republicans oppose teaching of “critical thinking skills”

Noo NOO Nnoo nooo nooo.

dont change the subject. yes one must challenge their own and societies beliefs to see where they stand. Its a question of presentation and age.

the leftist poster who started this thread was too ignorant to understand texans did not want marxist values clarifications taught to their young kids. I completely agree. That is not to say it should not be taught.

just to let you know... my favorite professor is a well regarded crit.

http://www.sandiego.edu/law/academics/faculty/bio.php?id=685

 

"The Republican Party of Texas’ recently adopted 2012 platform contains a plank that opposes the teaching of “critical thinking skills” in schools. The party says it was a mistake, but is now stuck with the plank until the next state convention in 2014.

"The plank in question, on “Knowledge-Based Education,” reads as follows:

" 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."

1) Critical theory and Marxism are not in there.
2) "The party says it was a mistake."

These people act like their kids are sooo impressionable.

 

click the link the party said it was a mistake it looks like they are against critical thinking when in reality they are against the marxist values clarification concept.

kids are impressionable. Very. They pretty much assume teachers and parents are telling them the truth.

that is why socialists communist and totalitarians spend so much time indoctrinating them.

 

I can accept the party made a mistake. As for kids being impressionable, of course they are, I wanted you to affirm that. The more impressionable they are, the more influential mom and dad are. That's the problem!

I might object to you "burning into" your own kids' heads that trickle down works, that a rising tide necessarily lifts all boats, that it's beneficial for capital to organize but not for labor to organize, that there's a Laissez Fairey that will make everything ok if government will just get out of the way, etc. You can teach them those values, but they definitely need to be challenged somewhere along the line.

 

I think that this entire debate is totally off-course in regards to people should not support HOTS and also off-base in regards to what the HOTS program is all about - it is not about "values clarification" and the other items bought up on this thread. HOTS is not allowed in most states (which means that politicians in 32 states were quicker than Texas in not allowing it) because it provides no educational value and is simply the latest trendy ineffective nonsense being pushed on educators.

The problem with HOTS is that it replaces traditional reading, writing, and math for low performing students & schools with a program where teachers ask students in 4th to 8th grade "Socratic" questions to make the students do "critical thinking" (yeah, right) and create their own verbal response. There are also computers integrated into this nonsense (the company promoting HOTS is in the business of selling their computer programs) that display pictures as prompts. The HOTS concept supports the idea of no tests and social promotion. Reading, writing, or math proficiency are not necessary to get to the next level with HOTS.

The HOTS computer programs for these underperforming 4th to 8th students have them doing things like "spotting whales", identifying colors, and "flying" hot air balloons.

You can read more about HOTS at the following link -
http://www.hots.org/

I will note that the HOTS concept has recently been scaled-back so that students should be pulled out of class for 35 minutes per day for HOTS rather than the entire agenda being HOTS..... let's see if Dr. Stanley Pogrow has any better luck marketing this junk now that the program parameters are changed.

 

You're clearly an atheist, have faith in that point of view and interpret what's happening around you from that perspective... Atheism is your religion. Fine by me, I think you are wrong, but, of course, you're free to choose.

 

Not so sure about that myself. While I am comfortable with the concepts of mutation, time, and natural selection, and can imagine those principles at work over billions of years (take a look that the youtube on the blind watchmaker sometime), I have a very tough time in keeping on going back to the idea of the Big Bang, but even more so to the idea of multiple big bangs, etc. Put another way, and this isn't the first time I've said it, I simply cannot, will not, believe that the random movements of hydrogen atoms over eons eventually produced the horror that is the green, polyester leisure suit. There has to be some divine (though clearly evil) force at work in the universe.

 

From my perspective, what you're going through is that you've been convinced that blind logic is the only way to think and drive your decisions and subsequent actions. I don't do that. What those I see as pseudo-scientists call logic, imo, is but a tool to fashion chairs or spaceships, not to relate to our environmant and live by. A whole lot of other considerations and mechanisms are available to us all for that bigger objective.

 

"Throughout history, God has been shrinking. The time when the world was small and God was in control is always in the far distant, half-remembered past. The closer we approach to the present, the less common miracles are and the less accessible he becomes, until the present day when divine activity has dwindled until it is indistinguishable from the nonexistent. Where the Bible tells us God once shaped worlds out of the void and parted great seas with the power of his word, today his most impressive acts seem to be shaping sticky buns into the likenesses of saints and conferring vaguely-defined warm feelings on his believers' hearts when they attend church. "

 

That's your limited, totally wrong, atheistic perspective, with which I, and billions of others, disagree.