Critical thinking is a rational way to face challenges in our daily life. It can help people to justify what they have done or never seen. The banking theory has listed the learning process for each person: receive, memorize, and repeat. Frankly speaking, I got these words just around two months ago. But now I have to refactor my belief.
From students’ perspective, students who have the critical learning will be eager to explore more in existing knowledge in order to make breakthrough. Usually we students only sit in class and follow teacher’s pace to learn some new things. They would not like students to challenge their opinions and prefer “quiet” response. Students are merely followers, which certainly guarantee the teachers’ perceived students as manufacturer.
From teachers’ opinion, teachers want to improve students’ performance based on different thinking ways. Teachers play an active role in transforming PPT files into real application. The way also keeps students curiosity and excited for what they learned. Critical thinking way definitely helps teachers’ transfer knowledge into the life.
I appreciate your perspective! In reflecting on critical thinking, the initial process is critical in it self, because it leads to questioning and reflecting if the previous thoughts, ideas, or knowledge was correct, incorrect, misleading, or a misconception (It is like a built-in self-monitor or self-check of knowledge to clarify, refine, expand/elaborate more on). Critical thinking permits the exploration of those daily insights. The more explanation of the reasoning used in constructing those thoughts, ideas, or knowledge and defending your position with peers, colleagues, or within your learning community, the more you become confident and establish high self-efficiency and self-empowerment in the specific discourse, which can surpass beyond the learning environment or the engagement/interaction of other individuals can lead to your “Eureka” moment, challenge older ideas within the discourse, or influence the construction of new ideas, thoughts, and knowledge within the discourse.
Great post!
A reading from several weeks ago suggested a more active approach to teaching (e.g., asking students to design test questions or group questions based on topics). I’ve rarely taken courses that are like this. I’ve had professors who knowingly cram line after line of facts down students’ throats, and demand similar regurgitation during a test. Unfortunately, these teachers appear to have less interest in teach and more interest in achieving a specific money quota in research. But, regardless of these, there are those teachers out there that are beginning to teach, and perhaps have a passion for seeing students grow, that are still exploring new ways of breaking away from traditional, pointless methods of teaching and finding ways to drive students curiosity.
I think the sum of Freire’s talk is that the journey is more important than the end result. The journey is simply critical thinking and reason which make a student (out of curiosity) pursue knowledge. This is the way great inventors, educators, scientists etc have always learned. However, we should also realize that today’s model of ‘receive, memorize, and repeat’ is maybe born out of the need for mass learning with the least time spent while critical learning with self direction is for those who have that curiosity to self direct. Finding a way to merge the two and have the positives of both learning systems will be splendid.
I like you thought on making the classroom experience more like the real world where critical thinking is important. I also however see the value in lecturing from time to time and think it can be a good way to teach important base concepts when appropriate. However, lecturing all the time sucks the life and curiosity out of learning and squashes critical thinking with the spoon that is feeding students information. Application is key! But what will you apply if you don’t have the basic tools and knowledge to think critically about?
Critical thinking not only help students transfer knowledge into real life but also, as Freire suggests, helps them transform reality instead of just being in it as an object detached from it. It empowers students to be socially and politically aware humans who recognize and act against authoritarian practices and unethical practices. Critical thinking helps students to move toward intellectual freedom and gives meaning to education in the true sense of the terms.