Teaching Critical Thinking (cutting the edges)

Dear Colleagues,

The opposite of a profound truth is
another profound truth. Opposite
of a trivial truth:  contradiction.
                                Neils Bohr
 
    Teaching Critical Thinking
 
       Instruction for  Group I.
 
I want you to take this basketball over
to the foul line and take one shot.
Just one.
 
Now: take your place on the bleachers
We’re going to workshop —critique,
discuss, advise, estimate, evaluate
that shot. 
 
OK:  go ahead and take another. Just
one just one. Come on back. Sit. We’ll
talk about this one—look for
improvement.
 
          Instruction for Group II.

Shoot your asses off.  


            Cutting the Edges

I'm guilty of blunting distinctions & conflating
something like “church” & “state,” conservatory
values & academic values, say. (Something like,
I said).
 
       
 
Rubric and rugged rigor, measurable goals, aims
& objectives. accountability & concerns with
accurate assessment, standards, contract renewal,
merit pay & evaluations on both sides of the desk:
Academic Values.
 
   
 
& me, presumptuously trying to force some things
like Conservatory Values slip sliding  along
immeasurable clouds of unknowing,
trials & margins for error, rooms
for play: OMG, holy smokes &
performance anxieties so as
to be getting better &
good.
 
A violence to Consistency,
A crime against Clarity & Coherence
Round  pegs & square holes. If I had
a hammer I’d hammer in the morning…

“Most enduring structures (in nature,
society,  the human psyche) are
resistant  to fundamental change. by
which I mean change that  alters the
givens of these structures themselves.
It’s  almost a matter of logic:

    no self-contained world
    can induce its  own
    fundamental change,
    because self-containment
    means it knows nothing
    beyond its own givens.

In such cases, accidents are useful.
indeed.” (Lewis Hyde. The Trickster
                       Makes This World)
xxxooo, Sam