Yeah, Texas, good luck with that...

[brokenergy]

That's a little naive. If the educators who are teaching this stuff in our schools and unis use their own political views to skew the way that young people are learning this process, and where I come from they most certainly do (the teaching profession is overwhelmingly and militantly left wing), they just won't be taught in an unbiased way and will never develop true critical thinking. And I do think it's a little bit patronising to say it isn't something everyone can get easily. I did and I am but a simple yokel. Seriously, you do not have to be an intellectual to have a mind of your own.

 

It's not naive to say the least. What you are taught at school have little or no bearing on your personal views, which are influenced by your greater environment which you live in, not just where you go to school. This isn't about "brainwashing" as you so kindly put it, critical thinking is a skill that is taught early age regardless of political view. It is a process that requires you to use all possible intel that you have learned from studing to solve a problem. And it isn't easy to develop critical thinking, I know some people that cannot do it because they don't know how, and no they are not stupid or retarded people. It's a skill, not something that we can just conjure up.

[ginnyfizz]

Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs, and here was me thinking that you said it was something that was learned and developed in schools.

[brokenergy]

Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs, and here was me thinking that you said it was something that was learned and developed in schools.

 

Why do I even bother with you sometime. I have been consistant with my reasoning, you are just being nitpicky.

[Vagrant0]

That's a little naive. If the educators who are teaching this stuff in our schools and unis use their own political views to skew

There are relatively few subjects which do not involve their own biases. Not even science or geography can be taught without infringing on one groups beliefs or championing another's. History certainly can't. Language instruction can't (as even punctuation and word order can imply biases towards American English, or European English, or British English, or Welsh English, ect). Even the simple act of greeting a class or the ordering of the date carries with it a message of a "right way" and a "wrong way". Instruction by its very nature is intended to give students the tools needed to resolve the numerous ambiguities which are omnipresent. Where there is no structure, no direction, there is only insanity as the mind would have no capability to make sense of anything new or different. In a sense, there is no instruction, nor any knowledge at all as making any sense of anything requires establishing beliefs of one sort or another.

 

Almost every other form of communication has its own biases as well. It's the programs they watch, the books they read, the games they play, the people they interact with inside and outside the home. All of these things help shape a child's perceptions of the world. It doesn't matter if those views are conservative or liberal, the child will usually interpret those views based on what they already know. Critical thinking skills are not related to creating a bias in that interpretation, no matter how they are taught. They are however essential as a means of negotiating between two conflicting views, rather than just accepting the one which was introduced first, or which came from someone they recognize as an authority. It is THIS part that should make you concerned regardless what views you have, or how you identify since it is this part that allows anyone to decide what should be thought about a subject merely by being the first to introduce it.

 

 

To put it in the simplest and most extreme way. If someone without any development of those skills is told by an older sibling, or a friend that they respect that "girls (boys) have cooties", that person will believe it completely, accept it as an undeniable fact, and refute any discussion to the contrary because the mere thought that what they were led to believe was in fact wrong is an unthinkable reality. The stronger that sibling or friend made those claims, stating past instances of contact, accounts of others, getting someone else to vouch for them, ect; the stronger that belief will be present as an immovable mental object. As silly as this might sound, this sort of thing is still present in the case of those who believe in a flat Earth, an empty Earth, and countless other things that probably don't need to be mentioned.

 

As much as you may dislike liberals, the mere act of asking questions, experimentation, challenging long standing beliefs is essentially what has allowed any and all scientific progress since the advent of fire. Liberal notions are what allows for change, conservative notions are what allows for that change to be moderated and directed. Too much change leads to chaos, destruction and a lack of focus towards solving problems, not enough leads to stagnation and refusal to even acknowledge that problems (other than those clearly caused by liberals) exist. The world needs both, and in most cases, these are things that develop within the individual in relation to the world in which they live, rather than something which is taught to them by a handful of people.

 

 

Fun fact - More than 50% of the people who watch Fox News are liberals who are looking for fault and justification for the beliefs they already have. There are similar situations for those who watch CNN, MSNBC, or pretty much everything else. Just being exposed to something doesn't mean that the views expressed resonate in a positive way.

[Ghogiel]

Fun fact - More than 50% of the people who watch Fox News are liberals who are looking for fault and justification for the beliefs they already have. There are similar situations for those who watch CNN, MSNBC, or pretty much everything else. Just being exposed to something doesn't mean that the views expressed resonate in a positive way.

 

Where did you did that percentile? I thought 50% of it's viewers watched it for it's comedy value not for it's unbiased reporting.

[ginnyfizz]

Vagrant0, it may surprise you to know that I don't actually disagree with much at all of what you said apart from your slight tendency to stereotype me because I am of a conservative tendency. That doesn't mean I want to see everyone fed conservative views at school as opposed to the left wing ones they get from the majority of the British teaching profession. Nor does it mean that I take as law-that-must-not-be-questioned every pronouncement that issues from the mouths of a politician or community leader (I'll put it that way.)

 

Now here's another reason I don't place total faith in the necessity or chance of success for the teaching of critical thinking in schools, or that critical thinking cannot evolve without formal tuition. My own family history over hundreds of years (at a time when there were not formal schools for a very long time) has taught me that. Let's say that my familys' beliefs put them at odds with the Establishment and under legal disabilities from about the mid 16th century onwards until the 19th century. They managed to survive (only Olly Cromwell forced them to flee the realm for a while)because of their ability to critically analyse the loopier tenets of what was being fed to them from either side, and remained loyal Englishmen still with heads on shoulders, but still true to themselves.