Exploratory Essay First Draft

In his essay “My 54-Year Love Affair with the SAT”, test-prep guru Stanley Kaplan explains that critical thinking is “to think things out, to think about the hows and whys.” He believes this is the most important skill to be taught to students in his SAT prep classes and he uses several different methods to accomplish this goal.  He’s not alone in this belief; the authors of several other readings we’ve talked about in class also believe the skill essential to success, not just in test taking, but in education in general. Though each of these authors is coming from a different place and teaching a myriad of learners from multiple demographics, their teaching methods still have certain characteristics in common.

                The first teaching method I realized these authors had in common is the usage of newspaper articles and current events as a way to encourage the development of critical thinking skills.  When discussing vocabulary building activities he used to prepare students for the SAT, Kaplan claims in “My 54-Year Love Affair with the SAT” that newspapers can be a useful tool. He explains, “Each week I instructed students to cut out ten newspaper articles and underline all the challenging words. The more they read, the more powerful their vocabulary became.” Kaplan implies that critical thinking skills were used by the students in order to read and interpret the more challenging material in the newspapers, forcing them to read more as well as use their resources to find a way to understand the vocabulary.  Though Kaplan uses newspapers to expose students to new words, other instructors mentioned in the articles we’ve read use them to expose students to new concepts and connections in the classroom.  In her article “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work”, Jean Anyon describes the “affluent professional” class of schools, claiming that “Social studies also involves almost daily presentation by the children of some event from the news” and that the instructor guides the discussion of these events “to help [the students] see the connections between events” because, as one instructor says, “These children’s opinions are important—that they learn to reason these things through.” Anyon mentions the method of using current events because it is a good example of how critical thinking skills are being taught successfully in upper class schools. This further proves her theory that the “curriculum of work” characteristic of upper class schools (as opposed to that of the lower-class schools) is actually preparing students to take on executive, professional jobs of the upper class.

                I also noticed that several authors mentioned that having an interdisciplinary curriculum present in the school aided their instruction of critical thinking skills thought so necessary for academic success.  In the handout we read from the American Montessori Society, their elementary school teaching methods involve “work with the Montessori learning materials and an interdisciplinary curriculum as [the student] passes from the concrete to the abstract.” This seems to refer to critical thinking skills, meaning that Montessori proponents believe students are learning in their elementary school years to connect “concrete” facts in order to understand larger, “abstract” concepts.  In his article “On the Uses of a Liberal Education”, Earl Shorris describes his Clemente course in the humanities to prospective students as a course comprised of “philosophy, poetry, art history, logic, rhetoric, and American history” where each subject will be instructed by “people of accomplishment” in each of their respective fields.  He implies that each subject is an integral part of the “humanities” education each student is lacking and that each of these subjects will help them build “a foundation for getting along with the world, for thinking, for learning to reflect on the world…”  Shorris believes that all the humanities are important and intertwined, and his description of how the course flows from the philosophy of Socrates and ancient Greece to the artistic depictions of this era of history shows how connections between language and thought and history are made by the students because they can see how one field affects and connects to another. From the successful outcomes mentioned in the article, Shorris demonstrates how these students became more willing and able make critical connections and learn in the Clemente course—one student said that this was because “it was the first time anyone ever paid attention to their opinions.” Clearly, he feels that the interdisciplinary approach featured in the Clemente course encouraged the development of these critical thinking skills within his students.

                The concept of students becoming teachers is another teaching method valued by several authors and used to promote critical thinking skills.  In the description of the Montessori educational philosophy, student teachers are mentioned as part of the “hallmark of the Montessori method”, where “older students reinforce their learning by teaching concepts they’ve already mastered.”  This implies that when students become teachers they gain more skills than when they are taught by the teacher alone and that these skills are taught because they are essential to the students’ development as learners.  This concept is also seen in Anyon’s description of the teaching methods characteristic of upper-class schools.  She describes language arts instructional methods in the “executive elite” class of schools, outlining how each student in the class “had to plan a lesson…and explain the concept to the class.” Grades were given based on the student’s style and presentation of the lesson, as well as their classroom management skills.  Anyon mentions this method as how the large proportion of language arts is done within this class of school, suggesting that the leadership and critical thinking skills developed during the “student teacher” activity are of high value to the “executive elite” school students and are important for their development as future executive-level workers.

                After noticing the similarities and differences between the teaching methods described in each article, I have to wonder at the effectiveness of introducing a novel teaching method into an established classroom and seeing how it would affect the development of critical thinking for students.  While several of the methods are shared between the teachers and authors of these articles, each classroom situation seems to be missing something and could stand to be improved by the addition of a new and effective way of learning.  For example, what would happen if Shorris were to begin to use current events in his humanities classes? Would that help his students to apply their new philosophy or logic concepts to their own lives in a more effective way than using hypothetical situations? Would using student teaching methods improve how students are prepared for the SAT in Kaplan’s courses? Could the “executive elite” classes benefit more from an interdisciplinary approach like that outlined by the Montessori system?  It would seem that since all the authors achieved success in their classrooms by employing these different methods, they would argue that each different classroom would be positively affected by the inclusion of a novel teaching method.

Works Cited

Anyon, Joan. “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work.” Journal of Education 162.1 (1980).

Kaplan, Stanley. “My 54-Year Love Affair with the SAT”.

Shorris, Earl. “On the Uses of a Liberal Education.”

“Montessori Education—American Montessori Society” Handout. Distributed February 13, 2013.