Critical Thinkers

"We need a reclama, a major 'do-over' for the way we are teaching kids. Our current method might have worked just okay years ago but falls far short of what is needed today."

In the movie "The Wizard of Oz", Dorothy became friends with a scarecrow. The scarecrow wanted to see the Wizard of Oz to ask for a brain? Why? In his words, he wanted people to "think more of me when you hear the splendid thoughts my new brain is going to turn out." Bingo! That is what we should want from all of us. Not to be brain numbed robot, who has been indoctrinated by socialists in our government school system. Like the scarecrow with his new brain, we need critical thinkers going forward.

I don't know how many times I have heard this in the recent past. Tomorrow's jobs (like in just a few years from now) will be different than today's jobs. Many of the jobs which exist today will no longer exist, and the newer ones are not yet created. Huh? How in the world can you prepare yourself for a future which is still undefined? What do we teach our young ones? Quite simply this - teach them to be critical thinkers. Have hungry minds. If they can do that, the future will find them.

 

 

Okay - so what are critical thinking skills? A common definition follows: " Critical thinking is the disciplined process of making informed decisions and judgements, essential for effective problem solving and reasoning." Why is that important? The lay of the land in the near future is just starting to take shape. In order to be employable, be of use in the new economy, our young people need to be nimble and sharp. Be interested and interesting. Be engaged and engageable.

How are we doing so far? The first step towards critical thinking is being able to read and absorb. 40% of all American 4th graders cannot read at their grade level. That is terrible. And with kids in poverty, the story gets worse. 70% of them cannot read at grade level. Even if a kid does not know much about math or science, the skill of reading and absorbing what was read is a critical success factor. Without that skill, the opportunities in the future will be greatly diminished.

Our schools, our universities, are not prepping our kids the right way for the future. It has gotten so bad, that even the Ivy Leage colleges need to have remedial reading and math courses for incoming freshmen. Why? So, they have a fighting chance once they get to "real" college courses. We need a reclama, a major "do-over" for the way we are teaching kids. Our current method might have worked "just okay" years ago but falls far short of what is needed today.

One final thought - is "screen time" bad for kids? It depends on what the screen is showing. If it is some kind of banality or time-wasting activity, screen time is bad. But if it is something which will take the thinking process deeper and wider and be enriching, screen time can be a plus up. It is up to the parents and grandparents to figure out which is which. Trust me, it is not that hard to do.