Episode 79: Critical Thinking — how to teach it to children (Wed., Jan. 4, 2023)

Episode 79:  Critical Thinking — how to teach it to children (Wed., Jan. 4, 2023)

Teaching something, anything, is the first order of business and the sacred obligation of every school. What we have instead in America is tens of thousands of schools where students spend millions of hours each year but at the end of the year they know hardly  one bit more than they did at the beginning.

The common problem is letting all content be taught in a swirl of confusion. Schools should organize and prioritize knowledge so it's easy to understand and absorb.

I see that I did an earlier piece about critical thinking, Episode 46. The topic is very much in education news. Nobody seems to know how to do it. Meanwhile it illustrates  the broader problem. Professors of education announce some new initiative said to be of great value. But it turns out to be not new, and not of any value. Mainly we see incoherence and inefficiency. in Episode 46 and now in 79, I try to show that there is always a simpler, more efficient way to proceed.

The two approaches are complementary, and both are valuable.

------------------------------------------

Let's Fix Education is for connoisseurs of education. You want to understand what's actually wrong in the classroom. You want to find better ways to do things. Typically, we see broad sweeping recommendations (more money; more parental involvement; more community involvement; deeper learning; higher learning; 21st-century learning; etc.), but none of this is based on identifying the specific malpractices that are causing all the trouble. If you teach children in the worst possible ways, you can expect the worst possible results. That is what our Education Establishment ruthlessly does. (For more of this analysis, see The War against Children.)

-------------------------------------------

Word-Wise Education

757-455-5020

Bruce Deitrick Price

--------------------------------------------

Best way to understand problems in public schools: Saving K-12

-----------------------------------------------------

New novel: Frankie 

(logline: Frankie is harmless. Chaos ensues.)

---------------------------------------------------------

Let's Fix Education explains to Americans why their schools are so bad. The people in charge prefer mediocrity because they are socialists of one kind or another. If people work together to promote real education, we'll have it.

Support the show