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u/kent_eh Jun 26 '12
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you may not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything--you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
[Robert Heinlein]
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Jun 26 '12
You've lost a little bit of context here. Higher Order Thinking Skills has a specific meaning in pedagogy, referring to one aspect of the conflict between traditional education and the reforms instigated by Bloom's Taxonomy of Education. In this case, Higher Order Thinking Skills are contrasted with Basic Skills.
For instance, a HOTS math lesson would encourage students to figure out their own methods of multiplying, dividing, and averaging, while discouraging students who have learned the traditional methods of doing so, to push them to investigate. A basic skills math lesson would focus on memorizing a times table and memorizing the algorithms through much repetition and practice.
Another example: a traditional science class would be facts-based lecture-style, where the teacher delivers rock-hard facts and vocabulary, and the students memorize what they're told. Labs are done from an established procedural manual. A HOTS science class would focus on inquiry-based science, and expect students to devise their own experiments and derive their own conclusions based on them.
The Bloom reforms often also include a focus on outcome-based education, which is in contrast to traditional "input-based" education, which is more or less what it sounds like. Outcome-based education focuses on measuring student skills (or outcomes) such as "Students will develop their own observation skills, design and conduct experiments, gather and analyze data and defend their conclusions". Traditional education would focus on class hours, textbooks used, and what resources go into the education.
Most decent high schools will forge some sort of middle ground between traditional and reform education models, and both sides have valid criticisms (see wikipedia for more). Opposing HOTS and OBE is a perfectly valid pedagogical position, taken at face value. The part that you should be sneering at is the bit about "challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority", which is probably code for "evolution and Thomas Jefferson never happened shut up"
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Jun 26 '12
The part that you should be sneering at is the bit about "challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority", which is probably code for "evolution and Thomas Jefferson never happened shut up"
That was the focus of my post and I think your Texan decoder ring is in perfect working order.
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Jun 26 '12
We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.
That's the problem. If you are actually educated you rebel against the indoctrination of your parents. So, they're proud to be stupid. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
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u/directoryinvalid Jun 27 '12
As a Texan, I can't decide whether to pack my bags and move or pack mailboxes with leaflets of this article.
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u/defacingbills Jun 26 '12
If we teach them how to think, how will they ever swallow all this bullshit?