Meta is accused of halting a study showing Facebook's negative mental health effects, as it faces a potential £1.05 trillion penalty from four US states over addictiveness claims.
If we could focus our schools on one single thing, it would be Critical Thinking Skills. It’s how humans are supposed to think, but it has to be taught, and it has to be practiced. Everything else can be looked up on Google, but Critical Thinking Skills require active intervention to learn. Critical Thinking Skills allow us to immediately recognize and reject nonsense like propaganda and scams, and make proper decision based on facts, not vibes.
Those who don’t have Critical Thinking Skills adopt other chaotic methods of thinking, like Faith-Based Thinking, where you choose to believe anything an accepted authority tells you, no matter how outlandish. Or they embrace conspiracy theories, or fall prey to cults, like Scientology, Mormons, or MAGA.
Conservatives are actively fighting the teaching of Critical Thinking Skills, claiming it encourages children to challenge/ defy authority figures, which is a healthy thing in a healthy society. The real reason is that it teaches people how to recognize their insidious propaganda, which is so vitally important to MAGA success. If people start seeing that propaganda for what it really is, Conservatism is doomed.
I think that there actually is value to rote and memorization. Adding more knowledge to your head expands the possibilities for what thoughts you’re able to have in a way that outsourcing to Google never could. My best example is GPS navigation vs mental mapping. A while ago, I stopped using GPS during my drives, instead spending some time to look over the map and memorize the directions before I set out. Since I started doing this, I have a much clearer mental map of the places I drive through. I can use my mental map to plan efficient outings, since I have a good idea of what places are close together and when/how to take alternate routes to avoid traffic.
The other problem with leaving things to Google is that it makes you less self-reliant and diminishes your ability to unplug from the internet and think and act in the real world. Sure you can use Google Translate, but actually learning a foreign language allows you to participate in conversations, appreciate jokes, and see the world through the lens of the relationships baked into another language (e.g. you see sparks and fireworks as “fire-flowers” because you know the words hibana and hanabi).
Also, analogies and examples form an important underpinning for critical thinking. And the best way to seed a student’s mind with examples is to make them read a lot.
If we could focus our schools on one single thing, it would be Critical Thinking Skills. It’s how humans are supposed to think, but it has to be taught, and it has to be practiced. Everything else can be looked up on Google, but Critical Thinking Skills require active intervention to learn. Critical Thinking Skills allow us to immediately recognize and reject nonsense like propaganda and scams, and make proper decision based on facts, not vibes.
Those who don’t have Critical Thinking Skills adopt other chaotic methods of thinking, like Faith-Based Thinking, where you choose to believe anything an accepted authority tells you, no matter how outlandish. Or they embrace conspiracy theories, or fall prey to cults, like Scientology, Mormons, or MAGA.
Conservatives are actively fighting the teaching of Critical Thinking Skills, claiming it encourages children to challenge/ defy authority figures, which is a healthy thing in a healthy society. The real reason is that it teaches people how to recognize their insidious propaganda, which is so vitally important to MAGA success. If people start seeing that propaganda for what it really is, Conservatism is doomed.
I think that there actually is value to rote and memorization. Adding more knowledge to your head expands the possibilities for what thoughts you’re able to have in a way that outsourcing to Google never could. My best example is GPS navigation vs mental mapping. A while ago, I stopped using GPS during my drives, instead spending some time to look over the map and memorize the directions before I set out. Since I started doing this, I have a much clearer mental map of the places I drive through. I can use my mental map to plan efficient outings, since I have a good idea of what places are close together and when/how to take alternate routes to avoid traffic.
The other problem with leaving things to Google is that it makes you less self-reliant and diminishes your ability to unplug from the internet and think and act in the real world. Sure you can use Google Translate, but actually learning a foreign language allows you to participate in conversations, appreciate jokes, and see the world through the lens of the relationships baked into another language (e.g. you see sparks and fireworks as “fire-flowers” because you know the words hibana and hanabi).
Also, analogies and examples form an important underpinning for critical thinking. And the best way to seed a student’s mind with examples is to make them read a lot.
If we teach kids to think critically it will undermine all the zero tolerance policies