Instead of Critical Thinking they're teaching Critical Theory.
Early 20th century Marxists were confused that the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution had only worked in feudal agrarian societies. Why had it not swept the world, or at least Western Europe? Fanon, Sartre, Lukacz, Horkheimer, Marcuse, … wrote about this. Marcuse worked out (and wrote) that capitalism is actually good for the worker, which allowed capitalists to join the Marxist camp. Their solution: More division sown by more species of the Marxist genus: Race hustling (this is actually very old— a contemporary of Frederick Douglass wrote "there is a class of men who do not want the patient to get better"), feminism, drug culture, free love, queer (their word), genderism, unlimited immigration without assimilation, global warming and the Green New Steal, … all stitched together by intersectionality, into "Critical Theory" — criticize everything about society, to create chaos, to their advantage.
Watch the best 30-minute explanation of Marxism, writ large, at https://youtu.be/y6rk1mYiOAw Dr. James Lindsay does an excellent and enjoyable job of stitching together all the disparate pieces into a single garment.
Gramsci's "long march through the institutions" began with schools when John Dewey returned from Stalin's Potemkin Villages in 1923 and set out to wreck American education by recasting it in the Soviet mold. Now they have media, and entertainment, and many corporations' boards of directors too.
The Democrat party has become the Wuhan Institute of Virology, creating Gain of Function of the cultural AIDS virus destroying society's immune system, the pillars of stable society written in The First Amendment: Moral religiosity (i.e., anything other than The Religion of "Peace"), honest media, open discussion, all protected by the Second Amendment.
Tremendous and continuous work will be required to combat Marxist chaos.
The first thing children should be taught in kindergarten... how to eat the right foods in order to be healthy and be able to think. The wrong food destroy the glands, which provide memory. I learned from experience. I had difficulty remembering as hard as I tried in school. After I got into the study of nutrition at 27, I went back to college at 31 and made top grades in my classes. The right foods provide brain power as well as energy and good health
The only way to assess relative progress is via proper test metrics. A "good" test will display a Gaussian (bell-shaped) distribution, with no pileup of students answering all questions correctly. Such a distribution will allow differentiation among all students as well as differentiation among low performers (lowest 20%) and among high performer (highest 20%). The ratio of the knowledge of the 80% student to the 20% student is a factor of almost 4 (1.7 standard deviations). The grade-to-grade steps in knowledge of the average (50%) students is also - ideally and actually - about a factor of 4. The high end tail of the Gaussian of the lower grade overlaps the low end grade of the higher grade. A teacher whose students have moved to higher percentiles is a "good" teacher and needs to be rewarded rather than ignored. Solitary students who are showing percentile gains are demonstrating better motivation and interest. A good principal might have the class teacher join with another teacher at that grade to give individual "oral exams" to individual students in the lowest 20%. The goal is not to more accurately rank them but to find out what their special situations might be. The joint note on each student can be passed on by the principal to the subsequent teacher (presumably in a higher grade). The current teacher might also try to determine what additional aids might be beneficial for an upper 20-percentile student. Neglecting the latter students to just float along is actually harmful to them and to our future society. I have not given examples of the "proper" metrics for making comparisons (gaps), but they do not consist of numerical differences in test scores or in "passing" percentages. They are initiated as ratios because the test score axis itself is NOT a measure of knowledge, but of relative knowledge. One standard deviation - measured anywhere within the Gaussian - represents a factor of about 2.2 in "relative" knowledge. ... Bill Lynch ... bandglynch@gmail.com
When I was an adjunct associate professor, I remarked to the Dean that I loved lecturing and meeting the students, but I hated marking papers. He offered me a reader to mark them. I replied "Hell no! How do I know what isn't working!"
The solution is much more weighting on standardized term tests for each grade and subject in order to avoid grade inflation by teacher personal relationships with students.
Eg. In universities, unsupervised work is typically weighted only 20%. Term tests are 80%
Eg. In K-12 it is typically the other way, term tests only 20% if at all. Homework done with parental help or AI is NOT, and must not, be the assessment practice, and needs to be outlawed in K-12.
Learning needs to be based on memorization and logical reasoning from first principles, not looking it up on the internet.
Carolyn Dweck, a Stranford University Ph.D., researcher says that intelligence is developable. In short, wtih the right curruculum (that develops critical thinking) the student gets smarter.
You are absolutely correct. A good curriculum in the hands of an inspirational teacher not only lights a fire under the student, but can light a fire within the student.
Enthusiastic teachers are themselves inspired (that is the words etymology). That comes about more readily inside a gracious (not legalistic) faith community focued on learning.
Another eye opener: Where A is Ordinary. Teachers College Record. Vol 114 no 7. By Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy
Instead of Critical Thinking they're teaching Critical Theory.
Early 20th century Marxists were confused that the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution had only worked in feudal agrarian societies. Why had it not swept the world, or at least Western Europe? Fanon, Sartre, Lukacz, Horkheimer, Marcuse, … wrote about this. Marcuse worked out (and wrote) that capitalism is actually good for the worker, which allowed capitalists to join the Marxist camp. Their solution: More division sown by more species of the Marxist genus: Race hustling (this is actually very old— a contemporary of Frederick Douglass wrote "there is a class of men who do not want the patient to get better"), feminism, drug culture, free love, queer (their word), genderism, unlimited immigration without assimilation, global warming and the Green New Steal, … all stitched together by intersectionality, into "Critical Theory" — criticize everything about society, to create chaos, to their advantage.
Watch the best 30-minute explanation of Marxism, writ large, at https://youtu.be/y6rk1mYiOAw Dr. James Lindsay does an excellent and enjoyable job of stitching together all the disparate pieces into a single garment.
Gramsci's "long march through the institutions" began with schools when John Dewey returned from Stalin's Potemkin Villages in 1923 and set out to wreck American education by recasting it in the Soviet mold. Now they have media, and entertainment, and many corporations' boards of directors too.
The Democrat party has become the Wuhan Institute of Virology, creating Gain of Function of the cultural AIDS virus destroying society's immune system, the pillars of stable society written in The First Amendment: Moral religiosity (i.e., anything other than The Religion of "Peace"), honest media, open discussion, all protected by the Second Amendment.
Tremendous and continuous work will be required to combat Marxist chaos.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
The first thing children should be taught in kindergarten... how to eat the right foods in order to be healthy and be able to think. The wrong food destroy the glands, which provide memory. I learned from experience. I had difficulty remembering as hard as I tried in school. After I got into the study of nutrition at 27, I went back to college at 31 and made top grades in my classes. The right foods provide brain power as well as energy and good health
The only way to assess relative progress is via proper test metrics. A "good" test will display a Gaussian (bell-shaped) distribution, with no pileup of students answering all questions correctly. Such a distribution will allow differentiation among all students as well as differentiation among low performers (lowest 20%) and among high performer (highest 20%). The ratio of the knowledge of the 80% student to the 20% student is a factor of almost 4 (1.7 standard deviations). The grade-to-grade steps in knowledge of the average (50%) students is also - ideally and actually - about a factor of 4. The high end tail of the Gaussian of the lower grade overlaps the low end grade of the higher grade. A teacher whose students have moved to higher percentiles is a "good" teacher and needs to be rewarded rather than ignored. Solitary students who are showing percentile gains are demonstrating better motivation and interest. A good principal might have the class teacher join with another teacher at that grade to give individual "oral exams" to individual students in the lowest 20%. The goal is not to more accurately rank them but to find out what their special situations might be. The joint note on each student can be passed on by the principal to the subsequent teacher (presumably in a higher grade). The current teacher might also try to determine what additional aids might be beneficial for an upper 20-percentile student. Neglecting the latter students to just float along is actually harmful to them and to our future society. I have not given examples of the "proper" metrics for making comparisons (gaps), but they do not consist of numerical differences in test scores or in "passing" percentages. They are initiated as ratios because the test score axis itself is NOT a measure of knowledge, but of relative knowledge. One standard deviation - measured anywhere within the Gaussian - represents a factor of about 2.2 in "relative" knowledge. ... Bill Lynch ... bandglynch@gmail.com
When I was an adjunct associate professor, I remarked to the Dean that I loved lecturing and meeting the students, but I hated marking papers. He offered me a reader to mark them. I replied "Hell no! How do I know what isn't working!"
The solution is much more weighting on standardized term tests for each grade and subject in order to avoid grade inflation by teacher personal relationships with students.
Eg. In universities, unsupervised work is typically weighted only 20%. Term tests are 80%
Eg. In K-12 it is typically the other way, term tests only 20% if at all. Homework done with parental help or AI is NOT, and must not, be the assessment practice, and needs to be outlawed in K-12.
Learning needs to be based on memorization and logical reasoning from first principles, not looking it up on the internet.
Carolyn Dweck, a Stranford University Ph.D., researcher says that intelligence is developable. In short, wtih the right curruculum (that develops critical thinking) the student gets smarter.
Marty: Absolutely. Another key factor is motivation. Motivated students do better.
You are absolutely correct. A good curriculum in the hands of an inspirational teacher not only lights a fire under the student, but can light a fire within the student.
Enthusiastic teachers are themselves inspired (that is the words etymology). That comes about more readily inside a gracious (not legalistic) faith community focued on learning.