Literacy in Crisis
Added 2022-06-11 01:51:21 +0000 UTCWe talk about the reasons for low literacy in advanced capitalist nations, the degradation of the arts, and the role of schools and education in capitalism.
Article mentioned: The Crisis of Low Literacy by Peter Kerek
Comments
I think critical thinking is more of an orientation, like kindness or emotional sensitivity. I've met a lot of people who have low numeracy/literacy skill, but who are very good at questioning authority and have good "instincts" if that makes sense. But does it even make sense to separate these from "intellectual ability". That's a question beyond my pay grade. Yes, I think objective criteria is important. For example, it was necessary, at some point, for arts students to have a familiarity with the Western Canon. At an earlier point, it was necessary to know Greek or Latin prior to entering an undergraduate degree (much like engineering students need to know calculus). Whether these standards make sense or not is another question. My experience in engineering was that you could get a B at least in most courses by learning the procedures to solve a few different type of problems, and applying them to other problems. So you could avoid learning the underlying concepts, which is not good. It was still a lot of hard work even to get those partial marks though. Arts students never know that pain.
William Mckay
2022-07-17 18:25:22 +0000 UTCLOL at "much easier to get a B in many arts programs." Maybe Canada's maintained some standards, but in the US grade inflation is such that a lot of students are disappointed if they don't get an *A* in a humanities course. I'm not sure I accept your distinction between critical thinking-ability and intellectual ability, since the former seems more like a species of intellectual ability (maybe you mean mathematical ability?). But yeah, I agree that STEM curricula tend to be more rigorous. One obvious explanation is that it seems easier to establish objective criteria of correctness in those disciplines--you either get the right answer or you don't--whereas there's a lot more interpretation and subjectivity in the humanities. But I don't know about that, since partial credit for incorrect solutions opens the door to interpretation...probably more going on...
George
2022-07-16 16:40:18 +0000 UTCI think that the main advantage that STEM students benefit from is a higher degree of rigour within the disciplines. It's much easier to get a B in many arts programs versus engineering. So the mentality of putting in the work to push through difficulties in understanding is more prevalent amongst these students (in my experience, at least, but also standardized literacy scores are higher amongst STEM grads versus humanities/arts grads). Critical thinking is something different, more of a question of politics/philosophical ability and less a question of intellectual ability. --Leila
William Mckay
2022-07-15 18:57:46 +0000 UTCAt first I thought this topic sounded a little mundane, but as usual RSR took it in an interesting direction. I think the question of how to read *critically* is really important for pedagogy. I've spent a lot of time teaching philosophy to STEM students and have observed that they largely have no idea how to approach a text critically. They see texts as sources of information, not as arguments that need to be evaluated. Doesn't mean they don't eventually learn to exercise something resembling the vaunted scientific skepticism in their specialties, but it is a very compartmentalized kind of skepticism (though of course the same goes for most humanities people as well!).
George
2022-07-09 14:27:42 +0000 UTC
