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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito who wrote (154777)	1/22/2011 8:13:51 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543150

If you want to have teachers who can teach thinking, you need teachers who like to think. I find that most of my colleagues are curious and intellectually adventurous, but not all are- but then, we are a nice suburban school, and our school has attracted some really great teachers. I fear in the inner city schools, where students are particularly challenging, it's very difficult to attract the kind of teachers necessary to break those young minds out of the intellectual ghettos that can form in such places. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I'm 100% for the tests we have in California, because what is on them is what we have always taught (or were supposed to be teaching). My students always come back and tell me they were well prepared for the tests- because everything we are supposed to cover, is covered in class. And that is as it should be. And "thinking" is taught every time we tell children how to plan an essay, approach a business plan (yes, that's in our curriculum), write a business letter, or tackle a biography. Before you can write, you have to be able to think about what you are going to write. Every written assignment requires planning. I don't see how you could possibly teach English without teaching metathinking- because in order to improve, you have to think about how you were thinking before, and then work on your weaknesses, and build on your strengths. But that's a part of every project, and even a part of the test prep we do- since knowing how you think can determine how you prepare for tests, and that too is a necessary part of what we teach.