On a recent trip overseas, I was hiking up to a glacial lake with my wife when I asked her how to say the word 'tarn' in Cantonese. The resulting blank stare was expected, but this got me thinking about all the glacier-related terms stored away in my memory that I learned in my high school geography class.
'Tarn' is the exception. Many of the other terms, concepts, historical facts and mathematical formulas I learned in high school disappeared soon after the final exam. This begs the question: why do we spend so much time in high school learning concepts and formulas that we will never use again in life?
Yes, we have heard the arguments about how our youth needs a solid grounding in the basics of a wide variety of disciplines in order to become informed citizens. Although many of the facts and concepts learned in high school are not directly applicable to everyday practical needs, they still provide a foundation. Or so the argument goes.
We also often hear that critical thinking skills are honed via tasks and exercises in school. While we will never have to prove congruency between two triangles after leaving high school, the process of doing so sharpens our critical thinking skills.
True enough. But if this is the case, why not actually implement a class on critical thinking instead of peppering curriculum policy documents with the term in the hope that these skills will somehow rub off? Let's take an example of what such a course could offer.
One of the most disturbing critical thinking deficiencies is the confusion between correlation and causation. For instance, there is broad belief in society that vitamin C helps to cure a cold. I have had students mention to me that that it helped cure their colds.