Saturday, February 22, 2014

The truth about "critical thinking"....David Risselada

As the “common core curriculum” continues to raise eyebrows across the nation, conversations about “critical thinking” abilities among our children are gaining traction as well. Anybody over the age of forty has surely noticed that children are not as able to apply logic to problem solving like they once were. The fact that common core is presenting students with so called “fuzzy math” is bad enough, but the truth is our education system has been under assault for quite some time. Attempts to standardize equality among students have resulted in a system where standards are lowered in order to make lower performing students “feel better” about themselves.  The most important point that needs to be made however; is about the teaching of critical thinking skills. Our kids are lacking in logic deduction and it’s because in part, many parents do not understand the origins of “critical thinking” and what it was designed to do.

There are two terms you need to be familiar with, “critical thinking” and “critical theory.”  What our children are being taught is a system of thinking based on critical theory, which was designed for the explicit purpose of establishing cultural Marxism in a free society. Created in the Frankfurt School of Social Research in the early part of the twentieth century, critical theory was brought to the United States when the school was relocated here in 1933. Critical theory was designed to encourage people to critique their own cultures “critically” for the purpose of conditioning them to advocate for social change, which of course is a nicer way of saying socialism.

Let’s look at the way the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes critical theory-

“Critical theory provides a specific interpretation of Marxist philosophy and reinterprets some of its central economic and political notions such as, commidification, reification, fetishization and critique of mass culture.”

Let’s compare this to the standard definition of “critical thinking.”

“A set of conceptual tools with associated intellectual skills and strategies useful for making reasonable decisions about what to do and what to believe.”

Given the nature of the extreme left wing, anti American bias that has infected our education system, it’s evident that the first definition is definitely in play.  A good example to highlight is a personal experience this author had while attending a social work program at a four year college in Oklahoma. It was 2010 and the Affordable Care Act was still the center of attention, and many classroom discussions revolved around socialized medicine. In fact, the text book for the class specifically mentioned that In Europe, everyone received free healthcare while in the United States there were many, many millions suffering from the lack there of.  The text book failed to mention many realities of Europe’s healthcare system; like wait times, rationing, costs to society and the amount of money government would spend to save your life, which incidentally, is only thirty five thousand dollars. In an environment where real critical thinking was encouraged, asking the professor how a government indebted seventeen trillion dollars would be able to give everyone free health care would be a little more accepted, and there would be room for discussing such a question.  In a “critical theory” environment however; the conclusion has already been reached that America is flawed because we claim to be a free country where everyone has equal rights, yet some have health care and some don’t.

That’s how critical theory works. It presents the desired solution of the Marxists as an alternative that is preferable to the system in which we currently live. Then, it challenges the students to critique their own culture for not being more like what is being presented as the “ideal” society. 

This is one of the methods that have been employed against American society in an attempt to psychologically break us down. This also explains the motives behind President Obama’s statements about the Constitution being a flawed document. He wants young Americans and minorities alike to view it as something that stands in his way of creating the perfect society, as opposed to a document that prevents government overreach. He said the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties that doesn’t go far enough to describe what government must do on your behalf.

 By challenging people to critique their own culture, and the very nature of liberty, President Obama, along with our communist controlled education system, is encouraging people to beg for “social change.” This probably goes a long way in describing why an education on the Constitution is all but absent from most high schools.

David Risselada



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