Ask an Atheist with Sam Mulvey
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Critical Thinking and Education (ft. Hemant Mehta)

by  Becky Friedman
Posted on July 29, 2012
5 Comments
Categories: Episode Archive

Becky and special contributor Hemant Mehta take a look at aspects of public education and the educative process, and their respective relevance to atheists. Mike and Sam talk about Scientology, Chick Fil-A.

There are show notes after the break.

Resources and Sources mentioned on this episode:

About the Author: Becky Friedman

Becky works on the Ask An Atheist production team, frequently appears on episodes, and lends her voice to commercial announcements. She speaks Spanish, works as an educator in the Seattle-Tacoma area, and sits on the Board of Humanists of Washington.

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Stephen

I found a possible origin for the anti-“critical thinking skills” stuff. The Texas GOP implied it, but this page (written by Phyllis Schlafly, no surprise either) makes it explicit: Outcome-Based Education is an indoctrination scheme by evil librulz to form godless sodomizing Democrat-voting moral relativist postmodern Marxists.

Also, reaching new heights of irony, it produces semi-literate and docile graduates, perfect fodder for low-wage industries. http://www.ourcivilisation.com/dumb/dumb3.htm

Not to mention the irony of “dumb” in the URL, but not in a self-referential way.

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Becky Friedman

Wow, thanks Stephen for the sleuth work! Sam was right on the money, then when he asked me and Hemant whether they thought that higher order thinking skills threatened their traditional moral [read: religious] values. Here’s a gem from Phyllis: “When [education reformers] talk about “higher order thinking skills” or “critical thinking,” they mean a relativistic process of questioning traditional moral values.” She goes on to completely discredit Bloom’s taxonomy, which has become the most widely referred to scheme for understanding and describing what we want students to be able to do from a cognitive perspective. You know, like remember,… Read more »

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Sam Mulvey

Phyllis, owner of the womb which spawned Andy Schlafly, owner of the addled brain which spawned Conservapedia, wherein it is written that atheism causes fatness.

It’s my version of a biblical begat line.

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[…] of fun conversations about math education, high school atheist groups, and Republicans in Texas.Have a listen! Filed Under: Education, General 1 Comment « High School Teacher Bragged About Stopping […]

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Filip Janssen

Of course the old testament is meant to communicate morals … the morals of the time. Ie us = good, them = killkillkill. Anything to improve “us” is moral.

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