If we teach kids to think, then they might do something radical and vote the politicians out of office, and run the CEOs out of business. Which is not in those people’s personal interest. The whole growth/stagnation dichotomy, blah blah blah.

I’ve always maintained that if we teach people how to LEARN, then they can be truly formidable on the mental front. Imagine: you possess the desire to learn about a topic, and you have the skills required to learn anything because you understand HOW to learn.

Sounds like you and I are of the same mind on this, but you actually have a method of it, while mine is almost worthlessly abstract.

I would hope that the critical thinking course would be more involved than the crappy thing they tout as “Critical Thinking” in Georgia State. I could definitely see a rigorous course or set of courses from a young age, (but only once kids are of age to learn it, that might prove tricky) as doing a lot of good.

The research course would be a godsend. I still don’t understand how I got out of a writing-based school, with several AP courses to my credit and a 3.0 average without having done a serious research paper since the one I muddled my way through in SIXTH grade and failed.

I just didn’t do any. There were some assigned, and I took the failing grade for the work, but still managed to pass the freakin’ class!

Speaking’s a good idea, but again you’ll run into people who don’t want to embarass their kids, and you’ll have shy kids who really won’t want to speak in class. I’m pretty sure there’s a way to get around that though.

So to summarize, I agree with you wholeheartedly and am thinking about using some of your ideas as a future teacher myself.

I also did very few or possibly no research papers in high school (my brain don’t go that far back) and made it out with at least a 3.0 GPA.

The speaking idea was intended more generally than that. Meaning we need to teach them to communicate. A kid that can reason but can’t communicate his thoughts is almost as bad as a kid that can’t reason but won’t shut the hell up.

And now you’re just scaring me. Threatening to actually use my ideas. What’s the world coming to?