“Schools Don’t Teach Critical Thinking”
Every profession faces its ignorant criticism, but because I am a teacher, I think most about the criticism directed at education.
Teaching is not like any other profession, though every profession includes some teaching. I have had truck drivers tell me they could never do it for lack of patience; they find it much easier to replace a broken part in an engine than manage human beings, particularly children.
The ignorant criticism that gets me most riled up is the one that alleges schools or teachers don’t teach critical thinking. That is their primary task. Saying that is like saying surgeons don’t operate or pilots don’t fly planes. What else do you think they’re doing?
Your complaint is actually with the students. Surprise! That’s the teachers’ main complaint too. We pass our days leading horses to water, trying to make them drink, then getting blamed when they don’t.
We tear our hair out, lose sleep, devote countless weekends and summers on how to engage and motivate students, on how to get them to think critically — and every student has different needs. We have to figure out every single student individually, then tailor our instruction to that students’ needs.
And the last thing any teacher would do is try to “indoctrinate” students with “ideology”. People become teachers to share their passion for knowledge and help people think for themselves. Also, indoctrinate? In secondary and middle schools, all day long we are competing with cell phones for their attention.
If you think it’s even possible to indoctrinate American students, you not only don’t know schools, you don’t know American students, many of whom are like little lawyers with the Internet in their pockets, ready to tell you you’re wrong to your face during class.
I have found students texting, playing video games, and watching television dramas, sporting events, and music videos during class. To anyone foolish enough to think or say, “That shouldn’t be allowed,” it isn’t, which is why teachers play Phone Police all day every day. Whose fault is that? Not the schools’. Disallowing phone use during class is just another way the schools try to serve the goal of critical thinking. If only students didn’t have the Library at Alexandria in their pockets, schools would have a much easier time teaching critical thinking. One thirteen-year-old boy told me that he shouldn’t have to go to school, because everything he needed to know he could look up on his phone. He didn’t understand that we go to school to practice skills even more than to gain knowledge of facts. Unless we practice skills, we will not possess them. A phone cannot pilot a jet plane, for example.
Of course I don’t know, but students’ lack of respect for school might come from parents who don’t respect schools.
Then we hear we “don’t teach critical thinking”? If you really think that, try teaching. I’ll pay to watch.
