Free your mind!

Humphrey has been doing some thinking – you might even call it critical thinking – after hearing about the recent Republican Party of Texas 2012 education platform that seems to want people to free their minds from any semblance of thought! Here is a direct quote from the platform itself:

Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

Now, this doesn't come as a big surprise to Humphrey. He's read about the objections to critical thinking for some time. And in fact, he's pretty sure employers really don't want critical thinkers working for them - because let's face it, those who think critically are kind of pains in ass, always questioning and never blindly following instructions; sometimes even getting into arguments.

He remembered some things Neil Postman has said on the matter. Though Postman is in favour of critical thinking as a central aim of education, he suggests that there are a variety of popular arguments against it. Proponents of the neo-conservative position, Postman suggested back in 2000 (what a visionary!), might perceive critical thinking as dangerous:[1]

if we allow, indeed, encourage, our children to think critically, their questioning of constituted authority would almost certainly be one result. We might even say that ‘critical thinking’ works to undermine the idea of education as a national resource, since a free-thinking populace might reject the goals of its nation-state and disturb the smooth functioning of its institutions.

This highlights an argument against critical thinking that’s quite consistent with the GOP position in Texas. There are two important aspects to this argument: first, the worry that authority might be questioned, and second, that the status-quo of education would be disrupted. Now, these concerns are not unwar­rant­ed. But should challenging authority and the status quo in education be of concern in a society that values democratic beliefs? Without a doubt, critical thinkers would be compelled to challenge authority in various contexts – in schools, in govern­ment, and in the workplace. Though we this is not a negative result in Humphrey’s opinion, some in positions of authority may not relish engaging in discussion, nor being accountable to respond to questions of their authority.

Now, Humprhey's canine pals Dieter and Toby from New Brunswick reminded him of something important: critical thinking is not a "skill" that can be taught, and so perhaps the GOP has arrived at the right stance, but for the wrong reasons. And moreover, the eastern dogs fear that "critical thinking" (if over-emphasized) can interfere with other equally (or more) important educational aims.  While Humphrey doesn't disagree, he also believes that critical thinking does have an important place in education. And of course what people mean by critical thinking is still highly disputed! Is critical thinking skills? Dispostions? Both? Neither? Can it even be taught? Well, that all depends on what you read. Humphrey will elaborate on this in some future post, probably.

Now, Humphrey adores the work of the late, motorcycle-riding philosophical renegade Paul Feyerabend (his essay, How to Defend Society Against Science, rocked Humphrey's world). While he doesn't use the term , here's what Feyerabend says about something that Humphrey definitely thinks is the equivalent of critical thinking (and Humphrey prefaces this by stating Feyerabend's position is that education often consists of teaching some basic myth):

What we need here is an education that makes people contrary, counter-suggestive, without making them incapable of devoting themselves to the elaboration of any single view. How can this aim be achieved?

It can be achieved by protecting the tremendous imagination which children possess and by developing to the full the spirit of contradiction that exists in them. On the whole children are much more intelligent than their teachers are. They succumb, and give up their intelligence because they are bullied, or because their teachers get the better of them by emotional means.

This type of education, Feyerabend says, liberates people. He continues, Why would anyone want to liberate anyone else? Surely not because of some abstract advantage of liberty but because liberty is the best way to free development and thus to happiness. We want to liberate people so that they can smile.

Feyerabend had Humphrey at "smile", something he loves to do. But how can education do this? Certainly not the way that the GOP suggets! Rather, as Feyerabend says, The hardest task needs the lightest hand or else its completion will not lead to freedom but to a tyranny much worse than the one it replaces.

Think on, people and dogs!

---

[1] Neil Postman, Building a Bridge to the 18^th Century: How Our Past Can Improve Our Future. (New York: First Vintage Books, 2000), 160.