Chris+Knortz+Go+Fix+It+Annotation+2

1. Rose, Robert. “Critical Thinking: Impossible to Teach in Schools?” Huffingtonpost.com 2009. []

2. Robert Rose is a writer for the online organization, Huffingtonpost.com. He has worked most of his life as a teacher in southern California. There he tries to bring an open style to his teaching. Also he has written many instructional books of the science of teaching.

3. The article discusses the lack of critical thinking in many students in the primary education system. He places the problem on the teachers and their lack of understanding of exactly how to challenge their students to critical thinking without causing disturbances in the class room. Rose goes through several different methods to approach asking such difficult question of students. One reason he was allowed to ask such challenging question was his policy of open and honest respect between him and the students. He describes policies of open questioning of the teacher and parents. This created an environment that encouraged different opinions and views. 4. Rose allowed such an open class atmosphere, he discussed the values and draw backs of communism in 1961, when California had banned such action. This exercise shows the ability of students to grasp ideas and see them from different angles, to create their own options, even when society was pushing strongly in one direction. In the opening of the article Rose discusses the difference between critical thinking and cleaver thinking. Cleaver thinking is easily taught in school, this is a manner of organizing thought and action. This is evident even in college level education, students are thought a method to solve a problem, and not why they should solve it. The point was also made that it is nearly impossible to teach critical thinking in a classroom setting. His reasons for this are the established system in schools punishes ideas that are different form the established beliefs of the system. This leaves little to no room of questioning established knowledge.

5. What three quotes capture the critical import of the text? “Dr.Christianna Alger states that asking the right questions may build a critical thinking classroom. Many of the times you see baffled looks from students is due to the question not being clearly stated.” “This does not and cannot happen in the way our schools are structured with their hierarchical power base that punishes thinking that differs from the status quo.” “Until teachers have the freedom to teach using the best of their abilities without fear of job loss or constant harassment and students have the freedom to honestly, civilly disagree there cannot be critical thinking.”

6. This article shows good example why such thinking is not tough in schools, it encourages students to challenges the authority in the school and teachers. Rose gives the good example of teaching about communism during the Cold War, such open-minded and challenging teaching encouraged the students to develop their own ideas instead of latching on to those of people around them.

7. Rose was able to teach about communism during a political charged time in history. This can be compared to teaching new and different ideas at any time. This involves challenging the beliefs and ideas of the students, forcing them to better understand their values and the values of their position. This style of teaching in not generally practiced because of the potential to challenge the authority of the school. Also this style leaves little room to focus on specific skills. Many primary schools now have become focused on standardized test. These tests are used to judge a schools performance, then depending on scores open the school to greater funding. This emphasis on standardized test shifts the focus to learning facts and procedures for problems, what Rose called cleaver thinking. These can be valuable skill but they do not teach the students to be better people.

[]