Critical thinking

Many literacy teachers confuse their main task of teaching people who to read with some other mission to promote social change or "teach critical thinking." Here Steve Kaufmann of LingQ applies some critical thinking to these ideas.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• change
• critical
• literacy
• social
• thinking

[Tko101488]

I dunno why but the audio is really quiet for me on this video.

[acromel]

They confuse medium and message. Their pompous piety about what is pure and `correct' is as unhelpful as it is inappropriate.

I've always found that the best communicators are not the most verbose, wielding an impressively esoteric vocabulary, but those who are clear. Most of those comments are just illiterate and garbled nonsense.

I can do no better than recommend Stephen Fry's free podcasts. He is a wonderful communicator and uses language superbly. A fine example I think.

[14thetruth]

stopped video at 3:52 to write this.

Ok, She gets a pound of Prozac and a gift certificate for 5 free therapy lessons , you are being transferred to Washington D.C. to your new home in a big White House that you get to live in and work out of.

Theyll be a Limo pulling up at your door at 6:00 a.m. in the morning to take you to the air port where Air Force 1 will be warmed up and ready to go - be ready! Sorry for giving you such short notice, but it happens.

Sincerely,

American Public

[gutaraneko]

Perhaps language teachers sense the triviality of their profession and need to invent ways to feel significant. Krashen's theories have turned language teachers into little more than comprehensible input providers.

[richardmullins44]

she might be saying something quite similar to what you believe? I think she is.

[zimmermann10]

I think the same way!

[bjorinn]

Those teachers want to learn people how to value what they read in a certain way. They seem to be a part of the same kind of political correct elite as we have here in Sweden and the rest of Western Europe.

[JeanMichelAbrassart]

I think it's important to teach critical thinking skills, but when I teach language I don't feel at all like I'm teaching critical thinking. That's another subject.

[mitchhsansom]

You should read Kevin McDonald's The Culture of Critique. It's about the this type of intellectualism.

[robolobo360]

I took an ideology course in college and decided early in the course that I would take the professor's views with a grain of salt. Butting heads with the professor would've just caused too many headaches.

[yahags]

Awesome video!

Great to know there are still sane people in the world!