We Need to Think - and Stand UP!

Hi All –

As a person working in the world of education I have been frequently surprised by people – in education - who seem to feel they really know what is best and what is right, usually someone in administration but occasionally another teacher. So I was surprised, and pleased to see these two very different people, in addressing very different crowds, agree with the point of view I have come to embrace as I have become more and more educated. For what it is worth, here are the two articles I read this week.

“In a rare public rebuke, Defense Secretary Robert Gates this week scolded the Air Force for not doing enough to help the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a speech at Maxwell Air Force Base, Gates specifically complained that getting the Air Force to send unmanned surveillance aircraft to war zones was ‘like pulling teeth.’ Gates has been pushing the Air Forsce for months to send more Predator drone aircraft, which can engage enemy soldiers without risking the lives of U.S. personnel. Officers ‘stuck in old ways of doing business’ have resisted the shift to unmanned aircraft, Gates said. Gates, who served in the Air Force in the 1960s as a young officer, urged the officers in his audience to challenge conventional wisdom. ‘Dissent is a sign of health in an organization,’ Gates said. (emphasis added) (The Week, May 2, 2008, volume 8, issue 359, pg 7)

So here we have the United States Secretary of Defense telling officers in the Air Force that they should be questioning their superiors, and suggesting that is a sign of health for them to do that. I wonder if that would be good policy for all organizations? For ours? Could, would or does this apply to us as well?

Story number two, same magazine, page 12, Susan Jacoby, Los Angeles Times. “The closing of the American mind – As an atheist who takes a dim view of the influence of religion, I am greeted enthusiastically in nearly all of my public appearances. I’m not bragging. It’s just that everywhere I appear, 95 percent of the audience shares my political and cultural views – and serious conservatives report exactly the same experience. Indeed it is getting harder to find anyone who’s willing to give a fair shake – or any hearing at all – to opposing viewpoints. Whether watching television news, consulting political blogs, or (more rarely) reading books, Americans today have become a people in search of validation for opinions that they already hold. So when Gen. David Petraeous testifies before congress, liberals tune to radio or TV shows that mock him and insist that Iraq is lost; conservatives, meanwhile, comfort themselves with echo-chamber pundits who proclaim that victory is at hand. Such close-minded stubbornness is not only lazy; it makes you very vulnerable to being duped and mislead. As long as we continue to avoid the hard work of scrutinizing public affairs without the filter of polemical shouting heads, we have no one to blame for our growing national ignorance but ourselves.“ (emphasis added)

So there are two – probably at opposite ends of several different spectrums – people saying essentially the same thing. We need to spend some time thinking about things ourselves, and listening to opposing points of view, and more, and I suggest, we need to be teaching our students to do the same thing. This is part of the skill set we supposedly are teaching our students called Critical Thinking Skills. And you know they are getting close to doing it when they complain “Oh, but teacher this is so hard! It makes my brain hurt!”

Thanks for thinking, and helping our students learn how to think – and for taking the time and effort to do all you do for our students.

I apologize for it being so long between posts - I too suffer from way to much to do and no where near enough time to do it.