As a retired 28 year veteran educator I have long seen our roles as teachers as that of waiters and waitresses in a respectable restaurant. (The principal is the manager, the assistant principals the maître d’s.) We try to interest our patrons and customers in trying something besides cheeseburgers, peperoni pizza, and French fries, to move outside of their banal comfort zone to explore a more challenging bill of fare of delectable dishes and culinary creations. Some are the latest haute cuisine, some are traditional classics. Most students will remain in their gastronomical rut, but we should always endeavor to work towards expanding their plurality of choices, particularly in the global technetronic village in which we all now inhabit.

Here’s something that may be an item that parents and the educational community may wish to consider reflecting upon and discussing.

Let’s stop trying to teach students critical thinking

A longtime friend sent it to me years ago and the counter-intuitive yet probing questions it asks has sure got me thinking again.

It strikes at the root assumptions of my philosophy of education I have deeply held for almost 42 years, to strive and encourage a climate of critical thinking and disinterested reflection in my students in order foster their intellectual growth and maturity as well as building their self-esteem and integrity. I have always held the ideal of disinterestedness set forth by Matthew Arnold a prime directive.

Respect is Key to Education (my philosophy of education)

Excerpt from the article:

“Criticism, according to Victorian cultural critic Matthew Arnold, is a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world. We should all be as “bound” by that definition as he was. We need only to teach the best that is known and thought and ‘criticism’ will take care of itself. That is a lesson from 100 years ago that every teacher should learn.”

But is this simply driving down the curricular road looking in the rear view mirror (the best that is known and thought in the world)? What once was regarded as the grand fortifying tradition of liberal education in the West studying the great works of the greatest minds? Such an educational approach, once almost universal in higher education, is now only fostered in a handful of cloistered institutions, and demonized, scorned and vilified in most.

Could it even be attempted in small bits in the cookie cutter, one-size fits all ubiquitous compulsory attendance government classrooms of hapless functional illiterates and amoral thugs where teachers are compelled to meet such a vast array of petty standardized bureaucratic guidelines and woke ideological expectations “in teaching to the test” and not developing critical thinking?

The Best of Charles Burris