The overheated right-wing pundits were on to something after all. Obama’s speech to the “nation’s students” was pompous, ridiculously long, chock-full of ed-school bromides, and wholly beyond a president’s proper role.
Why should students study, according to Obama? Because they will develop “critical thinking skills” from “history and social studies” that will allow them “to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free.”
How about studying because you will gain actual knowledge–not just “critical thinking skills”–that will lift you out of ignorance? How about for the love of learning and beauty? How about because facts matter?
If the “critical thinking skills” that Obama thinks will “fight poverty and homelessness” led to an awareness that out-of-wedlock child-bearing is the greatest cause of long-term poverty in this country, I might reconsider my contempt for the critical thinking cult and for the ed-school mantra that education is about learning how to learn, rather than about hard-won knowledge.
But I doubt that that’s what Obama had in mind. I also doubt that he expects that “critical thinking skills” will reveal that homelessness is overwhelmingly a function of substance abuse and mental illness, or that it is often a lifestyle choice by people who want to live outside the rules of normal society.
When Obama wants students to use their “critical thinking skills” to make the nation “more fair and more free,” he probably didn’t mean getting rid of racial preferences, either.
It’s Obama’s prerogative, of course, to summon up the usual litany of liberal social causes as the be-all and end-all of existence and education—science and math are desirable for “curing diseases like cancer and AIDS, and developing new energy technologies and protecting our environment,” he said. No one would object to curing cancer or developing clean energy; these are noble pursuits. And he gives at least passing acknowledgement that business exists and that working in the for-profit sector can actually have social benefit beyond providing an occasion for taxation: “You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.”
Still, I have to admit that the knee-jerk opposition to the speech, which had struck me until now as another depressing sign of how paranoid and overheated the opposition to Obama had become, was more right than wrong. No, Obama is not trying to enlist troops for the socialist takeover of the economy; his speech is no more radical than the thousands of commencement speeches that froth out from college greens every year. And obviously the call for hard work and personal responsibility is welcome; had the speech been directed explicitly at black students, I wonder if the conservatives would have blown their tops.
Pre-speech, I had decided that it was more insane to object to the President addressing school children, than for the President to address them in the first place. (Though I had fully in mind Gene Healy’s brilliant analysis of the late arrival of children in the presidential public vocabulary, and the legitimate critique that presidents really have more pressing obligations within the constitutional framework than worrying about children). Why shouldn’t the President be a momentary and non-partisan presence in the classroom, making visible a part of our government, I thought.
But reading the speech, I have changed my mind. The impression it gives is of an enormous ego and sense of boundless power and portfolio. Even if Obama had not announced: “I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn,” the speech still makes you ask: Who, exactly, are you to be saying these things to children? Isn’t it the role of teachers and parents to encourage hard work and a love of learning? Is the president also the Great Roofer and Parent and School Purchasing Department in the Sky?
I’m not ready to buy into the entire right-wing critique of Obama as a dangerous threat to liberty or as the very embodiment of “The Left.” But this speech does suggest a disturbing lack of perspective.
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For what it’s worth one of the only positive attributes Obama brings to the presidency is his example as a minority who achieved something via education. I’d be glad to see him talking to students every day on the chance that would result in more of them getting some basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills.
As to perspective, the man has no experience in the real world to provide context for perspective. Better talking to children than making mischief with adults in DC.
Don’t rag on critical thinking skills. They are becoming more and more important every year.
I think this post might be mistaking a case of mere pandering for suspected preaching. Polls show that large numbers of young people want taxpayer dollars spent on green energy regimes, and it is general consensus among educators that rote memorization is secondary to critical thinking skills (disclaimer: I think they’re right on this issue). Though he does bring up the usual liberal laundry list of social ills, he at least had the good sense to use language at least implicit of the fact that the market is probably whence their solutions will arise.
As we all know, Obama’s rhetorical skill lies in his ability to be everything to everyone, and to me his speech was merely predictable, not “pompous” and especially not “ridiculously long.” Your final point also struck me as a little desperate: “Who, exactly, are you to be saying these things to children?” Are we now demanding that the President of the United States have no right to encourage young people to do the right thing?
I didn’t see or read the speech, but it seems to me that critical thinking skiils would be very useful to, say, a teenage girl being pressured by her 5-years-older boyfried to forgo the condom. That and a little sex ed. And it would have the bonus of helping prevent single motherhood and thus poverty.
It still beats My Pet Goat.
Gee, I thought the speech was pretty harmless, and possibly helpful to some students.
>>Isn’t it the role of teachers and parents to encourage hard work and a love of learning?
Seems to me the more folks you have sending that message, the better. Some students have bad teachers and/or parents.
I thought his advice on not falling for the easy path that TV images seem to claim is out there, was very good and appropriate. “Find something you’re good at, and stick to it” was one of the sentiments he expressed. What’s wrong with that?
Derek Scruggs — It was “The Pet Goat.”
Oh please, Heather, don’t be so disingenuous. When everybody got wind of Obama’s plan to target the nation’s elementary school students with a bunch of his patented lib-speak propaganda, they had to scrap the original script!!! This is the best lame b.s. they could apparently come up with on short notice.
Barack Obama is Hugo Chavez-lite. His sole concern is his own personal power. This little speech to kids was all about trying to become more powerful through the influence of children. All the rest is details.
Take away the tele-prompter and BO critical thinking skills go away.
Critical thinking skills would’ve led most voters to disbelieve the media-fueled canard that an inexperienced lightweight one-half term senator from Illinois should be President of the United States. Obama owes his current job to American’s lack of critical thinking skills.
To be sincere (and though I love the man) I expected better.
Hey, the proper context of the criticisms of President Obama’s speaking to the schoolchildren was NOT the fact that he was going to do so.
The speech itself as ultimately posted is within the zone of innocuous, but that is not what was presented for inspection when President Obama (or one of his minions) first announced that he would address America’s schoolchildren. By the way, one would think that a president lampooned as “The One” would be more sensitive, or perhaps he really wants to be “The One” and, but for the initial reaction, would have proceeded with what some viewed as a “personality cult indoctrination.”
In any event, his minions over at the Department of Education (with or without “The One’s” direct input or review) originally put out educational materials which encouraged the little ones to study Obama’s life and to write essays about what they could do to help “President Obama.” To its credit, the Department of Education reacted to the criticism and revised the educational materials to be less concentrated on “The One.”
A noted disciple of Saul Alinsky decides to give a few words of advice to our children, but there is nothing about it that should concern us. Got it.
Sully, we know very little about what the POTUS achieved through his own education, as opposed to, say, affirmative action. His academic records are almost completely unknown to us, despite the fact that other elected officials’ educational records have been picked apart endlessly. I’m guessing his educational records would reveal a mediocre performance at best; why else does he not make them public?
Check out this hyper-creepy celebrity plug video, which ends with a borg-like pledge “to be a servant to our President and to all mankind. Because together we can… together we are… and together we will be the change that we seek.”
This was apparently shown in more than one school in conjunction with Dear Leader’s address. Now, I’m not a parent, but if I were I would certainly want the (unquestioned) ability to make sure that my children aren’t exposed to this sort of extracurricular claptrap at school.
I liked the part of finding “something you are good at and stick to it”. He should have followed his own advice and remained a community organizer.
I cannot emphasize enough that a huge reason for the intensity of the “paranoid and overheated opposition” to this speech was the ridiculous “study guide” that was released no less than six days prior to any release of the speech itself.
I need not repeat the details of that “guide” (other than the “write letters as to how you can help the President” line which pretty much describes its tenor), to point out how this was tailor made to prompt reactions of suspicion, nausea, anger, or mockery, depending on one’s deportment.
It has been posited that this was even done purposely, to make the right wing crazy and thus discredit them, but that’s a tad too through-the-looking-glass for me. (It is also proposed, much more plausibly, that the original speech may have been very different than the one eventually given, having been significantly changed based on that very reaction, but who is to know.) I am perfectly prepared to believe that it was all meant somewhat harmlessly, but the process showed total oblivion as to how power mad and indoctrinally minded this adminsitration is (rightly or not) perceived, at least, and is also symptomatic of terrible and repeated compulsion on the left, and that is the inability to simply leave well enough alone, and let school receive the Presidents message, and respond to it all on their own! But no, the White House has to make everything just so, to make sure they “get it right”.
So one can blame the right for getting overwrought here, but to pretend they did not have legitimate reasons for concern is to, yet again, lose sight entirely of where vast numbers of Americans are coming from when looking at this administration and how it does business.
Critical thinking skills ARE not a dominant skill taught in school..What is actually meant is “critical theory”, the Marxist product of infiltration, indoctrination and distabilisation. The only goal of critical theory is to criticise into nihilist negation of all empirical and moral values. Like PCism and multicultism etc, the entire purpose is to make it impossible for people to think rationally. Education today is often a series of logical fallacies andcognitive dissonances. drsanity blogspot com zombietime com thepeoplescube com, lookingattheleft com, dissectleft blogspot com, P.J O’Rourke etc. See Yuri Bezmenov at Colonel Robert Neville blogspot com.
Just like the Armageddon that would befall us in the year 2000, the speech that was suppose to indoctrinate our youth. Now who was spreading the baseless lies…..hmm…..oh ya, “Fake News”. Is anyone real surprised? Too funny.
@Derek Scruggs
Critical Thinking? What’s to think about? She needs it drummed into to her head from puberty that the only correct answer is “NO,” until they are mentally and financially ready to be parents–no ifs, ands, or buts. The girl needs three things: vigilant parents who won’t let her date older boys (my parent’s rule), parents who teach sexual responsibility, and a society that supports the parents and reenforces personal self-control (sociology 101: norms, roles, social control, and hierarchical structure). These problems are as old as sex, which is why the tradition of watchful mothers, chaperones, and shotguns developed. Nothing to think about here. Her answer is one to be memorized, and it is the adults’ responsibility to keep the wolves away.
I think it’s “silly season” when the President of the United States won’t put school vouchers on the table for the very students he is addressing. The poverty stricken portions of our society cannot and will not get the education he’s “doing his part” to make available if he keeps bowing to the teachers unions! Give the students the choice of where to go to school and watch the schools fix their problems.
In addition, perhaps the man who is doing everything in his power to suck the life out of the corporations (which do the grow the economy, conduct medical research, invest in the newly hired, mentor and train the smart and educated and put them to work in this CAPITALIST society) should stop his manic takeover of our economy.
Missing the point of the anger here, too, it seems. The controversy wasn’t really about the speech. Even Obama’s left-most handlers understood that there are strict limits to what you can say to people’s kids, president of the USA or not, and very few people were worried about his content. What did have people up in arms, and, I think, understandably so, was the “lesson plan” that was initially supposed to accompany it. It smacked of personality cultism. Additionally, the concept of a child being instructed to write a letter to oneself about about how they can “help the president” ignores the most fundamental freedom of our nation. Dissent.
What if that child disagrees with the president? Being forced by an authority figure to behave in a manner contrary to their own beliefs is not harmless.
But we can’t talk about that 500lb donkey in the living room. Or, now, I guess, the classroom.
Ellsworth Monkton Toohey.
So dull, too. I was sort of forced into sitting through the inauguration. Afterward I felt I had been barked at for an hour.
@Paul
and more and more rare…
As with most of the right-leaning intellectuals, MacDonald is halfway there. She now has the objective knowledge that Obama is a clownishly self-centered and unhinged ego, with no apparently constructive purpose to his blathering.
It should only be a short step for her to join the rest of the right in our understanding of this douchebag. Yes, his ego knows no bounds, but no, his blathering is not without purpose. She simply needs to observe his background and the people he surrounds himself with.
Just like the Armageddon that would befall us in the year 2000, the speech that was suppose to indoctrinate our youth. Now who was spreading the baseless lies…..hmm…..oh ya, “Fake News”. Is anyone real surprised? Too funny.
Well, Ms. Mac Donald, I guess you get what you vote for, huh?
Unfortunately, the rest of us got what you voted for, too. Thanks for that.
Remember back in May when Obama was so concerned for America’s schoolchildren that he turned away a whole busload of kindergarteners from Conway Elementary in Fredericksburg, VA, because they had the audacity to hope he’d forgive them for being tardy due to heavy traffic?
If he cares so much about education, why did he kill the DC voucher program? The students posted higher grades, they got out of an unsafe environment (the rotten-to-the-core DC public school system), and all for about half the cost of educating a child in public schools. He should have explained to the kids why his loyalty to the teachers unions outweighs his desire to see kids get a good, safe education.
Letter to our district superintendent:
I wanted to make you aware of my opposition to next week’s broadcast by the President of the United States to my elementary and junior high children. While no one knows the exact text of the speech, this unprecedented presentation gives me serious cause for concern. Here are a few of my issues.
First, if the President is simply delivering an innocent “stay in school” message, he is requiring Katy ISD and all other districts nationwide to use precious time and other resources just to deliver a message they hear frequently from people closer to them. Hearing such a message means more from parents, family, and teachers locally. This address is, at best, a waste of time and money.
Second, few people on either side of the political spectrum would argue the fact that our current President excels at campaigning and persuasion. And given the massive programs implemented, pending implementation, and proposed by this administration, it is logical that the President has been using any and all avenues to reach the American public to convince them of his programs. As an staunch opponent of higher taxes, larger federal deficits, unfunded mandates, and expanding entitlement programs, I would be extremely upset if Katy ISD was the vehicle for the President to advance his economic agenda.
Third, some of the teacher tools that are on the Department of Education website contain talking points that I find patently offensive and contrary to our basic form of government. Questions such as: “Why is it important that we listen to the president and other elected officials” and “What is the president asking me to do?” imply that we, as citizens, should look to those in power for answers and guidance. Quite the opposite is true; this nation is run by men and women who were chosen by the citizens to serve them for short periods of time. During that limited tenure, these elected officials represent the people of the United States. It is the President and other elected officials who should be listening to the citizenry, not the other way around.
Finally, I know that the President’s supporters will argue that a message about “persisting and staying in school” is a noble message and one that our children should hear from many sources, and I agree. But I am uncomfortable with any politician, regardless of office or political party, that would use the public school system and my children as an opportunity to stay in the public eye. There is a reason that this event is unprecedented; every President until now has seen it as inappropriate to start their next election campaign by aiming at high school students who will be eligible to vote in 2012. I think this event is narcissistic and improper.
Unfortunately, at this time, I cannot allow my children to attend school on September 8th. Unless the district makes the decision to forgo the President’s address entirely, I cannot subject my children to either (a) the address itself or (b) the possible classroom or teacher stigma of being excluded from the event during the day. I would suggest that Katy ISD recommend parents and caregivers allow their children to watch the address at home via the replay link already detailed at the Department of Education website.
Thank you for your consideration and time,
Regards,
“No, Obama is not trying to enlist troops for the socialist takeover of the economy; his speech is no more radical than the thousands of commencement speeches that froth out from college greens every year.”
Perhaps you might change your mind after you see the Get Schooled campaign complete with a smug mug of Obama on the home page underneath a headline that screams, “I WANT”
Here’s the link and more info…
http://spunkyhomeschool.blogspot.com/2009/09/get-homeschooled.html
P.S. I came from HotAir. Nice blog, I’m going to bookmark it.
The idea of Obama encouraging kids to develop critical thinking skills would be wholly commendable were it not for the fact that the left’s idea of “critical thinking” is not commendable in the slightest.
The public school system – and indeed most of our institutions of learning – are dominated by the left and have been for decades. And ever since their “progressive” teaching methods replaced the traditional system of learning, kids have been leaving school without the ability to read properly, write properly or think objectively. I see it in the college age kids I hire on a casual basis. It really is quite shocking. They are unable to string a coherent sentence together, have a disturbing lack of the kind of general knowledge that those over the age of 35 take for granted (one of my employees – a college graduate – recently admitted that he thought WWII was fought in the 60’s) and worst of all, they seem completely unable to follow an argument or to formulate their own arguments using objective reason and empirical facts.
The reason is that the left has gradually phased out the supremacy of objective reason and replaced it with a wishy-washy maze of fuzzy logic, political correctness and emotion. Kids are taught that whatever they feel is valid, for the sole reason that they feel it. And worse, they’re taught that political correctness is a superior justification for opinion than objective reason or empirical evidence.
The focus has also shifted from the individual to the group. I am 36 years old and of the first generation to experience the modern style of “group learning” in which tables were pushed together in circles and individual study was abandoned in favor of team work. Cooperation is of course an integral part of life and very important, but we are first and foremost individuals. I saw exactly what happened in this groups. The quiet, lazy and slow kids would quickly learn to depend on the smarter, quicker, motivated kids to answer all the questions and do the bulk of the work. The teacher cared less about how we were doing as individuals and more about how the group was functioning as a whole. This is the left’s ideology of collectivism as manifest in the classroom.
Ayn Rand described the disaster of modern teaching methods in her superb essay “The Comprachicos” which was published in “The New Left.” Kids need to be taught the fundamentals of rational thought from a very early age – instead they’re being taught to blindly follow their emotions and the nearest group. The result – groupthink, which is the intellectually lazy tendency to subscribe to consensus to avoid the effort of real critical thinking. This is the end result and intentional goal of the left’s teaching methods. They call it “critical thinking” to disguise the fact that what they really want is for a select few (the “intellectual elite”) to do all of the thinking and for the proletariat masses to listen and obey.
Obama’s speech would have been fine if it were not for the reality of this context.
The 9 year old went to school looking forward to the speech, because all her peers love Obama (Mommy and Daddy are not cool, so our not trusting him normal). “He talked way too long, it was boring”.
We will try to inspire her to the great things she is called to do by the president, but first we really want her to understand fractions.
Couldn’t agree with you more, which begs the question; Why is the media not interested in his records? Are they afraid of what they might find? Is it too much to ask Obama to release them. Something tells me that when he’s out of office, his Library will not have much in the way of content.
What a power this Obama has on so many minds, even self-identifying, conservative ones, even more undefined minds like Bernie Goldberg or Bill Oreilly. Can they not see that he has moderate liberals around only to give an air of legitimacy to his true outlook? Do you think he hung out at Rev Wright’s church for 20 years, even with his kids (child abuse) as he spun out such anti-white hatred? Do you think he is so stupid or ignorant in the right way that he doesn’t know who Bill Ayers is or what he is really about — or Father Phleger or Van Jones? Why are people so stuck in the old political paradigm that they cannot imagine Obama as the true liberal fascist he is? He is the new megalomaniacal leader (over 50 self references — and he even wants to chair the Security Council). He cannot not think of his greatness and power over people. Just look at how many so called rational people rationalize all of the radical things he does and people he has around him. So much effort for such a radical fool affirmatively actioned into the presidency but the MSM enablers who did no vetting of him and in fact helped hide his radicalness because he says all of the right liberal things. So many fools; so little time before he and the radical left democrats destroy so much of the good fabric of our nation. Please America, wake up to this trojan horse.
Think about it…who will be the first time voters in 2012 and who’s face will they have already seen?
Duh. It’s all vote pandering to the max. It’s all Democrats do, pimp themselves for votes, values be damned.
Amen, Mr./Ms. Babbitt, some of us saw it from the first day but then we are racist. Darn, I hate that word almost as much as the word diversity. Diversity has bred disunity. This isn’t the United States of America, this a just a conglomeration of people who want their own cultures, speech, dress, etc and have no need to be Americans except to collect our generosity and largess. Disgusting. Remember, Hitler went to the children first.
Obama is hardly qualified to be considered a good parent to his own children much less qualified to lecture other peoples children about education. He took his 2 young daughters to Rev. (G*d Da*n America) Wrights racist anti-Semitic Trinty church for several years. I consider that child abuse.
Obama is not an example of education giving a person a leg up, he is simply an example of affirmative action combined with a con mans smooth sales pitch. He has some obvious talent as a fiction writer but had no other accomplishments to speak of prior to being elected to the Senate.
He was an average student at every scholastic level, he never played organized sports nor did he excel at any of his private sector jobs. In short he is the definition of an empty suit.
I also noticed the backdrop MY EDUCATION / MY FUTURE and thought that was speaking volumes about Obama himself with his affirmative action education and the one and a half million dollars already used to seal all his school and uni. records and most important of all, his long version BIRTH CERTIFICATE. That is the key to ending his traitorous and illegal presidency. Go to Obama File and BastardObama and study the details ! How did he get into Columbia and then Harvard ? He admitted in Dreams from My Father ( ghost written by Ayers )that he wasted the last two years of high school getting drunk , partying and doing cocaine.
The section full of lies is where he talks of Indonesia. Pretends his mother was too poor to send him to a school with Americans. She was an anti American atheist married to a second muslim ( there is no record of a first marriage to BHO 1 ) . The step father Soetoro was a well paid engineer , a Muslim who adopted little Barry and enrolled him in a madrassa. Barry willingly and regularly attended the mosque with the stepfather and is on record as saying the Call to Prayer is the most beautiful sound ! He should have been honest and at the end of this putrid speech and invoked Allah the Moon god. The suggestion the mother was home schooling him at 4.30 in the morning is laughable. He is a compulsive liar who just keeps on elaborating a ridiculous fantasy narrative.
Well done Colonel Neville! I concur 100 %
” Critical thinking skills ARE not a dominant skill taught in school..What is actually meant is “critical theory”, the Marxist product of infiltration, indoctrination and distabilisation. The only goal of critical theory is to criticise into nihilist negation of all empirical and moral values. Like PC ism and multiculturalism etc, the entire purpose is to make it impossible for people to think rationally. Education today is often a series of logical fallacies and cognitive dissonances. ”
Critical thinking is often used as a code for deconstructionalism , Critical in the sense of ripping things apart and doubting that there are any ultimate truths. This is why Christianity is always in the firing line. Christianity is based on the Truth , not just truth claims, ( Jesus said ; He is the Way the Truth and the Life ) and the verification historically of the event of the Resurrection. Obama’s boilerplate, ( Boilerplate is any text that is or can be reused in new contexts or applications without being changed much from the original ) which he must have modified somewhat , is still fantasy Leftist rubbish. ‘ Protecting the environment ‘ indeed , just AGW hoax and cap and tax that will be a final nail in the coffin of America.
As an English teacher I am appalled by his sentence construction and banal use of ‘got’ etc. and all the 50 + ‘I ‘s ‘ of this chronic narcissist ( see a great article at FaithFreedom .org ) who believes everything is all about him. Me myself and I. He craves attention and a captive audience like an insecure 3 year old ! He is like a younger version of Jerry ,’ GD America ‘ Wright. So many conservatives are taken in by him and don’t see this speech was little short of the first of many propaganda efforts. That is the essence of the man Barack Hussein Obama.
I haven’t seen your site before but well done ! I wonder if you will allow my comment as it contains a mention of Christianity ? Why Secular Right ? Even atheism is a faith position or a religion per se ?
Your Doofus POTUS then went on to tell the pre-kinder children what “critical” meant, what “analytical” meant, what “skills” meant, and promised he was coming round to teach each, individually and personally, what “A” means, what “B” means etc. He also promised to bring Michele around to help but ONLY after SHE learned what “A” is what “B” is and etc.
To compound the absolute horlicks Barry-boy made of his speech to people of his own intellectual stature–yes, Virginia, he’s still a babe in arms!–Barry then proceeded to tell a rather older and far more impressionable group of pre-teens and teens that HE PERSONALLY had been a screw-up and a goof-off at their age….but that hadn’t stopped him from becoming a Community Organiser, a Senator and a POTUS….conveying the impermeable message to these young minds that GOOFING OFF and BEING A SCREW-UP were probably essential on-the-job training for being a POTUS. What a nincompoop thing to say…but ever so typical of our Hamlet…who continues to believe and act as though movement were progress…
Finally, and here I claim exclusivity, if Barry-boy had something substantive to say to children, why during school hours? And why on the erstwhile “first-day”? Why not ask parents, teachers and children to stay on for an extra half hour after school to hear that rich baritone and those sloped cadenzas saying “yadder yadder, yadder blah blah blah”?
Teacher, Teacher, I know the answer that rhetorical question!
Did anyone else have trouble with Obama’s sharing of his personal family dysfunction – almost like he was unloading his shit onto kids that would have been better left as his therapist’s office? My kids’ teachers didn’t show the video, but I can just imagine my inquisitive 5 and 7 year-old questions:
– Mommy, why did President Obama’s daddy leave him when he was 2 years old? Is my Daddy going to leave me?
– Mommy, what’s a single mom? Why did she not buy President Obama the toys he wanted?
– Mommy, President Obama said he got into trouble in school, so what did he do?
– Mommy, why was President Obama lonely?
EEEEEK! Why didn’t he just tell the young kids to study hard on their spelling test, and work on their math tables. This trying to win the sympathy of children by dumping your problems on them is GROSS.
Sorry, just my point of view as a mom.
Ahh…yes..”critical thinking skills”…
…once upon a time – before words were abused to submit to Leftist ideology – it was called “analytical skills”: learning how to learn.
***Irony Alert***
I apologize for making my first post to one of Heather’s threads with the intent to kick her around a bit. She is someone whom I have greatly admired over the years.
Nonetheless…I am dumbstruck at the irony of her now ragging on “critical thinking skills” when contrasted with what she said in a pre-election interview with Laura Ingraham criticizing the Palin candidacy.
Heather was so stressed at the Palin selection that she was on the fence as to whom to vote for. Laura repeatedly pressed her to name a single policy area in which she was closer to Obama than to Palin. All Heather could say was, “I feel that Obama has the capacity to think through issues that makes me have confidence that he’s going to be able to take on the hard issues of the economy and possibly foreign policy.”
So last fall “critical thinking skills” were not only important, they trumped actual policy positions in picking a candidate. They were, in fact, so important that it didn’t seem to matter that the candidate was came down on the wrong side of every issue. Intellectuals…you gotta lov’em.
Audio at http://www.lauraingraham.com/pg/jsp/charts/streamingAudioMaster.jsp?dispid=302&headerDest=L3BnL2pzcC9tZWRpYS9mbGFzaHdlbGNvbWUuanNwP3BpZD02MjU1
May be you should read some of this blog archives before ridiculing yourself. 😀
Yeah!
Just as well as I have a hobby of NOT collecting post stamps.
Afterthought…
Bad day, I am getting too nice, I am actually furious to have to live in the world amidst a huge crowd of demented monkeys.
Why is there still a need for education when big government will take care of you? It’s clear that the unwashed liberals are fighting to make everyone just like they are – parasites.
Can’t fix education without a reality check.
The US needs more “diversity” of curriculum. There is little in the high school curriculum that will help students on the left side of the bell curve to become productive, self respecting citizens, so they drop out.
As a good example to the students, Obama could have released his college grades and class list, his SAT scores and his LSAT (Law School Admittance Test) score to get into Harvard Law School. Plus told everyone how he paid for his Harvard tuition plus room and board. Obama has never released any of the information about his education.
The speech yesterday obfuscates development of critical thinking skills. There aren’t many liberals that really want you to think about what they are doing to this country because then people would realize we are headed right over the edge. It would have been more to the point if the President and told the little darlings that they had better work hard, set goals and get good jobs because they are the ones that are going to have to pay off the bills for all the largesse being bestowed on their parents by an Administration and a duplicitous Congress that thinks the way out of the hole that they have largely put us in is to keep spending. Now that would have been a teachable moment.