When Geoffrey Canada, the founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone, attended college he was used to being a good student. But statistics was something he dreaded and, sure enough, he flunked his first exam. So he went to his professor in a panic and told him how hard he had studied but that he had failed, nonetheless. So the professor said, “Oh, I know what the problem is. The book you’re reading has a particular slant. Read this other book and you’ll do fine.” And so it came to be. A year later, upon reflection, Geoffrey figured out why he had succeeded: “The professor made me read two books on the same subject.”
When I need to learn something new, when I’m about to embark on a project, I go to the library and take out as many books on the subject as I can lay my hands on. I must have started out with 25 books on Harry Houdini at the beginning of my research for my DK biography. Did I read all the books cover to cover? No, but I looked at all of them and I read many of them cover to cover, without taking notes unless some particular quote struck me. Each book made me more familiar with the arc of Houdini’s life. Gradually, I accumulated enough knowledge to make his story my own. I found a way to tell his story differently, not strictly chronologically as most biographies, so that it would be a fascinating read for kids, not just a recounting of his deeds and accomplishments and certainly not an exhaustive treatise with way too much information so that a kid’s eyes would glaze over. It is my job to distill voluminous amounts of information to create an accurate, compelling narrative that is NOT too much information.
Yet, what happens in most classrooms when kids have to learn something new in history or geography or science? They read ONE SOURCE, and a not particularly well written one at that. Educators are screaming that kids need to learn critical thinking. What does that mean? Reciting the facts from the one source they’ve read? I don’t think so. Why not have each student read different nonfiction trade books on a subject and then discuss the authors’ varying points of view of the story? Why not have students read several books on a subject and discuss which book they liked best and why? Kids learn how to think critically by doing it and they need to read more than one source to start formulating opinions of their own.
Critical thinking implies an ability to make a judgment based on evaluating a variety of sources. It also implies that once a judgment is made, it can be defended. And yet, the climate for teachers to think critically is not very hospitable. I think we’re starting to see some pushback against the imposition of the assessment tests as the single most important factor in evaluating schools. Here is an example of critical thinking at its finest.
Superintendent John Kuhn of the Perrin-Whitt Independent School District of Texas recently testified at his state legislature on behalf of a bill that would initiate a two-year moratorium on standardized testing, known as STAAR in Texas. After he said we should treat teachers like we want them to treat students, Representative Hochberg raised this question: Teachers give students grades all the time...why shouldn't they be graded?
Superintendant Kuhn fumbled for an answer and went home feeling he had missed a golden opportunity to make an important point. It bothered him so much that at midnight that night he wrote out what he wished he had said (don’t we all want Mulligans upon reflection?):
“Representative, you make a good point. The state has adopted the role of teacher, and teachers are the students. And this is the root of the problem--you are a bad teacher, and that is why we students are getting rowdy now. That is why we are passing notes to one another saying how mean you are. We are not upset that you grade us. We are upset that your grading system is arbitrary and capricious. We are upset at the way you hang our grades on the wall for everyone to see, instead of laying our papers face down on our desks when you pass them back. We are upset because when you treat us unfairly there is no principal we can go to, to report you for being unjust. There is no one but you and us, ruler and ruled. Your assignments are so complicated and sometimes seem so pointless. You never give us a break, never a free day or a curve. And we heard you in the teacher's lounge talking about how lazy we are. You stay behind your desk, only coming out to give us work or gripe at us. You never come to our games; you didn't ask me how I did in the one-act play.“Representative Hochberg, the problem isn't that Texas wants to grade us; the problem is that Texas is THAT teacher, the one who punishes the whole class for the misbehaviors of a few bad apples, who worries more about control than relationships, who inadvertently treats all kids as if they are the problem kids. This approach has made you the teacher all the kids dread. The one who builds fear instead of trust, who never takes late work or asks how our weekend was. You are the teacher and we are the student, and if you want us to mind, you should create a happy classroom, work with us, relate to us, build trust with us, seek our input, and ask our opinions once in a while. Give us choices. Give us room to experiment and permission to risk new things in your classroom, permission to try and fail without disappointing you.”
So critical thinking involves inputting a variety of sources, reasonable discussion, and time for reflection. Is that happening in your classroom? Your school? Your district? Your state legislature? Perhaps if there were more critical thinking about critical thinking, education wouldn’t be in its current crisis.
You're so right, Vicki. In many ways, schools seem to be devoted to discouraging all forms of critical thinking. After all, if a teacher, a principal and an entire school are to be judged by the % of correct answers to test questions, where's the incentive to encourage critical (or any kind of) thinking? Students not only need to absorb the divergent points of view of many authors, but use them as models for developing their own viewpoints. Textbooks cannot help them with that. History is taught as a mere assemblage of facts to be memorized. Rarely are students asked to interpret the historical record to see the nuances of interpretation. Science is vocabulary and reaction mechanisms, rather than hypotheses and experimentation. Math is computation and algorithms at the expense of mathematical thinking, speculation and problem solving.
I guarantee you we start looking at it this way well lower out costs and we the people will benefit and so will business. It may be just what we need to save ourselves!