From: Abraham Moses Genen (futurist@ny.frontiercomm.net)
Date: Fri Jun 06 1997 - 17:07:56 MDT
mlbowli1@cord.iupui.edu wrote in part:
>
> "I'm floored by the fact that I'm 26 and having to go out of my way to learn
> it. I can't believe my formal education thus far (high school, a BA,
> working on a BS) has not offered to explicitly teach me how to think.
> Note that I am human. Failing to teach humans how to think clearly is
> like birds not teaching their young how to fly (I don't know if flying is
> learned, but you get the analogy). My first semester organic
> chemistry instructor is the only teacher I've ever had who has strongly
> emphasized a thought process when approaching a problem".
> "...without rational thinking skills they'll never be able
> to distinguish noise from valuable information.....this is the most
> devestating failure of failure of American education".
I could not agree more. Fortunately, at least some Teachers Colleges
are now emphasizing creative and critical thinking skills in the
graduate school curriculum. My beautiful wife had to re-learn, in
accordance with this new paradigm, much of what she had learned when she
started teaching twenty-five years ago. As teachers learn to emphasize
such things as thinking skills and cooperative education, I suspect that
the curriculum will slowly evolve into one that will emphasize the
skills of the post-industrial era we are gradually entering. There will
be resistance to such changes, however.
The politics involved in school boards and the intransigence of many in
our social oligarchy who wish to attempt to maintain the status quo will
probably result in a very slowly changing emphasis on skills that can
and will cause a power shift towards less instinctive respect for
presumed and landed authority. As usual, political change and social
change will go hand in hand.
A.M. Genen
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