Texas GOP Declares: "No More Teaching of 'Critical Thinking Skills' in Texas Public Schools" Saturday, 07 July 2012 08:03 By Danny Weil, Truthout | News Analysis
The Republican Party of Texas has issued their 2012 political platform and has come out and blatantly opposed critical thinking in public schools throughout the state. If you wonder what took them so long to actually state that publicly, it is really a matter of timing. With irrationality now the norm and an election hovering over the 2012 horizon, the timing of the Republican GOP announcement against "critical thinking" instruction couldn't be better. It helps gin up their anti-intellectual base.
The Texas GOP's declarative position against critical thinking in public schools, or any schools, for that matter, is now an official part of their political platform. It is public record in the Republican Party of Texas 2012 platform. With regard to critical thinking, the Republican Party of Texas document states: "Knowledge-Based Education - 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." (page 20, Republican Party of Texas, 2012).
Yes, challenging beliefs or claims is considered insubordinate, immoral and could lead to rebellion, disobedience or perhaps worse: revolution. For the Republican Party and their followers, thinking is subversive, imagination is a sin and the Republican Party in Texas and elsewhere is working to codify this into public policy. The plutocrats can't have a working-class citizenry that is asking questions of those in power, be they parents or bosses; instead, the people must be taught the ideology of what is morally acceptable, what rules and regulations to follow. and even more importantly, how to accept and internalize hierarchical authoritarianism. Critical thinking is a direct challenge to the "leaders" and their claims on authority, and any opposition to vertical arrangements is ethically unacceptable to those in power.
Reactionaries have long known that enshrining ignorance and hierarchy in both thought and practice within the school curriculum is essential if the control of young minds is to be accomplished softly and quietly yet profoundly through propaganda and perception management. In the quarters of obedience training, "education" has nothing to do with "schooling" under capitalism.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
critical thinking is a good exercise for the brain....EVERYONE should practice it...know what you're made of.... test your truths...they will become self evident as to which is made better by fire.....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
It is ashamed this article was a political hack job. The education system certainly needs to be examined. The methods of teaching, and their desired goals should certainly be publicly debated. But to make it a Republican/Democrat issue doesn't make for honest debate. And as always, the writer's solution to the education problem is the socialized solution of getting the people he ideologically agrees with to run the system and force his ideas and techniques onto the public. The solution is never to get rid of the system and let people choose.
Membership in the US should not be mandatory. Any state that wants out should be allowed to form it's own nation.
I just thought it was pretty hypocritical to one day say he hates this country enough to not even want to be a part of it, and the next day, get on TV, and say how much he loves this country, and how we should elect a great patriot like himself as president.
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