Worth a Listen, Look or Read #15 — It's Critical to Think Critically
"Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider." — Francis Bacon
Jeff Ikler here for Kirsten Richert with our weekly “Getting Unstuck” mini feature: Here in about five minutes, we extend the idea of this week’s podcast with some related content that we feel is definitely “Worth a Listen, Look or Read.”
The idea
This week we talked with Casey Jakubowski, PhD, a K12 Social Studies Educator. https://bit.ly/3t18bPW Our conversation dove into the classic debates about the purpose of teaching U.S. History:
• Do we focus on instilling in kids a sense of patriotism, or do we focus on examining our nation in practice versus its promise?
• Do we continue teaching via the traditional chronological romp through more than 400 years of history, or do we teach history via recurring themes?
Underlying these debates is the role of skills instruction, specifically how much should the teaching of U.S. history and government simply be the context for helping students develop the skills they will need later in life: skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and innovation, communication, and collaboration; information literacy, media literacy, flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, accountability, and leadership and responsibility? Whew!
Taking the idea deeper
Let’s go deeper with this idea of skills development and focus on critical thinking, which I’ll define as the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue or data to form a judgment. Why critical thinking? If you do a cursory review of career planning websites, critical thinking — or its close cousins of inquiry and problem solving — is always mentioned as a top life skill that job applicants need. Employers are looking for people who can analyze a situation from various perspectives and work with others to problem solve.
And U.S. colleges and universities know this from a major survey they conducted of businesses:
A National Survey of Business and Nonprofit Leaders: Key Findings
“Nearly all employers surveyed (93 percent) say that “a demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than [a candidate’s] undergraduate major.”
In thinking about my conversation with Casey, I was reminded of the iconic scene in Good Will Hunting where Will eviscerates a fellow bar patron on the folly of simply regurgitating information versus thinking critically about it, making personal sense of it, and or using it in new situations.
Not surprisingly, the National Council for the Social Studies makes the point in its C3 framework that “Inquiry is at the heart of social studies. Social studies emphasizes skills and practices as preparation for democratic decision-making.”
So, too, the Stanford History Education Group provides teachers with free instructional materials that help young people evaluate online content, so that they can make informed decisions.
A slippery slope OK, so the development of critical thinking is seen as critical for a students’ later success in life. . . but it’s under siege. Three data points:
1. Before he left office, President Trump commissioned a “pro-American curriculum that celebrates the truth about our nation’s great history,” one that would encourage educators to teach students about the “miracle of American history.” While most historians have been strongly critical of the the framework, it does reflect the popular idea that instruction should weigh heavily on inculcating the promise of America and its achievements.
2. As a reaction to the concept of “critical race theory,” school boards and state legislatures are the scenes of debates and now legislation over what teachers can and can’t teach about race.
3. This last piece is a bit obscure, but it’s symbolic. The Battle of Blair Mountain in Logan County, West Virginia, fought in September 1921 was the largest battle on our national soil since the Civil War. It pitted union miners against the coal industry owners. If you’ve never heard of this battle, you’re not alone. The coal industry made sure the battle’s causes and repercussions were never included in the state history books. Why was it fought? Could it have been avoided? What were its lessons? Most students will never have a chance to wrestle with those questions. We have to ask the question, what other events in history are we holding back from students because of their sensitivity?
Putting the idea to work
Depending on your role in school, ask these questions:
• What happens when we limit the development of a student’s critical thinking?
• What happens if students are not allowed to weigh in on any historical topic and make their own informed opinions?
• What happens if other topics are slowly considered “too radical” to include in the social studies curriculum?