Posted by Rick Denney on September 07, 2002 at 21:53:49:
In Reply to: Why should we have to defend teachers? posted by D on September 07, 2002 at 10:07:27:
I did not learn critical thinking from teachers. What little I know I learned from reading, of which I have done quite a lot. And what little I know about writing and grammar I got from the same source (though my fingers often don't remember those lessons and my eyes don't catch it until after hitting the Submit button).
The job of teachers and schools, if they are interesting in meeting the needs of educating critical thinkers, is to put those books in the hands of students, and then make sure they read them by discussing them in class and by giving tests on them. That seems simple enough. Too often, though, the books aren't the tried-and-true works of literature that teach critical thinking and foster a love of language, but rather are the pallid short story textbooks selected by the education establishment for reasons that seem to me motivated by political and social objectives unrelated to the student's mental growth. I gained little from the books I read in school, and much from the books I read on my own, and the books used now are far worse.
The current education establishment is quite happy to teach cynical thinking, but that is quite different than critical thinking. Examples abound. In English class, we read these horrible little short stories that seem supposed to make us mistrust our elders, and never once read a great work of literature and discuss why it is that it is great literature. How many students have read Shakespeare? Chaucer? Dickens? Austen? Why is "the Moon shone clear" great literature and "the Moon cast a silvery glow" not? You won't hear that discussion in modern schools, and, even worse, you won't hear it around the dinner table.
Teachers don't themselves have to be criticial thinkers to teach critical thinking. They just have to put the right material in the hands of the student and then test them to make sure they study it.
I had many good and many bad teachers during my education. But I also had parents who established an expectation of excellence and offered punishment for laziness, worse punishment for bad behavior, and a superb example. They looked at my school textbooks, and discussed them with me--what they said and why. And took me to the library with them so that we could all borrow books to read (this was a weekly excursion). My mother, who never attended college, owns hundreds of books, and my father, also an engineer, has works of history, philosophy, and many other subjects in his library.
Rick "unwilling to blame teachers for the present fiasco, despite his low regard for their overall competence" Denney