osoab
16th February 2012, 04:28 PM
Critical Thinking attacked in Iowa HS (http://dailycensored.com/2012/02/08/22868/)
A high school in Iowa is at the center of a communism versus capitalism dispute after a teacher handed out a worksheet on the Cold War in a social studies class. Or that is what the media would like the public to think.
The real controversy is about denying students opportunities to think critically by extending to them the necessity of learning to enter into multiple points of view when reasoning. Critical thinking, which requires students to develop intellectual empathy and reason from premises they might not agree with to conclusions they might not agree with so they may develop their own independent thinking, is simply not heralded in today’s capitalist schooling. Unfortunately, it is rarely mentioned in debates over ‘standards’ either. This is unfortunate for it is precisely reasoning that we want our students to engage in so they can develop their own critical reasoned judgment.
Roosevelt High School in Des Moines,Iowa has been has been taken to task recently for a social studies lesson which opponents say ‘promoted communism.’ At issue was a worksheet handed out to students on the Cold War. The worksheet features an editorial cartoon its first page.
The side which represents capitalism has two shabbily dressed factory workers with balls and chains on their ankles and a well-dressed plump businessman smoking a cigar, reaping the financial gain.
The other side, which depicts communism, shows two happy factory workers, with decent clothing and an arrow showing profits are returning to them.
In defining differences between communism and capitalism part of the text reads:
“Communism stands for equal sharing of work, according to the benefits and ability. But in capitalism, an individual is responsible for his works and if he wants to raise the ladder, he has to work hard. While the profit of any enterprise is equally shared by all the people in communism, the profit in a capitalist structure belong to the private owner only” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2097111/High-school-accused-promoting-communism-capitalism-social-studies-lesson-worksheet.html).
The issue surrounding the school assignment first surfaced on aU.S.radio station called WHO Radio but there has been nothing about the story in the national corporate press. You have to go to Europe to find out what is going on in this country, especially with attacks on teachers, learning, and the free expression of ideas.
Evidently a parent from Roosevelt High, Jeff Travis, showed local WHO Radio the worksheet that his son received from the lesson. Travis immediately ran to right wing media, Fox News Radio, and told them:
“I couldn’t believe how slanted it was. It wasn’t given as an example of propaganda. It was given as an example of capitalism and communism. I can’t believe they would hand out something like that” (ibid)
Some critics have even gone so far as to accuse the worksheetof being ’communist indoctrination.’
Libertarians 4 Freedom, a right wing group, was quick to weigh in stating:
“Is this not a good reason to hate teachers’ unions? Look at the people they protect! Radicals who are trying to indoctrinate our children into becoming future OWS un-Americans” (ibid).
What the right wing coalition, WHO, Travis and Fox News did not mention was that the class at issue, 20th Century History, was studying the Cold War and the use of propaganda during the cold war. Students were looking at some of the arguments that the two separate sides made about their social and economic system. The teacher was actually engaging students in critical thinking by providing the students opportunities to reason within and about two points of view. WHO, Travis and Fox News were the ones engaging in propaganda and fear mongering; this is nothing new.
Not all agreed with Travis, WHO radio and the conservative group that came out screaming hysterically about the lesson. One person wrote:
“After looking at the ENTIRE lesson, the goal of the lesson was to teach students about the various points of view regarding both ideologies. Teaching students what communism is and how communists view the world does not equal teaching students that it is better than capitalism” (ibid).
To their credit, Roosevelt High officials issued a statement defending the assignment as well as releasing the full worksheet to the public. Officials stated that they found it ‘unfortunate’ that the WHO Radio report edited the class handout and:
“… decided to mislead his listeners in order to generate false criticism of our schools and our teachers. The Handout simply highlights the differences between capitalism and communism, and some of the arguments made during the period of the Cold War” (ibid).
Attacks on curriculum and teachers and curriculum are nothing new. They are part of US history and could be the subject of their own lesson for students and should. Recently, facing the loss of $15 million in state support, the governing board of Tucson’s schools voted 4-1 to terminate the popular and successful Mexican American Studies program. They then embarked on banning books in Tucson’s Mexican American Studies program, including Paulo Freire’s A Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Rodolfo Acuņa’s Occupied America, ReThinking Columbus, and Elizabeth Martinez’s 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures
(http://dailycensored.com/2012/01/18/paulo-freires-book-a-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed-banned-in-tucson-a-note-from-bill-bigelow-and-rethinking-schools/).
What is new, however, are the increasing orchestrated attacks on learning, critical thinking and teachers and their democratic unions.
The current debate over standards and testing has sucked the air out of the real debate that we should be having. That is “what does it mean to be an educated person in today’s society?” Until we as citizens and educators decide what it means to be an educated person in today’s society we can hardly design a curriculum that promotes education can we?
A simple scratch and sniff would indicate that one must be a critical thinker in today’s society in order to navigate through the barnyard of life under capitalism.
Yet critical thinking is hardly ever talked about amongst those critical of conservative standards, unless it is mentioned in mere passing. It is not enough to merely argue against inauthentic standards. Until those who oppose rigid and anti-intellectual testing and standards begin to put forward an idea of curriculum that promotes critical thinking with critical authentic standards by which to judge if one is thinking critically or not thinking critically, the debate over capitalist schooling will be mired in a simple critique of conservative standards and testing with no clear path towards forging a curriculum that is liberatory.
Critical thinking must become front and center in the debate over standards and capitalist schooling. Without an educated citizenry that knows how to reason this country cannot hope to stave off authoritarianism and loss of freedom and liberty nor can its people. Unfortunately, the by and large the“standards and testing debate” has ignored discussions of meaningful critical curriculum and what it means to be an educated person. If we do not begin to prefigure a curriculum that is designed to offer opportunities for critical thinking through and about subject matters and issues of social and personal concern, we will continue to fall victims of capitalist schooling and demagogues such as Libertarians 4 Freedom, Fox News, Travis and WHO radio.
To see the entire handout readers can visit:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2097111/High-school-accused-promoting-communism-capitalism-social-studies-lesson-worksheet.html
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/02/06/article-2097111-119AAE44000005DC-241_634x461.jpg
Seriously? That is the best cartoon they could come up with?
A high school in Iowa is at the center of a communism versus capitalism dispute after a teacher handed out a worksheet on the Cold War in a social studies class. Or that is what the media would like the public to think.
The real controversy is about denying students opportunities to think critically by extending to them the necessity of learning to enter into multiple points of view when reasoning. Critical thinking, which requires students to develop intellectual empathy and reason from premises they might not agree with to conclusions they might not agree with so they may develop their own independent thinking, is simply not heralded in today’s capitalist schooling. Unfortunately, it is rarely mentioned in debates over ‘standards’ either. This is unfortunate for it is precisely reasoning that we want our students to engage in so they can develop their own critical reasoned judgment.
Roosevelt High School in Des Moines,Iowa has been has been taken to task recently for a social studies lesson which opponents say ‘promoted communism.’ At issue was a worksheet handed out to students on the Cold War. The worksheet features an editorial cartoon its first page.
The side which represents capitalism has two shabbily dressed factory workers with balls and chains on their ankles and a well-dressed plump businessman smoking a cigar, reaping the financial gain.
The other side, which depicts communism, shows two happy factory workers, with decent clothing and an arrow showing profits are returning to them.
In defining differences between communism and capitalism part of the text reads:
“Communism stands for equal sharing of work, according to the benefits and ability. But in capitalism, an individual is responsible for his works and if he wants to raise the ladder, he has to work hard. While the profit of any enterprise is equally shared by all the people in communism, the profit in a capitalist structure belong to the private owner only” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2097111/High-school-accused-promoting-communism-capitalism-social-studies-lesson-worksheet.html).
The issue surrounding the school assignment first surfaced on aU.S.radio station called WHO Radio but there has been nothing about the story in the national corporate press. You have to go to Europe to find out what is going on in this country, especially with attacks on teachers, learning, and the free expression of ideas.
Evidently a parent from Roosevelt High, Jeff Travis, showed local WHO Radio the worksheet that his son received from the lesson. Travis immediately ran to right wing media, Fox News Radio, and told them:
“I couldn’t believe how slanted it was. It wasn’t given as an example of propaganda. It was given as an example of capitalism and communism. I can’t believe they would hand out something like that” (ibid)
Some critics have even gone so far as to accuse the worksheetof being ’communist indoctrination.’
Libertarians 4 Freedom, a right wing group, was quick to weigh in stating:
“Is this not a good reason to hate teachers’ unions? Look at the people they protect! Radicals who are trying to indoctrinate our children into becoming future OWS un-Americans” (ibid).
What the right wing coalition, WHO, Travis and Fox News did not mention was that the class at issue, 20th Century History, was studying the Cold War and the use of propaganda during the cold war. Students were looking at some of the arguments that the two separate sides made about their social and economic system. The teacher was actually engaging students in critical thinking by providing the students opportunities to reason within and about two points of view. WHO, Travis and Fox News were the ones engaging in propaganda and fear mongering; this is nothing new.
Not all agreed with Travis, WHO radio and the conservative group that came out screaming hysterically about the lesson. One person wrote:
“After looking at the ENTIRE lesson, the goal of the lesson was to teach students about the various points of view regarding both ideologies. Teaching students what communism is and how communists view the world does not equal teaching students that it is better than capitalism” (ibid).
To their credit, Roosevelt High officials issued a statement defending the assignment as well as releasing the full worksheet to the public. Officials stated that they found it ‘unfortunate’ that the WHO Radio report edited the class handout and:
“… decided to mislead his listeners in order to generate false criticism of our schools and our teachers. The Handout simply highlights the differences between capitalism and communism, and some of the arguments made during the period of the Cold War” (ibid).
Attacks on curriculum and teachers and curriculum are nothing new. They are part of US history and could be the subject of their own lesson for students and should. Recently, facing the loss of $15 million in state support, the governing board of Tucson’s schools voted 4-1 to terminate the popular and successful Mexican American Studies program. They then embarked on banning books in Tucson’s Mexican American Studies program, including Paulo Freire’s A Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Rodolfo Acuņa’s Occupied America, ReThinking Columbus, and Elizabeth Martinez’s 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures
(http://dailycensored.com/2012/01/18/paulo-freires-book-a-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed-banned-in-tucson-a-note-from-bill-bigelow-and-rethinking-schools/).
What is new, however, are the increasing orchestrated attacks on learning, critical thinking and teachers and their democratic unions.
The current debate over standards and testing has sucked the air out of the real debate that we should be having. That is “what does it mean to be an educated person in today’s society?” Until we as citizens and educators decide what it means to be an educated person in today’s society we can hardly design a curriculum that promotes education can we?
A simple scratch and sniff would indicate that one must be a critical thinker in today’s society in order to navigate through the barnyard of life under capitalism.
Yet critical thinking is hardly ever talked about amongst those critical of conservative standards, unless it is mentioned in mere passing. It is not enough to merely argue against inauthentic standards. Until those who oppose rigid and anti-intellectual testing and standards begin to put forward an idea of curriculum that promotes critical thinking with critical authentic standards by which to judge if one is thinking critically or not thinking critically, the debate over capitalist schooling will be mired in a simple critique of conservative standards and testing with no clear path towards forging a curriculum that is liberatory.
Critical thinking must become front and center in the debate over standards and capitalist schooling. Without an educated citizenry that knows how to reason this country cannot hope to stave off authoritarianism and loss of freedom and liberty nor can its people. Unfortunately, the by and large the“standards and testing debate” has ignored discussions of meaningful critical curriculum and what it means to be an educated person. If we do not begin to prefigure a curriculum that is designed to offer opportunities for critical thinking through and about subject matters and issues of social and personal concern, we will continue to fall victims of capitalist schooling and demagogues such as Libertarians 4 Freedom, Fox News, Travis and WHO radio.
To see the entire handout readers can visit:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2097111/High-school-accused-promoting-communism-capitalism-social-studies-lesson-worksheet.html
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/02/06/article-2097111-119AAE44000005DC-241_634x461.jpg
Seriously? That is the best cartoon they could come up with?