Kids not being taught how to think is nothing new. When I was in college in the Reagan '80s I never forgot a Doonesbury Sunday cartoon in which a college professor was trying to get his students to think about political issues and challenge him.
https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1985/01/27/
Kids not being taught how to think is nothing new. When I was in college in the Reagan '80s I never forgot a Doonesbury Sunday cartoon in which a college professor was trying to get his students to think about political issues and challenge him.
Back then, students were mostly interested in getting good grades so they could get a good, high-paying job. They weren't much interested in critical thought. I was, and since I was going into telecommunications and journallism, I very much enjoyed debating professors and students. I came home my first year and became a giant arrogant, self-impressed pain in the ass to my mother with my new-found skills :)
But at least I was taught to think, which I realized I hadn't been in high school. Or maybe I was but I didn't pay enough attention.
Love that cartoon! But even the comment beneath it points out that it's more relevant today the it was in 1985. Not because children were all fountains of independent thought back then, I'm sure, but because the price of wrong-think wasn't so devastating.
The joke in the cartoon is that the teacher *wanted* the kids to think for themselves. I think that's far less the case today. And even if the individual teachers do, the school boards don't.
Kids not being taught how to think is nothing new. When I was in college in the Reagan '80s I never forgot a Doonesbury Sunday cartoon in which a college professor was trying to get his students to think about political issues and challenge him.
https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1985/01/27/
Back then, students were mostly interested in getting good grades so they could get a good, high-paying job. They weren't much interested in critical thought. I was, and since I was going into telecommunications and journallism, I very much enjoyed debating professors and students. I came home my first year and became a giant arrogant, self-impressed pain in the ass to my mother with my new-found skills :)
But at least I was taught to think, which I realized I hadn't been in high school. Or maybe I was but I didn't pay enough attention.
Love that cartoon! But even the comment beneath it points out that it's more relevant today the it was in 1985. Not because children were all fountains of independent thought back then, I'm sure, but because the price of wrong-think wasn't so devastating.
The joke in the cartoon is that the teacher *wanted* the kids to think for themselves. I think that's far less the case today. And even if the individual teachers do, the school boards don't.