Date:    Sun, 7 Aug 1994 09:09:15 -0400
From:    Interpersonal Computing and Technology <IPCT@GUVAX.BITNET>
Subject: Re: Teaching Critical Thinking

From: "Gerald M. Phillips, Ph.D." <GMP@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>

I understand Dr. Newman's problem and I have no idea how to handle. The
term "critical thinking" implies choices and if one cannot conceptualize
choices, one cannot think critically.

Why not tell them that music played in the background during a class period
has been discovered to facilitate learning and improve test scores. Tell
them you want them to pick the music and then watch them battle.  I have
done things equally silly with Penn State sophomores who, I think, are the
moral and intellectual equivalents of the students you describe, and they
have come through nobly, with arguments of colossal stature which enables
me to ask them, innocently, "oh dear, how shall we decide this.  It is your
problem not mine and I am prepared to do no teaching at all until you
figure it out."

This technique was brought to a pinnacle by Franklyn Haiman at Northwestern.
Dr. Haiman used to come to class the first day, plant himself at a desk. He
would then hand out a paper announcing the date of the final exam.  He would
then commence reading the New York Times, responding to nothing that went
on in the classroom. By about the third session his classes would get the
idea that 1) they had the power to decide what was to be learned in the
classroom and 2) they needed to find a method to make that decision. Since
the class was in decision making they usually spent the rest of semester
trying to decide and thus learned about decision making.

There are variations on this theme, and you must have tenure before you dare
try it, but they really do work.  The silly little fools sometimes catch on.

And if you date regard them with an iota of respect, you will ruin the whole
thing. They have to understand they have a problem before they can attend
to solving it, and you must be that problem. They will curse at you, talk
behind your back and protest to your superiors and you must ignore it and
smile a benign superior smile, acting as if you knew something (which you do.)

This may all sound facetious, but I didn't win my national teaching awards for
giving lectures.  When I gave lectures I became a political power and the
darling of the masses, but I did no teaching at all, because it is impossible
to teach while lecturing.

I hope I am making some of you very, very angry, because if I am, I will be
helping you to understand what "critical thinking" is and how it can be
taught.

Now, someone should set up some method to complain to the management of
this list about publishing such pompous screed and see if you can figure
out a way to get me banned, censured, excoriated, or otherwise humiliated.

Please, no phone calls. I have a voice mail macro for hate calls which emits
a penetrating screen known to rupture eardrums.

[Smiling his benign, yet enigmatic smile, the wizard went back behind his
curtain, waiting for Dorothy to pick up her dentures and get on with the
business of the show.]


GMP@PSUVM.PSU.EDU
Gerald M. Phillips (Professor Emeritus), Speech Communication
Trade and Applied Books Editor, Hampton Press
Editor, IPCT: An Electronic Journal for the 21st Century
ISSN 1064-4326.  Send submissions to GMP3 at PSUVM.PSU.EDU
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802
Manuscripts are being accepted for the 1994 volumes.