"Speaking in a Critical Voice" blog assessment

It doesn't surprise me that there are teachers that have beening teaching for years and individuals with doctorates in education that don't know how to think or assess critically. In fact, I think most individuals have come across a teacher just like in the piece "Speaking in a Critical Voice" explains. They follow what's expected of them and handed down to them from their supperiors with little regard to if certain methods of teaching work for a particular class or not.

I can recall, one of the worst teachers I have come across, trying to get our class to discuss Julius Caesar. The class repeatedly was silent for, not just days, but weeks at a time. No one wanted to answer her questions, not only because the experience was almost dehumanizing, but because no matter an individual's answer or import on the story, it was never a correct answer in her mind. She refused to look at the story from different perspectives, granted not every perspective of the story is justifiable. She wanted our answers in specific words, the problem was she wanted the answers in HER words.

It's the teachers that use critical thinking and teaching methods in their classrooms that get students to learn and REMEMBER important information. They can view education from a student, teacher, principle, or even parents' perspective. They are flexible as well as knowledgable, which makes for better learning for any kind of student. Although flexible, they must also have a strong basis of what they believe education should be and how and what knowledge should be taught. This makes critical thinking crucial to education.

Speaking in a Critical Voice

I'm amazed that some people have no idea how to think critically. I guess I've always just assumed that thinking critically is just something that comes naturally but after reading this article, I'm starting to see that it's not. I think it's horrible that some teachers don't teach critical thinking and it's ridiculous that some teachers don't even know what it is. How are students supposed to go out in the world and take what they've learned in school to succeed when all they're learning is facts.
Towards the end of my high school, the board decided to enforce a new teaching plan to enhance student's critical thinking. Whether it was in english or history or math, it applied. In english, for example, we would read a piece of literature and then take a few minutes to write about how that work related to our life, another book that we've read, and the world. This new activity was able to push students to think outside the classroom and in turn, learn how to critically think.