gog
10mo ago
Would you be willing to summarize one of the cases you use to teach critical thinking, just as an example of the sort of lessons you’re talking about?
gog
10mo ago
Thanks for engaging. It sounds like you agree with me that CT can't really be taught and that it's just subject matter knowledge.
I have some questions!
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When you say "objective," do you mean "impartial" or "in touch with noumenal reality," or something else?
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If you think, to take the mechanic example, that it's some blend of creativity/counterfactuals or whatever which exists on top of just brute knowledge, is there anything an omniscient car mechanic would be unable to do (with a car) if he lacked only the power of critical thought? Is critical thought an easier substitute for knowledge? A harder substitute?
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Paths from Status Quo A to SQ B seems too narrow a definition. Critical Thinking is invoked most often as a synonym for "epistemology," but that doesn't involve any transit from one SQ to another- it just tries to figure out what SQ A is. Is that use of the term "critical thinking" a mistake?
I’m coming around to this one too. In schools it’s pretty clear that you either remember the information or you don’t, and that depends on you. Maybe the teacher tells you some mnemonic, but that’s about it. For most subjects there aren’t even multiple ways of explaining a concept. I’ve taught music, and families are just paying for a threat they can use to make the kid practice. Even teaching my kid to ride a bike involved (for Baby Genius) telling her that we weren’t going home until she figured it out, and I’ll be on that bench over there. For Baby Average, it involves making her practice every day. Extra help in something like math usually involves a face-to-face explanation that can’t be tuned out. In each of these cases learning is either automatic or self-directed. In the gym at 6am I can’t think of a counter-example. Somebody dogpile me!
Maybe the place for teacher influence is in the selection of the tasks to be practiced or the info to be learned, which is where Egan seems to offer hope; he has a specific plan, just not a fully developed one. He has decided what kids should learn- schools have decided how LONG kids will learn and then filled that time with busywork.
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