Problem of Critical Thinking
Yesterday I was thinking about my old school days. When I joined the
US school system I got introduced to the concept of “critical thinking” in one of my ESL (English as a second language) classes. Here I was, a graduate from a very difficult gymnasium (high school for nerdy kids who usually want to become – or rather their parents want them to become – lawyers, doctors and researchers) with a four-year background in chemistry, philosophy and Latin I found myself completely dumb-founded with that concept. The only thing that appeared in my head while trying to “think critically” was….nothing….just a picture of a white-painted wall….no neuron firing happening whatsoever.
What I am trying to get across here is the Czech school system – according to my opinion – did make us memorize millions and millions of pages of facts in any kind of subject imaginable but did not teach us how to critically think; how to hold on to a solid argument that’s supported by strong logical facts and thoughts. What I brought from my high school experience in the
Czech Republic was a solid set of cheat sheet inventions. What I learned in the
US schools was to know where to look up the needed information but must importantly, how to logically think for myself. The beginnings of this thinking process were very hard (and to this day still are challenging sometimes). I had to develop a completely new part of my brain that was lying under the cobwebs for almost twenty years!!
Problem kritickeho premysleni
Tak jsem vcera premyslela o mych skolackych dnech. Kdyz jsem nastoupila na americkou universitu, tak jedna z prvnich veci, ktere mi byly predstaveny byl koncept kritickeho smysleni. I kdyz jsem sravila dosti brutalni roky gymnazijniho studia sudiem premetu jako byla
latina, filosofie a chemie, koncept kritickeho mysleni mi nerikal vubec nic. Jedine co se mi mihalo v mozku pri pokusu “premysleni kriticky” bylo, jak bych to rekla…..NIC….mela jsem v mozku proste vybileno…..nervove synapse se ani nepohly.
Co se tu snazim naznacit je, ze cesky skolni system – podle meho hazoru – nas donutil zapamatovat si tisice faktu ve forme dat, rovnic, a slovicek, ale nenaucil nas, jak kriticky smyslet – jak logicky debatovat. Co jsem se na mem gymnaziu naucila bylo vynalezani roztodivnych tahaku; v Americe jsem se naucila jak si jakoukoliv informaci bez problemu najit (aniz bych si ji musela zapamatovat). Ale co bylo nejdulezitejsi je, ze jsem si osvojila, jak logicky premyslet a debatovat ( to zdaleka neznamena, ze jsem v tom profik). Zacatky byly tezke….. Musela jsem ozivit cast meho mozku, kterou jsem nepouzila po dobu skoro dvaceti let!
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Jo, s tim souhlasim, ale na druhou stranu mne aspon ceske skolstvi dalo vseobecny prehled, ktery bohuzel, podle meho nazoru, prevazne vetsine Americanu chybi. A ta jejich zaslepenost. O tom by se taky dalo diskutovat. Jeste jsem se tady nesetkala s clovekem, ktery by misto Czechoslovakia mluvil o Ceske republice. Nejak jim to uteklo a stale utika. No nic. Vsude je neco.
No to s tim vseobecnym prehledem mas pravdu; ale abych je taky trosku branila – ja jich tu znam par, kteri o “Ceske Republice” vedi. A kdyz nevedi, a dozvi se to ode mne, tak se o to silene zajimaji (Vetsina lidi nedokaze pochopit, ze se Cesi a Slovaci rozesli mirumilovne).
I think the Czech system is now superior in this regard. The American system teaches students to think critically while teaching them few facts, and facts are necessary for valid criticism and evaluation. The result is that American kids have strong opinions that are based on thin air. In my opinion, the Czech system works better, because kids’ heads are stuffed with facts before they have much experience in life, but when they get older they’re perfectly good at critical thinking, which develops with maturity. And, unlike American kids, Czech kids are very acutely aware of how much they don’t know yet.
Until the late 1960s or so, American kids were taught by old blue-haired ladies to pack as much information into their brains as possible and also to evaluate it.
Once the baby-boomers born in the 1940s came into teaching — hired en masse to educate the younger baby-boomers — the mindset basically became that you didn’t have to know anything as long as you knew where to look it up. Kids liked this, because they didn’t have to study as much, and the fact is that they don’t bother to look the stuff up. In the days when American kids were forced to memorize facts, they ended up knowing a lot of information, they knew where to find the information they didn’t know, and they could think critically. Americans who were educated since the late 1960s know how to “think” critically, sort of know where to look things up, but don’t know any information they can use to judge anything. It’s all based on “feelings” now.
The Czechs would be well advised not to imitate our system.