The American Human: Don't Teach Your Children How to Think

Monday, July 2, 2012

Don't Teach Your Children How to Think

This bit has been spreading around the Internet in past few days, and it's a stunner:

The 2012 Texas Republican Party Platform, adopted June 9 at the state convention in Forth Worth, seems to take a stand against, well, the teaching of critical thinking skills. Read it for yourself:

We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.
As a top commenter on a Reddit thread wrote about the language, "I was absolutely sure this had to be an elaborate fake ... ." It's not.

According to various reports, the Texas Republican Party also recommends abstinence-only sex education, corporal punishment in schools, and opposition to mandatory preschool or kindergarten, saying that parents are the best providers of early childhood education.

Talking Points Memo contacted the Texas Republican Party and were told that the language included in the platform "was not the intent of the subcommittee," but that they cannot correct it until 2014. Looks like the Texas Republicans could use a little critical-thinking training themselves.

A recent Texas Republican role model.

No comments:

Post a Comment

My General Principles

1. Civilized societies require the rule of law.
2. Science is my preferred method for examining and understanding reality.
3. Religion is superstition.
4. An educated society is a healthy society.
5. Democratic governments are by their very nature socialist.
6. Market economies are by their very nature capitalist.
7. Markets are not (entirely) efficient or rational and thus require regulation.
8. Don’t confuse politics with public policy.
9. Civil discourse requires rational argument, even if yelling or stomping your feet or name-calling is more fun.
10. If you consider making stuff up a viable tactic, you are disallowed from civil discourse.
11. Puritanism is America’s original sin.
12. Income redistribution is good for society, hoarding is not.
13. Everybody, from time to time, needs help.

About the American Human

The American Human is written by Calvin Ross, a retired teacher who at various points in life has been a musician, woodworker, restaurateur, narrator, English teacher in Japan, novelist, technology journalist, and private tutor to Japanese children here in the U.S.

Happily residing in the wine country of Sonoma County north of San Francisco, Calvin has lived in the Philippines, the Netherlands, and the aforementioned Japan, as well as in Chicago, Colorado, Georgia, and many different towns in California, including, of all places, the Mojave Desert.

Calvin, you may note quickly, is a liberal progressive who doesn't think being called a socialist is all that bad, especially since he sort of would like living in Denmark if it weren't so cold. He blogs because he can.