An Excellent Tool For Teaching Critical Thinking To Children

Don't be put off by the title:

"The Sunday school teacher is out. Good thing a substitute is available: Satan! 

"SATAN'S GUIDE TO THE BIBLE is an animated documentary. Join Satan as he shares Bible secrets, secrets the students' pastor learned at Christian seminary but is afraid to share. Thankfully, Satan's not afraid of losing his job. 

"Satan has amassed an impressive list of biblical scholars ready to reveal the 'standard stuff' taught in Christian seminaries: Bart Ehrman (UNC Chapel Hill), John J. Collins (Yale), Dale Allison (Princeton Seminary), Susan Niditch (Amherst), Ron Hendel (UC Berkeley), and Hector Avalos (Iowa State). This is an established seminary curriculum about biblical history, biblical morals, authorship claims, and early Christianity — a curriculum never shared with the congregation. 

"Darkly comedic, but thoroughly researched, SATAN'S GUIDE TO THE BIBLE is a fascinating journey into the secrets of the world's best-selling book.

Directed by documentary filmmaker Zeke Piestrup (APOCALYPSE LATER: HAROLD CAMPING VS THE END OF THE WORLD) and produced by animation filmmaker Tim Johnson (ANTZ, OVER THE HEDGE, HOME)"

Click here for the hour-and-a-half video

The Most Important Book I Ever Read

There are uncountable great books. However, this one book, that I was required to read as a Freshman in college in the 1960s, was my introduction to critical/science-based thinking and it stuck. What a shame that formal education never has really adopted this simple philosophy:

"We destroy the disinterested (I do not mean uninterested) love of learning in children, which is so strong when they are small, by encouraging and compelling them to work for petty and contemptible rewards — gold stars, or papers marked 100 and tacked to the wall, or A’s on report cards. In short, for the ignoble satisfaction of feeling that they are better than someone else. We kill, not only their curiosity, but their feeling that it is a good and admirable thing to be curious so that by the age of ten most of them will not ask questions, and will show a good deal of scorn for the few who do." ~John Holt

(Book: How Children Fail [ad] https://amzn.to/47wCJvA)

(Art: Photograph by Bernard Hoffman)

A Look At The Status Of Education In The USA

One has to be willfully ignorant not to see that education in the USA is at a crisis point. There are too many factors involved with the issue for me to address in one post. The following is my STRONG opinion regarding the curriculum within public high schools. I am assuming that the elementary and middle schools are doing their job in preparing the students for high school.

This post is prompted by three deficiencies presently:

• Vocational/Trade Education is minimized.
• Many do not need a 4-year college education. It is overly expensive, with many majors not leading to liveable-wage employment.
• Civics needs to be more adequately presented.
• It should not be just one class in high school, it should begin in elementary school.
• Critical Thinking is essentially absent.

HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM

• Basic math (geometry, statistics, and algebra)
• Civics
• Critical thinking
• Reading (fiction; non-fiction)
• Writing
• Basic science (general physics, general biology, general chemistry)
• Basic US/world history
• Electives in prep for future: college; vocational/trade school

The Value Of Reaching Out To The Other Side

In 2020, 31% of voters identified as Democrats, 25% identified as Republicans, and 41% identified as Independents. If you split the Independents down the middle, with 50% voting for either, the Democrats would always win. But that is not what happens. There are more conservatives than progressives in the Independents, thus, the voting is much closer than what would be reflected in a 50 - 50 split. Most rural voters live by progressive economic principles but tend to vote Republican. Why? Could Democrats aren't talking to the rural folks enough and making some wrong assumptions?

Click on this link for a 6-minute video to better understand that the Democrats need to do some serious leg work within the rural communities of the USA to convince that voting segment that the Democratic Party offers more to them. Seems to me that critical thinking skills need to permeate into opinions formed through indoctrination.

Childhood Beliefs: Okay If Used To Introduce Critical Thinking Skills?

"I have been distraught by a deep moral issue lately. There is no way I will ever teach, or let my children follow religion. But I commonly relate religion and santa clause. I have been seriously debating whether or not it is a good idea to let children believe in santa clause or the tooth fairy. Since religion is so closely related, are those also terrible things to let children believe in?"

Click on the link below for science-based thoughts on this question:

On childhood beliefs

Motivated Reasoning

"Human beings are not always—in fact, probably not often—the objective, rational creatures we like to think we are. In the past few decades, psychologists have demonstrated the many ways people deceive themselves in the process of reasoning. Cognitive faculties are a distinguishing feature of humanity—lifting humankind out of caves and enabling language, arts, and sciences. Nevertheless, they are also rooted in and subject to influence, or bias, by emotions and instincts.

"One of the most significant ways information processing and decision-making becomes warped is through motivated reasoning, when biased reasoning leads to a particular conclusion or decision, a process that often occurs outside of conscious awareness."

Click on the link below for more and how to control it:

Motivated Reasoning (Confirmation Bias)

Critical Thinking/Skepticism: Brief But Important Points

What is critical thinking/skepticism and how it is valuable? Click on the links below for some brief and concise videos on such:

This tool will help improve your critical thinking

Skepticism: Why critical thinking makes you smarter

Why Schools Should Teach Skepticism Above Obedience

Wokeness And Education

Wokeness used to mean a state of being aware, especially of social problems such as racism and inequality.  It now is another pejorative used by right-wing hate-preachers (link). Click on the link below for an article regarding the proper way of handling questions about it in the classroom:

Homeroom: I'm Concerned About Wokeness At My Child's School

OTHER Countries Are Doing It

"So if we can’t regulate the 'news' or even stop trolls and foreign operatives from inciting Americans, how can we activate the 'immune system' of democracy?"

For as long as I have been out of college I have been actively promoting critical /science-based thinking. I look around me in the USA and it seems that NO organization is doing anything to improve the dismal display of magical thinking and ignorance. Click on the link below for a brief video presenting what OTHER countries are doing to improve the situation:

How Does America Solve Its "Fake News" Crisis?

A Political Lesson From Socrates

"We’re used to thinking hugely well of democracy. But interestingly, one of the wisest people who ever lived, Socrates, had deep suspicions of it."

The USA and other representative democracies talk about democracy being superior to more authoritarian political systems. However, Socrates, the founder of philosophy, was skeptical of it in practice. Why? Click on the link below to find out:

Why Socrates Hated Democracy

100 Best Websites for Science Teachers

I add that if one Googles' "Science-Based Thinking" one will also get a trove of information on such:

https://www.forensicsciencetechnician.org/100-best-websites-for-science-teachers/?fbclid=IwAR1oeZk-XnSka41R86WDuXkjlI9jMkUFyHDcJ96eSJJJd3alK2siGG1RLy0

The History Of Public Education

"I don't want a nation of thinkers. I want a nation of workers."
~ John D. Rockefeller

Sadly, the purpose of compulsory public education was not founded on critical thinking and true learning but for training and indoctrination in service to the state and church authority.

I'll take George Carlin's opinion of education: "Children should be taught to ask questions, not to obey." Yes, there is a need for factual learning but without critical thinking also, education is training only. If there ever was a need for the application of science-based thinking, public education is priority one IMHO.

Public Schools, the Fixation of Belief, and Social Control

Insight Into How Atheists Raise Their Children

"How do atheists teach their children? Do atheist parents teach their kids that there is no god? I spoke with two of the directors of Camp Quest Texas, David and Jamye, about how they, as atheist parents and teachers, teach children. We also discuss how we can raise the next generation free of dogma."

How Atheists Teach Their Children

Critical Thinking Can Be Taught

We science-based thinkers/skeptics regularly promote the teaching of critical thinking skills.  However, from a practical standpoint, how do we do it? Because of limited educational resources, it may not be feasible to address the issue with separate classes.

This article shows the promise of effective teaching of critical thinking in humanities classes as part of the usual curricula:

Critical thinking instruction in humanities reduces belief in pseudoscience

 

 (EdTechReview)

For Science-Based Thinking Parents

11 Ways to make sure you are raising critical thinkers

Education Has To Put Critical Thinking #1

Yes, some memorization and repetition of facts and concepts are important. However, all too often, the value of authority, compliance and conformity is emphasized to the detriment of critical thinking ability.

If you disagree with me, please tell me how someone like Donald Trump could ever be elected POTUS if educational systems are doing their jobs.

Here are three articles addressing the problem and recommending solutions:  here, here and here.

What A Liberal Arts Education Can Do

"In a profile in the Washington Post, reporter Eli Saslow traces what happened after Derek, home-schooled since third grade, left West Palm Beach and enrolled in New College, a liberal arts school in Sarasota. There he met students from all over the world and took classes that shook his certainty about race and history."

I works not only on race and history, it works on politics and religion as well.

How a liberal arts education reformed a young white nationalist

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article109730262.html#storylink=cpy

Critical Thinking Educational Materials

I argue that the most important part of education is teaching critical thinking skills.  Below are several links that not only support that opinion but also give practical tools for doing so in the full spectrum of educational environments.