Hi Kearney,

 

Excellent points everyone.  Learning is like placing a ladder against a
building and climbing it.  Critical thinking (1) gets us to examine why we
are placing our ladder against that building and (2) helps us remain open so
that we can reposition our ladder as new information and thoughts become
available.  It is a shame to finally get to the top of the ladder and
realize that we are on the wrong roof.  As we remain open to new thoughts
and ideas, we can make sure that we end up on the right roof top.

 

Excellent discussion everyone.

 

Jeff Brown

Alpha Computer Training and Consulting

(902)956-2600

E-mail: info at alphacomputer.ca

www.alphacomputer.ca

 

From: professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Andrea Wilder
Sent: July-10-08 12:42 PM
To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 2247] Re: What do we mean
bystudentinvolvement and critical thinking?

 

Kearney--

 

I agree with your statement.  It accords  with my experience in the martial
arts, where one thanks the teacher for corrections.  The possibility of
"being wrong" is a tremendous hurdle to overcome.   However, I have found it
possible to transfer the skill of acceptance for being wrong to other areas.
I think this skill goes against the American grain.

 

Andrea

 

On Jul 10, 2008, at 11:19 AM, Kearney Lykins wrote:





I would proffer that critical thinking is not so much a skill as it is an
attitude; at least it starts there. 

 

Because critical thinking exposes oneself to the possibility of being shown
that he is wrong, it is more about being open to ambiguity and change. These
are not skills per se; it is really about overcoming the will. Montaigne's
essays come to mind as exemplars of critical examinations about how one
initially thinks the world and oneself "is", and after honest reflection and
observation, revising one's opinion's about things. Critical thinking is
concerned with growth and change and these always carry risk. A willingness
to accept risk is paramount.  

 

Any attempt to "teach critical thinking" will be lost on those who are not
ready to accept its consequences. 

 

I have never heard a teacher say, "today we are going to learn about
critical thinking." 

 

 

Kearney

----- Original Message ----
From: Janet Isserlis <Janet_Isserlis at brown.edu>
To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List
<professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov>
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 8:31:03 AM
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 2243] Re: What do we mean
bystudentinvolvement and critical thinking?

I think we're also losing (or maybe teasing apart?) some of the finer
distinctions between critical thinking and persuasive arguing.

Sometimes saying it again, saying it more loudly may sway a listener.  But
it's easy to be loud, and even sequential , and yet still not think
critically.

Think of some politician whose views you don't share.  S/he may be clear,
have a beginning, middle and end of her/his oration, and yet, at the end of
the day, hasn't problematized anything, hasn't asked him/herself to think
about something differently and/or imagine different outcomes and certainly
hasn't moved his/her audience beyond the thing they were thinking about the
candidate or the issue before they came to the rally, the speech, the
demonstration.

In other words, it feels like some of this thread is parsing out the things
people need to be able to do to articulate ideas, but we're not (entirely)
quite digging into what has to happen to think critically.

Maybe it's a continuum of sorts - to engage in a project, we analyze what
we'll do, what the goals are, what the outcomes might be, etc.  But to then
push ourselves a bit more critically, we might ask why the project is
important, who gains or loses / in whose interest are we undertaking the
project...?

It is fascinating.

Janet

 

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