The reason kids today don't "pause and reflect" isn't that they can't think. It's because we've spent years teaching them to swipe, scroll, and let their phones hand them answers before they ever read a Mark Twain (Dopamine is the hormone that functions while scrolling on a phone). A kid who grows up glued to a screen never practices sitting quietly with a hard idea long enough to actually test it. In Twain's time, survival was the teacher. Today, the phone is the teacher—and the phone is built to do one thing: make you agree without ever thinking about it. You can't fix that with a school lesson on critical thinking if every other hour of the day is training kids to do the exact opposite. Note: Phone scrolling: Dopamine arrives in rapid, unpredictable bursts while cortisol spikes intermittently. This creates what researchers call "dopamine-scrolling"—a pattern that trains the brain for quick reactions rather than sustained reflection.
I thought about you and your Substack the other day while watching the viral clip of the teacher in Houston ISD break down in tears over the fact that his students (17/18 YO) could not fill in the blanks even though he supplied them the answers. Those kids are screwed, not because they are not capable, but because the ground they have lost is virtually unredeemable. The Houston ISD responded to the video by giving the usual blah, blah, blah. No one is held accountable for anything, so the race is not to excellance but to the bottom because god forbid you make kids feel bad. This, of course, followed your prior psot on acutal teachers comments, none of which were encouraging. The reason I am stating the obvious here, is that there is still a tendency to think if we could just have someone eplain things more or better. Twain and his generation (& subsquent generations after him) had the teacker of all teachers- survival or the need to survive. You don’t work, you don’t eat; you don’t eat, you.die. The bridge between the Greatest Generation & the Boomers created this idea that education (formal education) was the end all and be all and it is not. The one remark from the teachers that stunned me was the teacher who said, “it is learned helplessness’. So that becomes their MO. This, of course, has always been thus. Problem is never before in history has mankind reach this level of critical mass. I have no doubt that there are many pockets of people, like you, who know the solutions and in the end nature will right the ship, but I felt that teacher’s agony. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
Everything is changing in America. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke, when it used to be visa versa. - November 22, 1932 Will Rogers
As important as his writings and humor are to American history, I am under the impression his characters such as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are too racist for today's young students to be allowed to explore. I also had "heard" that trying to read an accent is too difficult for them. He will be lost to a culture that has no appreciation for his artful writing and observations.
In Socratic thought wasn’t the natural order the standard of comparison for examining ‘assumptions’? We used to learn that Natural philosophy became narrative philosophy starting with Plato’s cave hypothesis.
John; I think that deductive reasoning is the only physically possible mode of thinking because of the feedback loop. Inductive logic tends to deal with what should be rather than what is. Consensus can only be enforced not reasoned unless all participants can agree on reality, partisanship can never negotiate.
Henry: Getting all parties to agree on reality (priorities, etc.) sounds straightforward, but is extremely difficult — particulalrly when they are not Critical Thinkers.
The old and obviously outdated rational system of thought evolved through natural sciences (common sense). Deductive reasoning is common sense; trial and error learning and open to argument or interpretation. Inductive reasoning or ecclesiastical logic or the Noble lie are all individual hypotheses of what should be. What should be tends to be the best outcome for the inductive thinker/fanatic.
My personal favourite is Plato and his cave…I think that is the point when natural philosophy morphed into narrative philosophy. The Noble lie has been the elite’s secret weapon against the proletariat except when the elite believes the noble lies and fall to their hubris.
All this is true, BUT, when one expects decisions to be made on what one is proposing there is one more step after "question their own unexamined beliefs." It's to be one's own best/worst "devil's advocate." Think of every contrary argument or question that may be proposed. Try to shred your own argument. If one is good at clawing through prior "knowledge." then one can surely attempt to attack one's own reasoning. It is actually quite satisfying (and humbling) when one finds an error. .... bandglynch@gmail.com
I learned Mark Twain's "pause and reflect" method in my middle school plane geometry class. You can't construct a correct theorem without it. Maybe it would be good to emphasize this to students — if schools even teach Euclid's Elements any more.
Mark Twain was born at the time that Halley's Comet made its orbit around earth...and died 75 years later, when Halley's Comet returned. I visited Mark Twain's beautiful home in Hartford, Connecticut. I was impressed with its beautiful wide staircase. I had just visited Louisa May Alcott's home...and there was a contrast. The stairway going up to the second floor was very narrow.
Great post, Mark Twain is an American legend. I think "Roughing It" was my favorite Twain book. He had wisdom, humor and yes, he was a critical thinker for sure.
One of my favorites was "That Awful German Language." Just a few pages, but you'll be laughing and falling off your chair after the first page. One favorite sentence was "When a literate German dives into a sentence he arrives on the other side of his Atlantic with a verb in his teeth." When the infinitive of a verb is used, it must appear at the end. You never ask the waiter "Darf Ich bitte haben die Rechnung?" (may I please have the check?) You must say "Darf Ich bitte die Rechnung haben?" (may I please the check [to] have?).
The Phone Is the Teacher Now 📱 🏫
The reason kids today don't "pause and reflect" isn't that they can't think. It's because we've spent years teaching them to swipe, scroll, and let their phones hand them answers before they ever read a Mark Twain (Dopamine is the hormone that functions while scrolling on a phone). A kid who grows up glued to a screen never practices sitting quietly with a hard idea long enough to actually test it. In Twain's time, survival was the teacher. Today, the phone is the teacher—and the phone is built to do one thing: make you agree without ever thinking about it. You can't fix that with a school lesson on critical thinking if every other hour of the day is training kids to do the exact opposite. Note: Phone scrolling: Dopamine arrives in rapid, unpredictable bursts while cortisol spikes intermittently. This creates what researchers call "dopamine-scrolling"—a pattern that trains the brain for quick reactions rather than sustained reflection.
Carol: I agree that the phone situation is bad, but I have not given up fixing it. One of the ways is to get kids to think critically.
I thought about you and your Substack the other day while watching the viral clip of the teacher in Houston ISD break down in tears over the fact that his students (17/18 YO) could not fill in the blanks even though he supplied them the answers. Those kids are screwed, not because they are not capable, but because the ground they have lost is virtually unredeemable. The Houston ISD responded to the video by giving the usual blah, blah, blah. No one is held accountable for anything, so the race is not to excellance but to the bottom because god forbid you make kids feel bad. This, of course, followed your prior psot on acutal teachers comments, none of which were encouraging. The reason I am stating the obvious here, is that there is still a tendency to think if we could just have someone eplain things more or better. Twain and his generation (& subsquent generations after him) had the teacker of all teachers- survival or the need to survive. You don’t work, you don’t eat; you don’t eat, you.die. The bridge between the Greatest Generation & the Boomers created this idea that education (formal education) was the end all and be all and it is not. The one remark from the teachers that stunned me was the teacher who said, “it is learned helplessness’. So that becomes their MO. This, of course, has always been thus. Problem is never before in history has mankind reach this level of critical mass. I have no doubt that there are many pockets of people, like you, who know the solutions and in the end nature will right the ship, but I felt that teacher’s agony. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
Sheila: Good, I think you get it! Now, what are YOU going to do about this disaster?
Everything is changing in America. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke, when it used to be visa versa. - November 22, 1932 Will Rogers
"Mayday" is the appropriate call out...
As important as his writings and humor are to American history, I am under the impression his characters such as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are too racist for today's young students to be allowed to explore. I also had "heard" that trying to read an accent is too difficult for them. He will be lost to a culture that has no appreciation for his artful writing and observations.
Linda: That would be a real shame.
In Socratic thought wasn’t the natural order the standard of comparison for examining ‘assumptions’? We used to learn that Natural philosophy became narrative philosophy starting with Plato’s cave hypothesis.
Henry: I'm not positive, but I think so.
John; I think that deductive reasoning is the only physically possible mode of thinking because of the feedback loop. Inductive logic tends to deal with what should be rather than what is. Consensus can only be enforced not reasoned unless all participants can agree on reality, partisanship can never negotiate.
Henry: Getting all parties to agree on reality (priorities, etc.) sounds straightforward, but is extremely difficult — particulalrly when they are not Critical Thinkers.
The old and obviously outdated rational system of thought evolved through natural sciences (common sense). Deductive reasoning is common sense; trial and error learning and open to argument or interpretation. Inductive reasoning or ecclesiastical logic or the Noble lie are all individual hypotheses of what should be. What should be tends to be the best outcome for the inductive thinker/fanatic.
Henry: Who was it that made deductive reasoning "outdated"?
My personal favourite is Plato and his cave…I think that is the point when natural philosophy morphed into narrative philosophy. The Noble lie has been the elite’s secret weapon against the proletariat except when the elite believes the noble lies and fall to their hubris.
All this is true, BUT, when one expects decisions to be made on what one is proposing there is one more step after "question their own unexamined beliefs." It's to be one's own best/worst "devil's advocate." Think of every contrary argument or question that may be proposed. Try to shred your own argument. If one is good at clawing through prior "knowledge." then one can surely attempt to attack one's own reasoning. It is actually quite satisfying (and humbling) when one finds an error. .... bandglynch@gmail.com
I learned Mark Twain's "pause and reflect" method in my middle school plane geometry class. You can't construct a correct theorem without it. Maybe it would be good to emphasize this to students — if schools even teach Euclid's Elements any more.
Van: Yes a simple but helpful consideration.
Mark Twain was born at the time that Halley's Comet made its orbit around earth...and died 75 years later, when Halley's Comet returned. I visited Mark Twain's beautiful home in Hartford, Connecticut. I was impressed with its beautiful wide staircase. I had just visited Louisa May Alcott's home...and there was a contrast. The stairway going up to the second floor was very narrow.
Barbara: Interesting observation about Helley's Comet...
Great post, Mark Twain is an American legend. I think "Roughing It" was my favorite Twain book. He had wisdom, humor and yes, he was a critical thinker for sure.
One of my favorites was "That Awful German Language." Just a few pages, but you'll be laughing and falling off your chair after the first page. One favorite sentence was "When a literate German dives into a sentence he arrives on the other side of his Atlantic with a verb in his teeth." When the infinitive of a verb is used, it must appear at the end. You never ask the waiter "Darf Ich bitte haben die Rechnung?" (may I please have the check?) You must say "Darf Ich bitte die Rechnung haben?" (may I please the check [to] have?).
Nadia: He indeed was an interesting character...