posted August 10, 2012 11:43 AM            

In the you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff department, here’s what the Republican Party of Texas wrote into its 2012 platform as part of the section on education:

Knowledge-Based Education – 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.

Yes, you read that right. The party opposes the teaching of “higher order thinking skills” because it believes the purpose is to challenge a student’s “fixed beliefs” and undermine “parental authority.”

It opposes, among other things, early childhood education, sex education, and multicultural education, but supports “school subjects with emphasis on the Judeo-Christian principles upon which America was founded.”

When taken with the other parts of the education platform(see below), it seems a fair conclusion that the GOP Party in Texas doesn’t think much of public education. Unfortunately, this notion isn’t limited to the GOP in Texas but is more commonly being seen across the country by some of the most strident of “school reformers.”

It should be noted that after the plank in the platform was ridiculed, Texas GOP Communications Director Chris Elam told TPM.com that it was all a big mistake and that opposition to “critical thinking” wasn’t supposed to be included. It can’t be easily removed, he said, because the platform had been approved by a party convention and any changes would also have to go through the same process. That clears things up.

You can see Stephen Colbert’s hilarious take on this episode by clicking here.

It also seems worth noting that there is some question as to whether critical thinking can actually be taught. University of Virginia cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham argues that it cannot be taught in this 2007 article.

First Willingham defines critical thinking this way: Critical thinking consists of seeing both sides of an issue, being open to new evidence that disconfirms your ideas, reasoning dispassionately, demanding that claims be backed by evidence, deducing and inferring conclusions from available facts, solving problems, and so forth. Then too, there are specific types of critical thinking that are characteristic of different subject matter: That’s what we mean when we refer to “thinking like a scientist” or “thinking like a historian.”

Later in the article he writes: After more than 20 years of lamentation, exhortation, and little improvement, maybe it’s time to ask a fundamental question: Can critical thinking actually be taught? Decades of cognitive research point to a disappointing answer: not really. People who have sought to teach critical thinking have assumed that it is a skill, like riding a bicycle, and that, like other skills, once you learn it, you can apply it in any situation. Research from cognitive science shows that thinking is not that sort of skill.

But of course, that isn’t what the Texas GOP is arguing. It sees “critical thinking” as something subversive. Scary stuff.

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posted August 10, 2012 08:21 PM            

Wow indeed

quote:

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When taken with the other parts of the education platform(see below), it seems a fair conclusion that the GOP Party in Texas doesn’t think much of public education. Unfortunately, this notion isn’t limited to the GOP in Texas but is more commonly being seen across the country by some of the most strident of “school reformers.”

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posted August 11, 2012 11:08 AM            

Outcome based education has proved itself to be an utter failure and an impediment to both teaching an learning.

Yeah, let's teach students to read, write, add, subtract, multiply and divide. Let's teach them US and World history, chemistry, physics, biology and other hard core academic skills and leave the psycho-babble bullshiiit of "outcome based education" out of the public school curriculum.

posted August 12, 2012 02:22 PM            

one place i do NOT go is the daily mail, uk, a tabloid by any other name, owned (inherited) by a man who lives in france so he won't have to pay english taxes on his billions-by-birth.

posted August 12, 2012 06:34 PM            

You may not have read it at "Think Progress" but the leftist echo machine routinely picks up bullshiiit to spread it far and wide.