Chapter five starts with this quotation. And after reading it, one may reckon what is the purpose of all this.
The first idea that we should bear in mind is that the aim of our teaching practices should lead to “understanding” and not just knowing contents of facts. But to get understanding we must ask what is called the “essential questions”, those that stimulate the thought and the imagination, leading to inquiry, and as the author quotes “spark more questions”.
But what would happen in contexts where this kind o practice is not encouraged? We would be restricting our practices to just delivery of meaningless contents, and so, easily forgettable. However, the worst consequence from my point of view is that we would be conditioning our students to be passive receivers of established truth; even more, we would be forming citizens unable to criticize or ask questions about the current matters or about what “seems to be right”.
As we can see, on our shoulders lies the responsibility to form people who are creative and critical of the circumstances, and so, be able to propose and encourage the necessary changes to improve our society. But are we really prepared to carry out this task? Are we willing to change the structure of our lessons so as to encourage the development of essential questions? And are we prepared to have critical thinkers in our classrooms who might eventually question us?
The first idea that we should bear in mind is that the aim of our teaching practices should lead to “understanding” and not just knowing contents of facts. But to get understanding we must ask what is called the “essential questions”, those that stimulate the thought and the imagination, leading to inquiry, and as the author quotes “spark more questions”.
But what would happen in contexts where this kind o practice is not encouraged? We would be restricting our practices to just delivery of meaningless contents, and so, easily forgettable. However, the worst consequence from my point of view is that we would be conditioning our students to be passive receivers of established truth; even more, we would be forming citizens unable to criticize or ask questions about the current matters or about what “seems to be right”.
As we can see, on our shoulders lies the responsibility to form people who are creative and critical of the circumstances, and so, be able to propose and encourage the necessary changes to improve our society. But are we really prepared to carry out this task? Are we willing to change the structure of our lessons so as to encourage the development of essential questions? And are we prepared to have critical thinkers in our classrooms who might eventually question us?
Hi Marianella!
ReplyDeleteCitizens unable to criticize. It sounds pretty scary, but it's true, and unfortunately we still see young people , who were educated under the power of the teacher, that they don't have an opinion about anything.A goos example is the small number of young people voting for next elections in Chile, they were raised without a voice.
Sad, isn't it?
So, now that we know, that we really KNOW, let's make the next generation more human.
Thanks,
Vicky
According to our society, the rhythm of life, for the purposes of our economy-based society this model of non-thinker students is implicitly desired up to some point. Why would we need thinkers if we have huge companies who need cheap and easy-to-manipulate manpower? On that basis (not my personal opinion) this is good, we need people who are in such a poor intellectual condition that are not able to discern whether this modern slavery is good or bad. This may sound too extreme, even absurd, though it's just a matter of you observing what's going around, people who are forced to do whatever they can to have food and shelter, so what essential questioning are we talking about? This image is even projected from the same curriculum; we need English to be better workers because the globalization requires workers able to manage the language, what an intention this is? But they suggest that these future English speakers develop a bit of criticism in their minds so as to prevent them from these abuses that, I'm quite sure, our parents have undergone naïvely.
ReplyDeletesorry, it was me
ReplyDeleteClaudio
:)
Marianella
ReplyDeleteI would like to talk about your question about if we are prepared, as teachers, to have critical thinkers in our classroom who might eventually question us. It seems to me that this issue is very complex to answer since we “teachers” do not start our learning in universities but in school. Teachers are asked to encourage critical thinking, use Essential questions and develop transferability in our classrooms but I am sure that most of us do not understand what these concepts mean because we have not been exposed to them in our own education. Curriculum- centred approach has been commonly used. Actually, many teachers studied in schools which had this view. Should these teachers know how to change their practices if they were involved in such education which was concerned about covering contents and looking for a right answer?
I personally believe that critical thinking skills have to be a concern of universities which train teachers because the cause of passive education does not come from students but from teachers.
Dear Marianella,
ReplyDeleteFrom my standpoint, changing the structure of our lessons so as to favour creativity and citical thinking is a must. Otherwise, we will never accomplish the aim of having critical students. It is certainly time-consuming and demanding for both teachers and students.
My answer to your question: Are, we, teachers prepared for this major task? No, we aren't. But we have to face the challenge. All innovations and changes bring about posiitve results gradually or after a long time. In sum, if all teachers, not only TEFL teachers, implement our curriculum with essential questions, we might succeed in awakening deep thoughts and creativity in our young students.
Hi Marianella!
ReplyDeleteWe want our students to learn, yet they don't.
It is actually worrying that we teachers condemn our students to become passive characters in their education process. By making use of essencial questions we are not only encouraging our students to learn, but also we enrich our methodological practices. Essencial questions, in other words, challenge both teachers and students in terms of tolerance, skills, time, etc. Now, are we teachers prepared to accept this challenge? I don't think so (to tell you the truth), yet one of us must be the starting point, or else what's the point of being a teacher? just help students to cope with a textbook?
My dear I think you and your controversial questions have hit the nail on the head!
ReplyDeleteAre teachers prepare to ask these kind of questions? Are they prepare to improvise these questions in a class? The most important; Is it convenient for the teachers to have 30 critical thinkers in a classroom? When I was reading your post, I could not stop thinking about the Animal Farm and its allegory. When the animals start to think, they will inevitably lead their beliefs towards insurrection and revolution. So, the one 'in charge' of those 30 critical animals will suffer a real 'coup d'état'. As I have already said in my previous six posts, the solution to this problem is to have well-trained teachers who are able to foster critical thinking and transferability through essential questions and have also the skill (or the holy wisdom) to control 30 critical thinkers.
Bye Dear!
Actually I think that the academic formation of most of the teachers does not help to encourage students to get ‘understanding’. As you mentioned above, we are just restricting our practices to deliver meaningless contents what decrease the capacity of critics and analysis that students should have related to different topics. Therefore we must change the way in which we are dealing with the contents, in order that students can discover by themselves that they have something to say , and not only be passive receivers who are not a real contribution to this society.
ReplyDelete"But are we really prepared to carry out this task?"
ReplyDeleteExcellent question my friend!
I have just realized about this know that I have had the possibility to study and read about it, but what happens with those in training teachers? And as you say, are we really developing critical thinkers? Well, a least we have the chance to do something now. Its essential to have in mind learners - centred lesson and planning to carry out this hard task because as you mention, “on our shoulders lies the responsibility to form people who are creative and critical of the circumstances, and so, be able to propose and encourage the necessary changes to improve our society”. It’s a real challenge for us, but also a good instance to engage ourselves in these essential questions.
Hugs
Dear Holy Cow,
ReplyDeleteTwo interesting things you pointed out: Why we need critical thinkers and if we are interested to develop this task. On the one hand, I think our society needs people who are able to make a real change into the boredom we live. Understanding goes further than the well adquired learning - so to call it - we can provide our students in our lesson, but to have people who can take important or not so important issues with their own hands and develop it. Language learning is actually a powerful opportunity as we have to deal with ALL the topics on earth.
On the other hand, and with regards of the language learning, it is on us to take advantage of the challenge this means, because we also put into practice our own thinking skills. The challenge of having our students asking questions we might not have the answer for encourages both us and them to keep looking for knowledge that will eventually lead to an answer.