Critical thinking

Here is the podcast.

Can you teach critical thinking?I have recently been on an email forum with English teachers where this subject was discussed and I have come away with the feeling that this whole idea of teaching people how to think is a fad. It presupposes that the person teaching is better at thinking than the person he or she is teaching. I do not believe it. Here is a ramble on this subject. I am curious to hear the views of others. There is so much on this subject on the Internet, I must be wrong. I am willing to listen. I want to learn to think critically. But basically I don't. I can present my views, but I know they come from a set of beliefs and prejudices, and the arguments that I use are merely justifications of positions that I have arrived some other way. Am I alone in this?

Comments

[Janet Isserlis]

interesting comments, Steve.

Your point about listening/not listening is useful in framing some of the assertions you're making. However, I do question your choice of religion as an example of something that might be allergic to critical thinking - faith itself seems to defy critical thought, no?

I do agree that there are many popular/adult educators who are explicitly political in their views, but I'm not sure that I agree that we're all committed to inculcating or imposing beliefs. People think critically to some extent or another in their mother tongue; I think the thread of the NIFL ESL list has been around how/if to assist people in articulating some of that thinking in English.

janet

[Valina Eckley]

Well, one of my greatest profs in my masters program would always say that having a Ph.D does not denote intelligence, it denotes perseverance. He was absolutely brilliant and completely crazy at the same time. I still don't understand how he managed to tie his tie on backwards for my graduation.
During my graduate school days, I found it was the profs who were not egotistically attached to their own work to be incredibly open, fostering, and effective teachers. These where the teachers who expected me to learn how to think, but they never once told me HOW to think. On the other hand, it was the profs who were very egotistically tied to their work to be the ones you speak of. They think what they are doing is really really important. They also try to push their views on the grad students. These tend to be the majority of the profs who buy into the dominate, empirical show-me-the-numbers methods of research. It is the qualitative, anti-emperical people tend to be really cool (but nobody and understand what they are saying half of the time).

But I seriously doubt the study of linguistics is very qualitative. It is a traditional field based on the quantitive empirical methods. Hostly, I don't know if you will ever find an academic who will like what you are doing at lingQ, because of this egotistical tie. It is really sad too, because I think you are offering a lot of the same things that these people tell teachers to do...

As for my teaching. I gave up this whole teaching critical thinking with quitting my first Job (where i was forced to do it). I do have one class now full of near-native students who just like to have critical conversations. Since I taught public speaking as a grad student, I taught them about extemporaneous speaking, but nobody uses it. Some are good at impromptu, others memorize their speeches (which I personally don't find effective). I run the class now by simply having 2-3 students bring in topics each week that they want to talk about. sometimes i totally disagree with WHAT they say, but my I think job is to help them with HOW they present it, Despite being polar opposites with some of these people from ideologically, i have a great respect for them and what they do. Often I find myself learning more from my students than me teaching them. They have learned to make better arguments by finding and reading material on topics they want to talk about. Some of the topics are light hearted, some are serious. All the discussions we have had afterwards have been great.

Something must be good about this teaching method, because they have given me two raises since I began doing this.

And that is my approach to critical thinking...

[Steve Kaufmann]

Janet,

WE all have beliefs, whether religious or otherwise. There are not easily changed by "critical thinking" regardless of who is trying to "teach" it. ESL teaching should be about language learning. In fact the various ESL and literacy teaching activities that regularly campaign for funding are not at all open to new ideas and are not effective at helping a large number of people to improve their language skills. A recent report at the US Centre for Applied Linguistics showed surprisingly little correlation between instructional hours and language improvement. I find most of the discussion at this List service surprisingly self serving, incestuous and sterile. I am amazed.

[REC]

"It presupposes that the person teaching is better at thinking than the person he or she is teaching."

Does coaching someone in, say, tennis presuppose that you play tennis better than they do? Most coached I have had aren't better than me at the specific sport, but are very good at helping me learn to be better.

I think it only "presupposes" that the teacher has a perspective the students don't have.

New perspectives are key to learning.

[REC]

"It presupposes that the person teaching is better at thinking than the person he or she is teaching."

Does coaching someone in, say, tennis presuppose that you play tennis better than they do? Most coaches I have had aren't better than me at the specific sport, but are very good at helping me learn to be better.

I think it only "presupposes" that the teacher has a perspective the students don't have.

New perspectives are key to learning.

[Steve Kaufmann]

REC,

I do not think that most people take on coaches just to get another perspective. They expect the coach to improve them, to have greater experience and knowledge in a specific and relevant field. If I am learning, say Russian,I would not want my teacher to teach me how to think.

[REC]

I do expect a coach to improve me, but not necessarily to be better at the mechanics of the skill itself than I am. As long as they show me something I need along the way, whether it is a new way to think or a new angle I need to improve my shot, I will be learning and improving.

I have no idea how applicable this is to learning languages, and I have no comment on what I might or might not want an instructor to teach me about Russian. Outside of my particular area of expertise. I just thought the comment on presupposing was, for certain situations, off kilter.

Speaking of off kilter - did I say anywhere that "most people take on coaches just to get another perspective"? I do want them to bring a new perspective. If I could see what I am doing wrong and exactly how to fix it, I might not need a coach. I didn't say it is the reason most people take on coaches or even the only reason that I do.

(Most people, as far as I can tell, do things for a giant complex mix of rational and irrational reasons.)

I said that a new perspective is key to learning - not the only key, but a key. I just don't think a teacher who is trying critical thinking skills is "presupposing" that they are better at thinking, which is a function of a whole host of things, including innate intelligence. I think they are presupposing (this word grates with repetition) that they have something to add to the process of learning how to think critically - call it perspective or what you like.

(My coach is a great coach, and has taught me a lot over the last year, and my backhand is better than his.)