Rosen: Biased 'critical thinking'

Published December 1, 2006 at midnight

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Try a Google search on "critical thinking" and you'll come up with a flood of references. There's even a Foundation for Critical Thinking.

This is one of the more popular, trendy concepts in public education circles these days. In theory, it sounds like a wonderful idea. Teachers should lead students to suspend their beliefs, biases, preconceptions and conventional wisdom in order to evaluate information, ideas, theories, statements, propositions, historical events, political movements, individuals, etc., on the basis of facts, evidence, logic and reason. Who could disagree with this approach?

The world would surely be a better place if everyone, not just students, did this routinely. The problem is in the disconnect between the theory and practice of critical thinking as an educational discipline. Here are a couple of examples:

A recent article in 5280 Magazine extolled the fine efforts of Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet to turn around this underperforming district. As a demonstration of the difficulty of his task, we saw a paper submitted by a 10th grader at a DPS high school who was assigned to "write down five things the U.S. government is currently doing that might be unconstitutional." The student offered two: "1. Bushe cold have help the Katrina people whin it hapin. 2. Bushe should't be tipin in to people's phone."

The student was given a grade of 40 percent for coming up with only two of five assigned items. Apparently, he got them both correct. If this is an example of critical thinking, there must not be any right or wrong answers, much less faulty reasoning.

Of course, this leading question just drips with political agenda. How would a student be graded if he concluded that the administration has not engaged in any unconstitutional acts? But even more troublesome is the obvious fact that this 10th grader is, at best, semi-literate. Do you really imagine that he has even the most basic understanding of the Constitution? Before he's ready to tackle higher-order critical thinking skills, shouldn't he have been taught how to read and write, and then introduced to the U.S. Constitution?

In a freshmen geography class at East High School, students were instructed to "assume the personas of individuals in the next century or after, and write a letter to people in the 21st century, saying what they could and should have done to address global warming before its effects became so devastating." This is indoctrination. The question presumes an outcome that is debatable. Shouldn't a student have the option of questioning the premise? Isn't that a mainstay of critical thinking? How about writing a letter from the not-globally-warmed future thanking those in the early 21st century who had the foresight to resist unfounded claims of global-warming alarmists and avoid squandering trillions of dollars on a fool's errand? This is a possibility, too. How do you suppose that would be graded?

"Critical thinking" is too often a catchall buzzword to justify blatant propagandizing and political activism. That was the lame excuse Overland High School teacher Jay Bennish used to shield himself from accountability when he abused his students with a political tirade denouncing capitalism and comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler.

The problem with the critical thinking approach in practice is that too many of the teachers who employ it don't set aside their biases. We're all the product of our respective experiences, perspectives, perceptions, values, beliefs, ideologies and personal interests. Schoolteachers aren't some kind of detached philosopher-kings. The ones who dominate K-12 (and higher) education are inordinately Democrats, collectivists, liberals, union members, government employees, nannyists, politically correct social engineers, etc. With too few exceptions, I don't trust them to impartially referee exercises in critical thinking for idealistic, impressionable young minds. I believe in the power of ideas. So do activist liberal teachers. I'd just like equal treatment. I wonder if students are ever challenged with questions from the right, not just the left, such as:

• Name fives ways teachers' unions might be obstacles to improving the quality of public education.

• Critique Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and theorize about what motivates American leftists who obsess about their country's shortcomings while downplaying its greatness.

• Explain why the ideology of socialism is in direct conflict with human nature and, consequently, perpetually doomed to failure.

• Read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and give five examples of violations of individual rights in the name of "the common good."

• The mainstream media largely ignore qualified global-warming skeptics. Name five scientists who dispute global-warming theory and explain their arguments.

I invite students, teachers and administrators to contact me with such classroom examples.

Mike Rosen's radio show airs daily from 9 a.m. to noon on 850 KOA. He can be reached by e-mail at mikerosen@850koa.com.

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