The why of pie: Critical thinking makes mincemeat of fuzzy logic
By:
Marsha Boutelle
One early fall afternoon, Mr. Jones, a high school English teacher, provides the following reading assignment for his pupils: “From your textbook, read Jonathan Swift’s ‘A Modest Proposal,’ and come to class tomorrow prepared to discuss the essay.” The bell signaling the end of class rings, and amid great scraping of chairs and much chatter, students exit the room and head off into the rest of their day.
The next day arrives. Students straggle into class, tumble into their chairs and wait for their teacher to arrive.
“Did you get that essay?” one teenage boy mumbles to another. “Because I totally didn’t get it. It’s stupid.”
“I don’t know,” the other responds. “Was that during the potato famine? Didn’t they have a potato famine in Ireland? Do you think he was serious?”
“It was disgusting,” a girl chimes in. “The author was telling people to eat babies!”
Now Mr. Jones walks in, nodding and waving hello to his students. He heads to the board, where he writes the following words: “Irony.” “Satire.” “Politics.” “Criticism.”
Turning to face the class, he asks, “What is the purpose of this essay?”
Blank stares all around. No one speaks.
Undeterred, Mr. Jones continues.
“What is the problem being described? What do you think of Swift’s proposed solution?”
A few hands inch toward the ceiling. And so begins the students’ introduction to the principles of critical thinking.
The central question
No one would question that the primary function of schools is to teach so that students may learn, but what about teaching students how to think? In an era of standardized tests, and an emphasis on the three Rs, many educators and researchers worry that students and teachers are leaving behind not only a crucial component of a good education but also the skills necessary to lead a productive adult life: knowing how to assess, question and reason in order to make informed decisions, solve problems and communicate effectively.
Employers value critical thinking, communication, technological and collaborative skills but say they are worried that U.S. schools are not producing enough young adults with the ability to meet the demands of a hypercompetitive 21st-century global economy.
According to a study from the National Center for Education Statistics, the United States ranks 24th out of 29 developed countries in students’ critical thinking abilities. Our students score well on standardized tests in language and math, says the NCES, but more than 50 percent fail the short-response section that tests strategic thinking. The scarcity of arts and debate programs in today’s schools only contributes to the dilemma, since those programs emphasize analysis, creativity, comprehension and collaboration.
Given these challenges—along with precedent-shattering budget shortages—what can schools do about this issue, which has such enormous implications for the futures of today’s students as well as the future of the nation’s intellectual and economic standing?
Defining the terms
In a speech this spring on his plans to reform education, President Barack Obama urged states to create standards “that don’t simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking, entrepreneurship and creativity.” Obama and his Education secretary, Arne Duncan, want nothing less than a major overhaul of the U.S. education system “from the cradle up through a career,” the president says.
But how to get from point A to point B, and why is critical thinking such an important component of the president’s education agenda?
“I think what we consider to be and how we define critical thinking is really the question,” says Jack Duran, board president of the Roseville Joint Union High School District east of Sacramento. “CT was the buzzword that started out about 20 years ago. I think it has since evolved.
“For example: When I was in high school,” Duran continues, “we had a course called ‘home economics.’ Basically, it was: ‘We’re going to teach you how to bake a pie, put on dinner, etc.’ But now that same class has evolved into not just following the recipe but creating the recipe, including dietary concerns, good nutrition, the whole making of the pie. Then we add a different component: how to market it, how to produce it, how to get it out to the public. [It’s] a class that used to be ‘paint by numbers,’ but now you have this whole new worldview of the pie. Now we’re asking: ‘Should we even make a pie?’”
“I do like the definition used by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills,” a national advocacy organization, Debbie Blow, assistant superintendent for Educational Services at Encinitas Union Elementary School District 25 miles up the coast from San Diego, says of critical thinking: “You reason effectively, using systems thinking, making judgments and decisions through analysis and interpretation of situations; you problem-solve.”
Asked why this strategy for learning is so important, Blow responds definitively.
“If we’re not teaching our students critical thinking skills, we’re not preparing them for their future,” she says. “Their future is not about memorizing facts. They have to be able to evaluate all that information that’s out there.
“Students need to be able to analyze whether information is from a valid source or not,” Blow adds. “They need to know whether it’s a good source and whether the information is reliable. They have to be taught how to analyze, judge and synthesize information.”
The impact of No Child Left Behind
Blow’s comment about not memorizing facts brings to mind government-mandated education assessments, particularly the No Child Left Behind Act. What impact does NCLB and state testing have, if any, on the teaching of critical thinking skills?
“If we are teaching students CT skills and higher-order thinking skills, we are better preparing them for those standardized assessments,” Blow says. “And that should be the standard for test preparation, because test prep only gets you so far.”
Sandra Kaplan, an associate professor at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education, shares others’ concerns about NCLB, but she also suggests some educators use it as an excuse for unimaginative teaching.
“We need to grow up,” says Kaplan. “NCLB has imposed standardized testing on us. It has never defined the means to the end. There is nothing that says I can’t teach critical thinking while I’m teaching a subject, although I can’t accept that NCLB is completely at fault, as much as I might want to.”
As far as California’s standardized tests go—STAR, CAHSEE and others—Kaplan is a bit more sympathetic.
“Jack O’Connell’s done the best he could, under the circumstances,” Kaplan says. “Although he was talking recently about higher test scores …he was also talking about the need for students to learn to think critically.”
NCLB’s mandates affect education and how it is delivered in many ways, says Roseville board president Duran.
“It puts some onerous requirements on new teachers,” he says. “We have a theme here of critical thinking, but we have to have a lot of bright people on the bus to get this done. …
“What are we assessing?” Duran continues. “How best do we do that? What do grades mean? Are we just assigning a letter grade to a student? Have we really done the job to make sure they understand the concept?
“NCLB is a good thing in the sense that we always have to strive to do a better job. We need criteria. But the question is: How do we balance the need for accountability with the need for delivering education that allows every child the opportunity to optimize their ability to be successful?”
Cyndy Simms is the superintendent at Walnut Valley Unified School District, about 25 miles east of Los Angeles. The district’s motto is “Kids first: Every student, every day,” and the district has developed a “Blueprint for Excellence” that guides its strategy. Simms sees NCLB as a sort of blueprint for schools, but a blueprint open to interpretation.
“School districts have to respect the intentions of NCLB, which assures that every child gets to proficient or advanced,” Simms says. “Simultaneously, I believe many districts—as well as Walnut Valley—realize that there is more to it than that. It takes a professional learning community at every school to think about how children learn. NCLB is a piece of the bigger puzzle of preparing our students to become global citizens.”
21st century strategies
Marla Strich, board president at Encinitas Union ESD, explains why the board chose to focus on 21st century skills a few years ago.
“Sometimes it’s frustrating to just focus on the ‘drill-and-kill’ of standardized tests,” Strich says. “So we really started talking about it at the district level. We incorporated it into our strategic planning process. Now it’s become a very important part of that. We based our plan on the rubric of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.
“For one thing, we’ve really ramped up our use of technology,” Strich explains. “When [students] are doing a podcast or a movie, [they] start by storyboarding. That’s when you really have to stop and think about what you’re doing and how you’re going to do it, which really plays into [the concept of critical thinking].”
But increased use of technology in the classroom is just one component of preparing students to function well in the 21st century. Professional development for teachers is another, to guide “old-school” instructors in turning their students into critical thinkers.
“As a K-6 district, we give students many opportunities to demonstrate their ability to think critically through challenging assignments and projects,” says Encinitas board member Carol Skiljan. “Teachers are given the opportunity to join [professional development] cohort groups such as a writer’s workshop, digital media academy and other coursework in order to enrich their learning opportunities and the classroom environment they provide for their students.”
The Encinitas district also offers a Gifted and Talented Education cohort, as well as a visual and performing arts cohort, for teachers during its Summer Institute, a voluntary three-day program that is continued on a once-a-month basis throughout the school year.
“In Language Arts, teachers learn how to ask students questions where they are analyzing and evaluating,” says Blow. “They ask them to interpret a story they’ve read: ‘What do you think is going to happen?’ Or “Why do you think a character did this?’ The students have to support their response by going back into the text to show how they arrived at their conclusions.
“They learn that it’s not always black or white. Students can come to different conclusions and realize that people have differing opinions, and still respect each others’ opinions.”
Walnut Valley Superintendent Simms says her district is working on four goals to help create “global citizens”: “First, we want to prepare the whole child to be a global citizen: not just academically, but emotionally, socially and physically, as well. Second, we have developed professional learning communities. Third, we have implemented response to intervention into our curriculum. And fourth, we want to assure that students develop emotional intelligence.”
“Our board wanted us to be able to measure our progress,” she adds. “Its role has been in the bigger area of developing our ‘blueprint,’” the circular emblem of which reads: “Promise to Learn. Support to Excel. Courage to Lead.”
“We have a focus on algebra and language arts,” says Roseville board President Duran. “Those are the traditional focus of critical thinking.
“What I would like to see is more emphasis on how [we can] turn all of these students into their own critical thinking masters, taking concepts they learn about critical thinking in language arts and math, and applying them to every subject they study. For example, in P.E. they could ask: ‘How can I master the types of skills I’m trying to learn in exercising?’”
Battling the budget
Every school district feels the sting of draconian cuts to the state’s education budget.
“The lack of investment in education absolutely kills us,” says Strich, in Encinitas. “If you keep peeling back programs because of budget cuts, you are doing a huge disservice to children. That lack of investment hamstrings them.”
Yet, Strich says, so far the district’s focus on increased technology use has produced minimal costs.
“We already had plenty of hardware. The problem was integrating technology into the curriculum. Two years ago, we hired a director of instructional technology. He and a specially trained teacher go out and assist teachers in learning how to implement the technology and integrate it into the curriculum.”
In Walnut Valley, Simms says the district’s class sizes will increase next school year due to budget constraints.
“We are trying to preserve ways to continue professional development and support our teachers,” she continues. “At the end of the day, the teachers are the people who have the most impact on a child’s life.”
“The big change came with Proposition 13, the 1978 law that placed a cap on property taxes and that has played a primary role in reducing education funding in the state, says Blow, Encinitas’ assistant superintendent. “With Prop. 13, we’re near the bottom in [school] funding now. We’ve lost the arts and some of the programs that reach the whole child and really teach critical thinking and creative thinking.”
Asked her reaction to the federal study that ranked the United States 24th out of 29 developed countries in critical thinking, Blow responds gloomily.
“It saddens me,” she says. “I don’t know that I’m surprised, but it does sadden me. That is why critical thinking skills are important, because we need to help children learn strategically and think beyond just ‘right now’ and what the actions are right now.
“Ambiguity is tough, and we have to be able to learn to deal with ambiguity. But you know what? When you get uncomfortable, that’s when you are really learning.”
Marsha Boutelle (mboutelle@csba.org) is a staff writer for California Schools.
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