Rethinking Our Schools, 2.0

I've had some interesting back and forth about a recent blog post already. See below, or click here for the post in question. Anyways, here's the conversation Neil and I had this morning:

Hey, Sheldon,

Barry pointed me to your Rethinking schools post. Thanks for a very interesting take on things. I wonder, though, if I have the exact opposite reaction that you do.

With the accessibility of knowledge so facile, you are dead right about validating what knowledge is worth knowing and why I think so. And yet, in working through the questions you wisely pose, I end with less faith to know what is what. I find myself more willing to admit "I can not really say." Well, I can say, but not because critical thinking has gotten me there.

To put it another way, critical thinking has gotten me to the point of questioning what I do know. Of course, what then does that do to my teaching?

Take care,
Neil


Neil,
You raise an interesting question, because it goes along with my personal mantra: education is the progressive realization of ignorance. If I then have ready and instant access to the majority of human knowledge, it only serves to underline the broad swaths of information that I do not know.

Don Rumsfeld is infamous for many deserved reasons, but I often think of a quote of his. "We don't know what we don't know." While it received some criticism (and a hilarious bit by John Stewart on The Daily Show), I think it was possibly the only prescient and humble thing Rumsfeld ever said. Which brings me to my point, which I feel I must stand by:

Given the overwhelming flood of information, the only thing that will keep me from drowning is the ability to know what to breathe in, what to exhale, and what to vomit out completely. I call this skill critical thinking.

Sheldon Lesire