Now this will be good college prep

Parents Forum
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<p>This was published a few days ago and may have been posted elsewhere, but I have not seen it. This may being taking this right wing stuff just a little too far...</p>

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[quote]
The Republican Party of Texas’s 2012 platform has a plank on “Knowledge-Based Education” that reads:</p>

<p>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.

[/quote]
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<p>No</a> Comment Necessary: Texas GOP's 2012 Platform Opposes Teaching "Critical Thinking Skills" - NYTimes.com</p>

<p>Kind of sounds like what an education should do.</p>

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<p>I really, really wish the CC TOS didn’t forbid political comments right now…</p>

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<p>Oh I agree with you annasdad, we could have a great time with this conversation.</p>

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<p>It would be hard to leave any child behind if they’re all left on the first square… Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy stage forever!</p>

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<p>And the loch ness monster</p>

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<p>Don’t forget the stork brings babies!</p>

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<p>I really didn’t think of this as political commentary as much as an observation on how politics can influence things like teaching critical thinking.</p>

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<p>Twenty years ago or so, the Macon Telegraph printed a letter from a local minister decrying the TV show “Barney” because it taught kids to “conjure” things from their imaginations that weren’t there.</p>

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<p>I always did think that TOK and that whole IB Diploma thing was pretty “Western European.” I wouldn’t want that for my kid. :wink: It makes it a lot harder to get them to do chores - they just want to take summer off and go to the country.</p>

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<p>I feel like I was one of those kids left behind. Either that or I’m not properly awake yet. I don’t understand anything from that quote. It either has too many words, too many commas, or too many parentheses.</p>

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<p>The conversations around this topic will be really interesting in a few years once the kids who have been deprived of critical thinking skills apply to colleges. Unbelievable.</p>

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<p>Well this kind of thinking should be fine, given the changes to the U.S. history curriculum there: <a href=“Texas Conservatives Win Vote on Textbook Standards - The New York Times”>Texas Conservatives Win Vote on Textbook Standards - The New York Times;

<p>From the article: In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout their texts with the “free-enterprise system.”</p>

<p>“Let’s face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation,” said one conservative member, Terri Leo. “You know, ‘capitalist pig!’ ”</p>

<p>In the field of sociology, another conservative member, Barbara Cargill, won passage of an amendment requiring the teaching of “the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” in a section on teenage suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders.</p>

<p>“The topic of sociology tends to blame society for everything,” Ms. Cargill said.</p>

<p>Even the course on world history did not escape the board’s scalpel.</p>

<p>Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)</p>

<p>“The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based,” Ms. Dunbar said.</p>

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<p>Even “hicks from the sticks” know that plank is dumb*ss. “Just call AAA” won’t get your pickup out of the crick before your girlfriend needs to be home.</p>

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<p>Also from the 2010 article: </p>

<p>“They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about ‘the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.’”</p>

<p>And: “Mavis B. Knight, a Democrat from Dallas, introduced an amendment requiring that students study the reasons ‘the founding fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring the government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion above all others.’ It was defeated on a party-line vote.”</p>

<p>Just…wow.</p>

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<p>This is not just a side show for the rest of us, though, as Texas drives the K-12 textbook market.</p>

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<p>The silver lining in all this may be parents taking a greater role in educating their children. Perhaps “values” is like “hard work” … something more appropriately taught by parents.</p>

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<p>???</p>

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<p>I think that before making pronouncements of this type, any organization should imagine how hilarious their point of view might sound as an Onion headline. To wit: “X Party opposes the teaching of critical thinking skills.” </p>

<p>Now, playing devil’s advocate for a moment, someone might reply, “Oh, no. We don’t object to the teaching of critical thinking skills, just 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.’” To which I would reply, “Wha?” Then, recovering, I might ask for examples of these dangerous “programs.” Or for examples of outcomes-based educational models whose hoped-for outcomes could be construed as objectionable by any reasonable, thinking person. </p>

<p>In her senior year of high school, my kid had a teacher who too freely shared her political opinions at the expense of teaching the course material. I consider that inappropriate and that teacher a whack job, even though I expect I agree with her political point of view in the main. That’s one teacher, though, from K through 12. Where are these doctrinaire ideologues whose purpose is to teach kids to go home and sass their parents?</p>

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<p>On a more serious note, now that lots of states have signed on to the common core, and Texas did not, won’t they lose their influentce? After all, they are now vastly outnumbered by those states that are implementing the core standards. </p>

<p>Now I will go back to be suspicious about all this book learnin’.</p>

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<p>Has anyone noticed this is from 2010? How much have ya’all’s textbooks changed?</p>

<p>Personally, I think this board may be balancing out the extreme liberalism of our teachers but I am just a dumb hick who thinks nothing matters other than STEM! :p</p>