starting 9:08 a.m.
several of the home-schoolers whose parents are involved in the riot for austerity are doing school projects that involve following one product from cradle to grave. that is to say, choosing one thing, like a pair of jeans, and looking into what it takes to create the jeans (cotton made into fabric, thread to sew, metal for the metal bits, etc.) and what happens to each of those raw materials before they become part of the jeans and then what happens to the jeans during their life as jeans, and how they continue until they go back to the earth as nutrients.
i was thinking about all of this and how even with my 17 or 18 years of schooling, including a h.s. diploma and a b.a. degree, i wouldn't have any idea how to go about starting this kind of a project. i mean, how do you find out where the cotton comes from for a pair of jeans made by levi? my assumption is that vague notion that cotton comes from "the south", but how to find out if that's true? then to go and figure these things out for each and every component in one pair of jeans... it's overwhelming to me just thinking about it.
what i think it would require, something i don't think i picked up on my journey through the various schools i went to, is real critical thinking skills. what did i learn in school? tons of random useless facts (trivial trivia, ha!), and how to do something once someone tells/shows me how to do it. what's missing is the idea that i can figure out how to do something WITHOUT someone showing me how to do it first. critical hands-on learning on my own. which leaves me paralyzed with overwhelmingness when i'm faced with something i don't already know how to do when there's no one there to point me in the direction of a solution.
in this, i think some home-schoolers have an advantage. but only if their parents/teachers have the critical thinking skills to encourage their children to figure things out on their own. funny, that. i don't have any confidence in myself as a home-schooling mom because i have no idea how i would teach my children any of it. which is ok. i can be ok with that. it's just interesting to me that some people can get by without critical thinking skills. i wonder if that's an evolutionary thing. specialized abilities, as in, if everyone is good at being a leader and coming up with ideas, who will they lead and how will their ideas come to fruition? a beehive needs drones and a queen and all the rest (my trivial trivia knowledge is letting me down here). maybe human society works better with a division of responsibility/strengths?
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4 comments:
Hi I think you were maybe born with critical thinking -- or maybe you figured it out on your own. :)
I think convenience eliminates the neccesity for critical thinking.
I agree with the importance of critical thinking. My wife and I are both teachers/school administrators who have worked in a number of different schools. The Australian curriculums we have followed emphasise critical thinking skills very heavily. And yet, despite schools being filled with trained teachers teaching this thing called critical thinking, I remain doubtful that schools serve any real educational benefit. I am glad that our own children (currently 2 and 1) have a while to go before we need to make some decisions about their schooling. I do remain, however, convinced that most people can learn to teach the things that are meant to be learned at school, but few people can be taught how to be enthusiastic about your own children's learning as yourself. And I think my 15 minutes are up. Love the blog - will add to my roll.
I'm a homeschooler, mostly lurking on the riot for austerity forum. I don't think it's necessary for parents to be able to "teach" critical thinking, or creativity, or anything. What I am finding with my kids is that the most important thing to do is to get the heck out of their way. I often have lesson plans and goals and stuff I'm trying to make them do, but what they really want to do that day is 10 times BETTER - cooler, richer, more satisfying, and more intellectually demanding.
I try to cover what I consider are the essential basics (reading, writing, arithmetic) and then give them as much personal freedom as I can tolerate to figure stuff out themselves.
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