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Two conservative intellectuals have recently raised questions about the value of college for most students. While they come from different starting points, they make the same basic point. I find the sources mildly interesting but I think the basic concept is long overdue. Just as high school needs to be reinvented, so does the undergraduate college model.

via Creative Class » Blog Archive » The Value of College for Most Students – Creative Class.

Our schools aren’t world class – this is what they must do: – The National Newspaper

Our schools aren’t world class – this is what they must do:

Clifton Chadwick

* Last Updated: August 20. 2008 9:28PM UAE / August 20. 2008 5:28PM GMT

There has been much talk recently about creating world class schools for the knowledge economy. It sounds good, but what does it mean? Knowledge economies are ones where higher-level knowledge contributes to overall economic effectiveness. Knowledge is gathered (through schooling and research) and then applied to solving problems and creating opportunities. Take Finland as an example: 40 years ago, its primary export was wood. Today, more than half its income results from high technology products – knowledge economy items.

Evangelical Perspective: Education vs Postmodern Language

Education vs Postmodern Language

There are times when we attempt to educate our children to follow not just our faith but our view of the world. The usual suspect that we confront in education is the secularism and the particular attacks on our faith such as morality and free exercise. These are always real issues. But if we pay attention to the structure of the eduction, not just the content, there are other, deeper matters that might be of concern to everyone. Here is a quote from Conversations with God : An Uncommon Dialogue (Book 1) by Neale Walsch concerning his reported interactions with God:

God said:

I also communicate with thought. Thought and feelings are not the same, although they can occur at the same time. In communicating with thought, I often use images and pictures. For this reason, thoughts are more effective than mere words as tools of communication.

In addition to feelings and thoughts, I also use the vehicle of experience as a grand communicator.

And finally, when feelings and thoughts fail, I use words. Words are really the least effective communicator. They are most open to misinterpretation, most often misunderstood.

And why is that? It is because of what words are. Words are merely utterances: noises that stand for feelings, thoughts, and experience. They are symbols. Signs. Insignias. They are not Truth. They are not the real thing.

Words may help you understand something. Experience allows you to know. Yet there are some things you cannot experience. So I have given you other tools of knowing. And these are call feelings. And so too, thoughts.

Now the supreme irony here is that you have all placed so much importance on the Word of God, and so little on experience.

The issue hes ot that a book promoted by Scholastic Books is religious and redefining the Christian faith. That’s a concern, but there is something more. I suspect you see it pretty clearly.

An academic examination of this might be valuable. We could look at whether there is really any value to the printed words that he uses to symbolize his feelings and thought, and so ask whether they are even accurate representations as such. That could encompass a lengthy essay. So at the risk of being a bit too reductionist, let’s just say that the end product of this mode of thinking is a loss of meaning for words, a loss of authority for codified language, the final breakdown of communication standards. Without communication there is no education.

The character of this material is dangerous. Not just religoiusly, but educationally.

Do Schools Teach Critical Thinking? | Culture11

Do Schools Teach Critical Thinking?

By Clifton Chadwick

November 15, 2008

Do Schools Teach Logical and Critical Thinking?

Clifton Chadwick and Roeia Thabet[i]

In a classical sense, education encompasses the process of imparting and acquiring knowledge as well as developing or cultivating skills and abilities while being educated. In the complexity of today’s world in which the economy is becoming more and more driven by the production, use and dissemination of information, never has the need for teaching thinking and producing critical thinkers been so necessary and obvious.