments, tests, feedback from TAs, etc., but the Stanford student pays a fortune and gets Stanford credentials; the equally-taught non-student gets it for free and gets no Stanford credential. That's an unstable situation, I believe, that may end up like breaching a barrier between two oceans at different levels. I'm looking for a flood to pour through this opening, which might overwhelm the people who are trying to keep these projects under control.

I see them right now as desperate to defend their monopolies but well aware that huge pressures are mounting to change the system. I think they figure, rightly, that if they don't disrupt themselves, someone else will do it to them. They probably don't want to be the venerable Kodaks and Fuji Films of higher ed as the world goes digital.

The final section of Walter Russell Mead's The Ice Cream Party and the Spinach Party is directly relevant.

a man after my own heart

Glen wrote:

I have my fourth grader do a hundred fraction problems while I do his "cut pictures out of magazines" homework for him. I have him work through middle school math contest problems, tossing him hints when he gets stuck, while I draw on his poster board. I had him learn every country in Europe while I built miniature teepees in a shoebox diorama.

He gets good grades on his schoolwork, but other parents--I mean kids, of course--often cut and paste better than I do.

His teacher thinks he's a "natural" at math, but there's nothing natural about it. It's man-made. It's training--the same sort of training you'd do if you needed to teach someone to cut hair or build birdhouses: show them how, help them a few times, and put them to work.

She would be shocked if she actually knew the level of difficulty of the math and science work he can do, but we're careful not to let her find out. Last year the teacher found out and was nasty to him for the rest of the year. She liked him when she thought he was a natural, but when she found out that he had to work at math, she was outraged.

"It's not fair to me that you are willing to do that much work for your father, but aren't doing the same for me!" I thought that I--I mean my son, of course--was cutting enough pictures out of enough magazines for her, but she apparently thought she deserved more.

She wanted to discuss the "problem" with me. She was concerned about how I was using his time. (How ironic.) She said that their Everyday Mathematics emphasized "conceptual understanding" and was concerned that my approach might not lead to "actual understanding." The previous night he had solved,

"We have four times as many cows as horses on our ranch. If we sold 280 cows, we'd end up with twice as many horses as cows. How many cows do we have?"

He was in third grade. I almost asked her to go to the board and show me how SHE would have taught him to solve it, with "actual understanding," but that would have been cruel. I held my tongue to keep my son out of trouble and said that I tried my best to help him understand. We left it at that.

This is one of the top 5% of elementary schools in Silicon Valley, so almost all the kids are performing at grade level--and that's where they want to keep them.

And I've now found out that at higher levels, middle school and high school, it's almost standard practice for parents to take the mindless homework load off their kids' shoulders to free up time for them to do the portion of homework that is actually useful.

If I have to do even more mindless homework, I may have to outsource it to India.