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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Religious education in state schools
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
That was the starting point. But discussions and threads develop.
...into discussion of straw men?
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
In any case, it seems to me that the positions "Thinking skills don't exist" or "Some thinking skills do exist but can't be taught" or "Thinking skills exist, but can't be taught without some degree of content to ground them in" or "Thinking skills exist, can be taught, but just don't apply to RE lessons" are worth distinguishing. It seems to me that they lead to very different discussions.
That's the point, isn't it? You haven't made these distinctions.
Or to put it another way, who do you think you are actually disagreeing with and about what?
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I am honestly still unclear about this. Was the list of thinking skills I quoted further up the page not the sort of thinking skill that we were discussing?
Some were. Some could be challenged (and indeed were).
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Do any of Ken's examples count as that sort of thinking skill?
I don't think so. I can't imagine leo trying to teach any of them.
No - because I am not into teaching 'thinking skills' (except for a Philosophy course I used to run for gifted and talented).
I am into getting kids to do theology, to initiate them into that discourse.
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Or to put it another way, who do you think you are actually disagreeing with and about what?
Well I'm trying to work that out.
My view is that there are generalizable thinking skills and that they can be taught (and by taught I mean you can do stuff in a classroom to facilitate their acquisition - not necessarily that one can go through prescribed steps to acquire them).
Out of the list I got from the article I think that;
metacognition
critical thinking
cognitive processes (such as problem solving and
decision making)
core thinking skills (such as representation and
summarising)
understanding the role of content knowledge
sound like they fit they bill, I'm less sure about "creative thinking".
Out of Ken's list, it seems to me that;
Learning to memorise information does fit, and is definitely teachable, and a large part of my education was about that. People who learn to memorise information and reproduce it generally do well in exams of all sorts, but I'm not sure that's what we should be aiming for and don't think the usual proponents of thinking skills would like that example.
Cladistic analysis, set theory and graph theory on their own probably seem a bit narrow, but I think that if one is getting at a set of techniques for making sense of data, and learning how and when to apply them then that comes into the category of thinking skills.
I also think that one does need to teach these skills in lessons that contain a reasonable amount of content, or the skills can't operate. But that the acquisition of thinking skills is at least as important (if not more important) than the content taught, and certainly what any examination should focus on.
It seems to me that doing this is difficult in some subjects (History, geography, for instance) and almost automatic in others (Mathematics, which has always been about application of cognitive process rather than content anyway - no-one spends time learning the names of great mathematicians, but they do learn how to solve simultaneous equations, for instance).
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I am into getting kids to do theology, to initiate them into that discourse.
How can you do that without teaching them about religion?
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Hail Gallaxhar
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
But that the acquisition of thinking skills is at least as important (if not more important) than the content taught, and certainly what any examination should focus on.
Then why not scrap multi-disciplinary GCSEs and A Levels, and just have one exam which tests thinking skills?
After all, if the content itself is less important then it shouldn't matter which actual subjects a student has any particular aptitude for or just doesn't get, as long as they're thinking properly.
Come on people, knowledge is vitally important! I don't want a doctor who can process information brilliantly but can't tell his medulla oblongata from a hole in the ground! I don't want civil engineers who can summarise anything you throw at them but wouldn't recognise a cantilevered beam if they walked into one! Content. Is. Everything!
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Hail Gallaxhar
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Then why not scrap multi-disciplinary GCSEs and A Levels, and just have one exam which tests thinking skills?
Because a) there is still a skill in applying those thinking skills to different disciplines and b) I don't say that content doesn't matter at all - just that it matters less.
Where courses concern applied knowledge it is clearly vital that eg. doctors/engineers know that information. But similarly thinking skills are to be valued and medical education is getting more and more interested in them both as a means to enhance the acquisition of knowledge and as an important competence to medical practice.
Doctors who can boil down a patient's problems to the essentials and be critical about what is relevant to the patient are often highly effective. Doctors who know loads but can't apply it aren't.
I don't say that content is nothing. I realise it matters. But it isn't everything.
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Content. Is. Everything!
Well, no.
I wouldn't want a civil engineer who could recognise a cantilevered beam without the wisdom to know when to use one.
And in a situation, even, that they hadn't directly learnt about.
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Forward the New Republic
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
(Mathematics, which has always been about application of cognitive process rather than content anyway - no-one spends time learning the names of great mathematicians, but they do learn how to solve simultaneous equations, for instance).
I wish our teachers had taught us maths in a historical way, including the lives of the great mathematicians. It would have made it a lot easier to learn!
Basically they did it by giving us long lists of repetitive sums to do, and if you got too many wrong you had to go back and do simpler ones - which of course was even more boring and the more boring it gets the more mistakes you make...
There was no overview, no roadmap, no big picture, no general context, no discussion, bo background, no commentary, just rote learning of techniques which had to be reproduced exactly before you were allowed to do anything else. Crazy way to teach.
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I'm not going through lists of irrelevant items trying to identify what might be relevant.
This really isn't intended to be an attack, its a genuine observation, but there, and in a lot of other places in this thread, you have employed the neat little rhetorical trick of taking what someone else says, classifying it or redefining it in some way, then throwing it back at the other speakers, perhaps with some little but of apparently logical analysis that in fact merely reproduces your premises, without really engaging with what other said.
If you are a teacher, as you claim to be, I hope you do not talk to your students the way you write here. It mist be very frustrating for them.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
I wish our teachers had taught us maths in a historical way, including the lives of the great mathematicians. It would have made it a lot easier to learn!
Euclid ftw!
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Basically they did it by giving us long lists of repetitive sums to do, and if you got too many wrong you had to go back and do simpler ones - which of course was even more boring and the more boring it gets the more mistakes you make...
I think you could sort that out without resorting to history. I would find the history of maths interesting now, but I doubt I would have at 14. My experience of maths teaching wasn't like yours, though, we did get a roadmap and a big picture.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I am into getting kids to do theology, to initiate them into that discourse.
How can you do that without teaching them about religion?
We've been round this one before.
In short, we select 'content' in so far as it is relevant to them and gets them enthusiastic.
That is not the same as teaching 'content' for its own sake.
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
I was thinking about this earlier, in the context of my PhD - where the rapid assimilation of complex data from a wide variety of disciplines was vital. I've used that skill often, and sometimes intensively, since then, and very valuable it is too.
However, no one formally taught that to me. Is it so far off the mark to believe that by having the right conditions (and the incentive), the skill was encouraged?
Is it a step too far to suggest that what PhilA and Leo are doing is using specific knowledge in deliberately engineered scenarios in order to encourage the learning of 'thinking skills'?
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Forward the New Republic
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
What you describe rings true to me also from my research experience. I think I acquired the skill to think critically about data during my undergraduate course on a laboratory attachment. I'm sure that it could have been acquired earlier if I'd been taught it. (Or facilitated to learn it, however you want to put it).
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Or to put it another way, who do you think you are actually disagreeing with and about what?
Well I'm trying to work that out.
Don't you think you should have done this before arguing with people?
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
My view is that there are generalizable thinking skills...
...but these are not necessarily anything to do with the thinking skills that people talk about in education that were proposed as a reason for downgrading content in RE and, therefore, not necessarily relevant to the discussion.
I do feel that I have wasted a lot of time trying to get you back to the point at hand so as to avoid attacks on strawmen, only to be ignored so comprehensively that now people can barely remember what the point at hand was.
The post I am replying to is a case in point. You were given a chance to clarify what you were disagreeing with, instead you just repeated your own views, using your own terminology.
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I am into getting kids to do theology, to initiate them into that discourse.
How can you do that without teaching them about religion?
Or Latin?
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Content. Is. Everything!
Well, no.
I wouldn't want a civil engineer who could recognise a cantilevered beam without the wisdom to know when to use one.
And in a situation, even, that they hadn't directly learnt about.
I can't help noticing that arguments now seem to be veering again towards the idea that all knowledge is memorisation and all thinking is a form of generic thinking skill.
A key point here is that the learning of information and the development of the ability to use it are normally developed side by side and you can't usually get much of one without the other.
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
This really isn't intended to be an attack, its a genuine observation, but there, and in a lot of other places in this thread, you have employed the neat little rhetorical trick of taking what someone else says, classifying it or redefining it in some way, then throwing it back at the other speakers, perhaps with some little but of apparently logical analysis that in fact merely reproduces your premises, without really engaging with what other said.
Please don't describe me being wrong, without explaining why I'm wrong. What you consider to be a rhetorical trick, i.e rephrasing for clarity, is in my book the best way to deal with an unclear claim. Getting rid of the ambiguity allows a clear challenge. Anyone is entitled to reply by saying "hang on that's not what I meant, I meant this..." but simply complaining about rephrasing without explaining how the rephrasing is inaccurate is equivalent to complaining "you make it obvious when people are wrong."
Oh, I've just done it again. I've rephrased your complaint to make it clearer. How unfair.
Oh and "redefining" is a fairly serious misdemeanour when it comes to reasoned debate. I would particularly like you to back this one up.
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
If you are a teacher, as you claim to be, I hope you do not talk to your students the way you write here. It mist be very frustrating for them.
And this is not a personal attack how?
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
In short, we select 'content' in so far as it is relevant to them and gets them enthusiastic.
That is not the same as teaching 'content' for its own sake.
Or indeed teaching them anything worthwhile at all.
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I was thinking about this earlier, in the context of my PhD - where the rapid assimilation of complex data from a wide variety of disciplines was vital. I've used that skill often, and sometimes intensively, since then, and very valuable it is too.
However, no one formally taught that to me. Is it so far off the mark to believe that by having the right conditions (and the incentive), the skill was encouraged?
Is it a step too far to suggest that what PhilA and Leo are doing is using specific knowledge in deliberately engineered scenarios in order to encourage the learning of 'thinking skills'?
They have made it pretty clear they aren't teaching "the rapid assimilation of complex data".
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I am into getting kids to do theology, to initiate them into that discourse.
How can you do that without teaching them about religion?
Or Latin?
Latin? Even the RCC doesn't give future priests a thorough grounding in Latin in seminaries any more. they read Aquinas in translation.
In my view, it's a shame they no longer require Hebrew and Greek.
German is useful too, for reading Barth and Tillich.
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
In short, we select 'content' in so far as it is relevant to them and gets them enthusiastic.
That is not the same as teaching 'content' for its own sake.
Or indeed teaching them anything worthwhile at all.
Are these 'worthwhile'?
L7/8/EP Key question: How do people justify their truth claims?
Students will explore sources of authority e.g. religious, scientific, political and legal.
L6/7 Key question: How have people’s practices and lifestyles differed according to their historical and/or cultural context?
Students will relate George Fox and the Society of Friends to the established church of the time and/or study different views, held by Sikh women and youth, about arranged / assisted marriage in Britain from 1960-1980. Why has the Hijjab become an important issue?
L7/8 Key question: How do people differ in their interpretations of religious texts?
Students will analyse opinions of fundamentalists, conservatives and liberals and and evaluate critically both the power and limitations of religious language e.g. how much is religious language metaphorical and how much is it intended to be taken literally? Can humanists value religious metaphors?
L7 Key question: What experiences might make people give up, change or adopt religious belief?
Students will evaluate e.g. Shlomo Schmaltzer’s story of why he became an atheist after his escape from Sobibor.
L6/7 Key question: What explanations for suffering are most convincing?
Students will respond to religious teachings and scientific ideas about evil and suffering e.g. compare Hindu ideas about Karma with genetic inheritance.
They come from my Key Stage 4 syllabus.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Or indeed teaching them anything worthwhile at all.
Are these 'worthwhile'?
L7/8/EP Key question: How do people justify their truth claims?
Students will explore sources of authority e.g. religious, scientific, political and legal.
L6/7 Key question: How have people’s practices and lifestyles differed according to their historical and/or cultural context?
Students will relate George Fox and the Society of Friends to the established church of the time and/or study different views, held by Sikh women and youth, about arranged / assisted marriage in Britain from 1960-1980. Why has the Hijjab become an important issue?
L7/8 Key question: How do people differ in their interpretations of religious texts?
Students will analyse opinions of fundamentalists, conservatives and liberals and and evaluate critically both the power and limitations of religious language e.g. how much is religious language metaphorical and how much is it intended to be taken literally? Can humanists value religious metaphors?
L7 Key question: What experiences might make people give up, change or adopt religious belief?
Students will evaluate e.g. Shlomo Schmaltzer’s story of why he became an atheist after his escape from Sobibor.
L6/7 Key question: What explanations for suffering are most convincing?
Students will respond to religious teachings and scientific ideas about evil and suffering e.g. compare Hindu ideas about Karma with genetic inheritance.
They come from my Key Stage 4 syllabus.
No.
I mean they are good questions, but without answers, no they aren't worthwhile in themselves.
[ 15. July 2010, 15:51: Message edited by: oldandrew ]
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Don't you think you should have done this before arguing with people?... You were given a chance to clarify what you were disagreeing with, instead you just repeated your own views, using your own terminology.
I'm not arguing with you.
But seriously, do we have to? We'd reached a point where I wasn't sure what your position was on certain points. So I asked. I wasn't quite sure what to make of your response, and it seems to me the best way to clarify what we're disagreeing over was for me to lay out my side, and then see what you made of that.
On the narrow RE/thinking skills vs content issue, it seemed to me that one way of pursuing that was to look at the broader principles that might explain disagreement. There's little point in arguing hard about the specifics of generalizable thinking skills in RE if one has an underlying view that generalizable thinking skills or teachable thinking skills or whatever don't exist in the first place.
Also, I'm not arguing from exactly Leo or PhilA's points earlier in the thread because I'm not exactly Leo or PhilA.
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I mean they are good questions, but without answers, no they aren't worthwhile in themselves.
And on that point, might it not be worthwhile learning how to go about answering such questions? There clearly is some information that must be available to deal with them, without which I'd agree the questions aren't worthwhile, but I can't imagine how an authority or course would go about determining what the answers are in any specific terms.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I'm not arguing with you.
But seriously, do we have to? We'd reached a point where I wasn't sure what your position was on certain points. So I asked. I wasn't quite sure what to make of your response, and it seems to me the best way to clarify what we're disagreeing over was for me to lay out my side, and then see what you made of that.
So when confronted with my opinions, you deliberately changed the subject rather than, say, seeking clarification? And this is to see what I would make of it? Surely it's obvious how I'd feel about that?
If not, here's a hint: ![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
[ 15. July 2010, 19:55: Message edited by: oldandrew ]
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I mean they are good questions, but without answers, no they aren't worthwhile in themselves.
And on that point, might it not be worthwhile learning how to go about answering such questions? There clearly is some information that must be available to deal with them, without which I'd agree the questions aren't worthwhile, but I can't imagine how an authority or course would go about determining what the answers are in any specific terms.
Surely you need to know how to determine the answer in order to teach how to go about answering the question?
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
So when confronted with my opinions
Well I'm not sure I have been confronted by your opinions. I'm having trouble making sense of them. So I'm asking you to clarify. Since you seemed not so forthcoming I thought I'd at least clarify what I thought I was talking about (in fact I interpreted you as asking me to do just that).
You're clearly frustrated and disagree, I get that, but I'm still unclear how you think it all works in terms of the wider picture. It seemed to me that at one point we were discussing that, and you sent me off to do some reading (although I had trouble engaging you on the specifics of that immediately afterwards too).
Is there no place for trying to draw your opinions on the wider issues about thinking skills into a coherent whole for the purpose of further discussion?
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
might it not be worthwhile learning how to go about answering such questions? ... I can't imagine how an authority or course would go about determining what the answers are in any specific terms.
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Surely you need to know how to determine the answer in order to teach how to go about answering the question?
Obviously. But "how" is probably more important than "what" the details of the final answers are in this case, and neither can be specified except in general principle.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
L7/8/EP Key question: How do people justify their truth claims?
Students will explore sources of authority e.g. religious, scientific, political and legal.
Requires knowledge of what the truth claims are, and of the justifications people use for them. Also requires knowledge of sources of authority.
This one hardly sems to back your side up at all.
quote:
L6/7 Key question: How have people’s practices and lifestyles differed according to their historical and/or cultural context?
Students will relate George Fox and the Society of Friends to the established church of the time and/or study different views, held by Sikh women and youth, about arranged / assisted marriage in Britain from 1960-1980. Why has the Hijjab become an important issue?
Again, requires quite extensive knowledge of (some of) the following: changes to lifestyles, cultural/historical effects thereon, George Fox and the Quakers, the established church, Sikhism, arranged marriage and the Hijab!
Obviously the ability to compare and contrast two different things is important to this qestion, but is that ability really something that requires much time to teach? Surely anyone who knows what the words mean will be able to do it?
quote:
L7/8 Key question: How do people differ in their interpretations of religious texts?
Students will analyse opinions of fundamentalists, conservatives and liberals and and evaluate critically both the power and limitations of religious language e.g. how much is religious language metaphorical and how much is it intended to be taken literally? Can humanists value religious metaphors?
Again, how any student could answer this well without extensive knowledge of the religious texts and the differing approaches to their interpretation is beyond me.
quote:
L7 Key question: What experiences might make people give up, change or adopt religious belief?
Students will evaluate e.g. Shlomo Schmaltzer’s story of why he became an atheist after his escape from Sobibor.
This strikes me as being more about a student's ability to empathise with Schmaltzer than anything else. That or they're being taught exactly why he became an atheist and then regurgiating it as one experience that would lead someone to give up religion.
quote:
L6/7 Key question: What explanations for suffering are most convincing?
Students will respond to religious teachings and scientific ideas about evil and suffering e.g. compare Hindu ideas about Karma with genetic inheritance.
Again, extensive knowledge of the various explanations is required. Compare/contrast comes into play again, but as for the basic question of which explanations are most convincing, surely that's an incredibly subjective issue, even for an arts subject! All the student has to do is say "I find this one the most convincing because..."!
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Hail Gallaxhar
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
Marvin, I think that arguing for contentless thinking is as doomed a concept as arguing content is all.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
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Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
I'm certainly not arguing for contentless thinking, btw. I don't see how that could be done, and I'm reasonably certain that's not what PhilA or leo are arguing for either.
However, if you're a master carpenter and you're training an apprentice*, ISTM that what the apprentice makes in their apprenticeship is less important than the skills they learn while making it. You'd hope that once they'd bodged their way through a simple box, their chest of drawers would be more competent, even though they hadn't made one before.
No one's expecting the kids to suddenly emulate the Socratic school, but asking them to be able to analyse a question, identify the main arguments both for and against, weigh the evidence and provide reasons for their opinions seems both laudable and necessary.
*analogies can be stretched too far, terms and conditions apply
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
*analogies can be stretched too far, terms and conditions apply
Hey, at least you didn't try the bloody fishing rod/ fish analogy. That really helped crystalize it all out.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
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Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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PataLeBon
Shipmate
# 5452
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Surely you need to know how to determine the answer in order to teach how to go about answering the question?
Not in math. If I know how to solve an algebraic equation, it isn't necessary for me to know the answer in advance in order to show or help a student come up with the answer. Knowing the process is enough.
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That's between you and your god. Oh, wait a minute. You are your god. That's a problem. - Jack O'Neill (Stargate SG1)
Posts: 1907 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
The process is the "how", surely? I agree you don't need to know "what" the answer is, but you do need to know "how" to get there.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
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Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
So when confronted with my opinions
Well I'm not sure I have been confronted by your opinions. I'm having trouble making sense of them. So I'm asking you to clarify. Since you seemed not so forthcoming...
What?
I have been nothing but forthcoming.
And even if I hadn't been, I can't see how difficulties understanding a discussion are in any way actually resolved by changing the discussion.
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
might it not be worthwhile learning how to go about answering such questions? ... I can't imagine how an authority or course would go about determining what the answers are in any specific terms.
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Surely you need to know how to determine the answer in order to teach how to go about answering the question?
Obviously. But "how" is probably more important than "what" the details of the final answers are in this case, and neither can be specified except in general principle.
Can you please just clarify which of your contradictory statements you are withdrawing?
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I'm certainly not arguing for contentless thinking, btw. I don't see how that could be done, and I'm reasonably certain that's not what PhilA or leo are arguing for either.
Just to remind you,
leo told us "It is not about 'telling them things'" and attacked the "model of teacher as 'imparter of knowledge'". He also said "RE is not about imparting facts. it isn't RK nor is it RS. As the QCDA never tires of saying, education is about process, not content."
Phil A told us "I'm not into teaching facts and figures, I leave that to other subjects - it is important to learn 'head knowledge'. It is also important to learn what to do with that head knowledge and how to apply that to life. I don't do the 'head knowledge' bit"
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PataLeBon:
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Surely you need to know how to determine the answer in order to teach how to go about answering the question?
Not in math. If I know how to solve an algebraic equation, it isn't necessary for me to know the answer in advance in order to show or help a student come up with the answer. Knowing the process is enough.
You appear to be arguing against a straw man here. The words "know the answer in advance" did not appear in, nor were they implied by, what you are replying to. The words were "know how to determine the answer" i.e. knowing the process.
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I'm certainly not arguing for contentless thinking, btw. I don't see how that could be done, and I'm reasonably certain that's not what PhilA or leo are arguing for either.
Just to remind you,
leo told us "It is not about 'telling them things'" and attacked the "model of teacher as 'imparter of knowledge'". He also said "RE is not about imparting facts. it isn't RK nor is it RS. As the QCDA never tires of saying, education is about process, not content."
Phil A told us "I'm not into teaching facts and figures, I leave that to other subjects - it is important to learn 'head knowledge'. It is also important to learn what to do with that head knowledge and how to apply that to life. I don't do the 'head knowledge' bit"
The point is that we start with the questions, with the issues that ignite the enthusiasm of teenagers. Then, fired up, they go and find out the 'content' to help them pursue the issue, e.g. if it's the Holocaust and Schlomo, we watch extracts from the film 'Escape from Sobibor' (I think I know the entire film off by heart now.)
If it's the Quakers, then an internet search of George Fox will help.
I am not against content. I am against a content-driven curriculum and in favour of a child-centred (cliche) one.
[ 16. July 2010, 11:38: Message edited by: leo ]
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Can you please just clarify which of your contradictory statements you are withdrawing?
What I'm saying is that the questions Leo describes couldn't have a prescribed set of expected answers attached to them. The process the students use in answering the questions can be appraised, and the quality of the answer appraised, but the teacher and education authority could not ask those questions with a particular set of answers in mind.
I still don't know what you think of the general principles underlying all this, but you seem to not want to be drawn. You might view it as "changing the discussion", but it seems a natural extension to me.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The point is that we start with the questions, with the issues that ignite the enthusiasm of teenagers. Then, fired up, they go and find out the 'content' to help them pursue the issue, e.g. if it's the Holocaust and Schlomo, we watch extracts from the film 'Escape from Sobibor' (I think I know the entire film off by heart now.)
The question that remains is why should it be given the slot and the resources for "religious education" if it is about what interests teenagers rather than about religion, and if they are being left to educate themselves rather than being educated?
And that's without the obvious moral question about the fairness of depriving them of important but uninteresting aspects of the subject.
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Can you please just clarify which of your contradictory statements you are withdrawing?
What I'm saying is that ...
Can you just answer the question please?
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I still don't know what you think of the general principles underlying all this, but you seem to not want to be drawn.
Last time I looked you were claiming not to understand my opinions. Now you are claiming that I haven't expressed them. Which is it?
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
And that's without the obvious moral question about the fairness of depriving them of important but uninteresting aspects of the subject.
Well time has certainly deprived me of all the apparently important aspects of much of what I was taught at school, and I'm left with the things that made an abiding impression, the things that interested me, and the generalizable thinking skills that I learnt.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Can you just answer the question please?
I'm not sure which bits you are finding contradictory, so I started again. What is it you find contradictory?
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Last time I looked you were claiming not to understand my opinions. Now you are claiming that I haven't expressed them. Which is it?
It seems to me much of this is a distraction. I've outlined my current view (shaped largely during this thread actually) on what generalizable thinking skills might be and how that might apply to education, and I'm inviting you to engage with that. Do you want to?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
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Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Oh, I've just done it again. I've rephrased your complaint to make it clearer. How unfair.
No you didn't. You redefined it in your own terms in order to rule it out of order. As you have been doing to almost everything anyone says on this thread. Including your own comments - so that if anyone answers any of your questions you can continue to say "but you haven't answered my questions", whatever they actually said. And you can continue to refuse to engage with any points they are trying to make.
[ 16. July 2010, 17:20: Message edited by: ken ]
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Can you just answer the question please?
I'm not sure which bits you are finding contradictory, so I started again.
Can you stop doing that, please?
Confusion, particularly confusion that seems to occur whenever you are challenged about your argument, is not grounds for changing the subject. If you genuinely cannot follow the points put to you, then just explain clearly what you are confused about.
[ 16. July 2010, 17:24: Message edited by: oldandrew ]
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Can you stop doing that, please?
Confusion, particularly confusion that seems to occur whenever you are challenged about your argument, is not grounds for changing the subject. If you genuinely cannot follow the points put to you, then just explain clearly what you are confused about.
Accusing him of doing what you are doing is another cheap trick.
I've just gone back four pages through this and the last substantive contribution to the discussion you made seems to have been a link to some article about "Critical thinking" which no-one else could read. Since then its just been whinging about everyone else changing the subject (as if it was up to you to make rules about what they were talking about) or claiming that they don't understand you, but consistently and repeatedly backing away from any actual engagement with what they are saying.
What you are doing is not argument or discussion, its just a way to grab centre-stage and try to define disagreement out of existence.
Its very irritating, and the main reason this thread has come out the say it has.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Oh, I've just done it again. I've rephrased your complaint to make it clearer. How unfair.
No you didn't. You redefined it in your own terms in order to rule it out of order.
The point is that I haven't redefined it.
Your complaint did appear to object to rephrasing of points, even in cases where you cannot identify anything inaccurate about the rephrasing.
If this is not what you meant, then please clarify what you meant. Don't just declare it to have been "redefined".
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
As you have been doing to almost everything anyone says on this thread. Including your own comments - so that if anyone answers any of your questions you can continue to say "but you haven't answered my questions", whatever they actually said. And you can continue to refuse to engage with any points they are trying to make.
Fine, if I am not allowed to summarise even my own opinions without being accused of "redefining" then I will have to quote myself verbatim:
... "redefining" is a fairly serious misdemeanour when it comes to reasoned debate. I would particularly like you to back this one up.
For some reason you are still making accusations and failing to back them up. Can you please back up your accusation or apologise?
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Can you stop doing that, please?
Confusion, particularly confusion that seems to occur whenever you are challenged about your argument, is not grounds for changing the subject. If you genuinely cannot follow the points put to you, then just explain clearly what you are confused about.
Accusing him of doing what you are doing is another cheap trick.
I didn't accuse him of anything. He said that it was what he did. I just asked him to stop doing it.
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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PataLeBon
Shipmate
# 5452
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
You appear to be arguing against a straw man here. The words "know the answer in advance" did not appear in, nor were they implied by, what you are replying to. The words were "know how to determine the answer" i.e. knowing the process.
So what you are saying, as I understand it, is that RE should be about knowing how to find an answer to a religious question, than actually memorizing historical facts or religious tenets.
If so I agree. Historical facts (the Reformation, say for one) should be taught in history class. The Reformation and the rise of Islam have had an enormous impact upon the history of the world, but not actually relevant to the day to day life of a child (in most cases).
Religious tenets can and should be covered in RE, but demanding that they be considered true would mean that the schools are determining the religious upbringing of the child.
You can have direct instruction on thinking skills. (Heavens, I just went to 2 whole workshops on how to directly teach critical thinking skills!) Teaching those thinking skills does require content to analyze. I would seem that the content in RE to analyze would be the tenets of religions.
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That's between you and your god. Oh, wait a minute. You are your god. That's a problem. - Jack O'Neill (Stargate SG1)
Posts: 1907 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2004
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