Category Archive

  Critical Thinking, Take 1

When you read the following statement, what is your emotional response:

“Take from the rich, and give to the poor”

Is it a noble act?  Or is it robbery?

WRONG!

Critical thinking isn’t about the answer, it’s about understanding perspectives, definitions of words, context.

How many parties are there in the phrase?

What is the perspective of each party?

How do we know when someone is rich?  How do we know when people are poor?

How often should they “take” from the rich, and do the rich have any input?

What’s in it for the 3rd person (the one between the rich and poor person)?

Do we need a 3rd person/party in the transaction?

Why should poor people (how ever we define them) get money?  What good does it do?

Here’s what we came up with:

Clearly, they didn’t want dad to get a win on the first day of Critical Thinking, so they acted bored out of their minds and grumpy during the whole 20 minutes of conversation.  But, I know inside (deep, deep inside) a light flickered…the flame is just around the corner!

crit·i·cal think·ing

American history has been a bit of a challenge for me, but I believe our girls have been exposed to much more than most.  While that’s not my yardstick, that’s where we are.  I know that they know some of our founding fathers and that they were brilliant, thoughtful men and women.  They have been exposed to the concepts in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.  For now, we are in good shape.

For the next phase, we are going to work on one of my absolute favorite topics – Critical Thinking.  As I think back to my schooling, I didn’t get much exposure outside of some philosophy classes in college.  Most of the learning I had (and my kids have) was being provided “facts” that we “memorized” then show that we “memorized” these “facts” to the teachers satisfaction.  Personally, I believe that a multiple choice test is the sign of “education” gone poorly.

When kids can read or discuss something and ask questions, look from different perspectives, and really understand many sides of the content, then they are actually learning.  If they do it well enough, they can’t help but to have good judgement and be able to defend their belief, not by yelling the loudest or because they are the most obstinate, but because they have considered and questioned enough to be satisfied.  For now, the answer isn’t the goal. The goal is to question and gain understanding.

Here’s the format.  I provide a sentence or phrase, we write down their emotional response to the phrase, then we look at the phrase from every angle that we can.  While I’ll use the old who, what, when, where, how it won’t be as structured as that.  Sometimes we’ll use the 5-why’s etc.  It’s a conversation without conclusion.

Let’s see how it goes…

 Today is an historic day for these united stated of america.  Our congress has agreed that we shall not be ruled by a tyrannical king nor any man.  We believe that God should be our ruler, as He is the creator of the universe and of nature.  God has created us with equal rights of life, liberty and property (changed to Happiness in the final draft) and that governments are instituted among men to protect these rights; deriving their power from the consent of those governed.

To this cause and with the protection from God, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

My prayer for my children is a deep understanding of the above concept and be able to know how it is radically different than any other government structure, past or present.

So today we celebrate our county’s independence from England and for establishing a government under the radical idea that God is the leader and that free people can self-govern under God’s direction.  This begins the great “American Experiment.”

As a kid growing up, I learned the usual Bible stories; Noah and the Arc, David and Goliath, Adam and Eve, Moses and the Ten Commandments, etc.  It wasn’t until I was an adult that I figured out how all of these pieces fit together in the bigger God story. 

Now as a parent, my challenge is how do I give my children a better understanding of the Bible than I had?  How do I make it relevant to them at an early age?  For nearly two years, I prayed, planned and discussed methods; then one day it hit me. The inspiration for my lesson plan came from one simple word:  “context”. 

Context was the missing element from my youth.  “Great, David killed a giant thousands of years ago…so what?  Did that happen before or after the flood?  Was Moses around to see the battle?  Why were there giants around anyway? “

My thought is that context comes from understanding God’s relationship with His people over time (i.e on a timeline).  When Adam and Eve were living happily in the Garden, the relationship between God and man was “perfect”.  When they rebelled, man’s relationship with God was “cursed.”  As Moses brought the ten commandments, man’s relationship took a step up to “the law.”  Then Jesus came to redeem us from the curse and move us beyond the law into a relationship of “grace.” 

Knowing the “hot points” on the timeline (Adam and Eve, Moses, Jesus) and our relationship with God (perfect, curse, the law, grace), we are then going to fill in the blanks of the story.  Moses freed the Israelites from Egypt…why were the Israelites slaves in the first place?  So we will spend a couple days studying Joseph to answer that question. But we will also note that the story of Joseph happened while we were still under the curse…before the law. 

Being a visual learner (and teacher), I have put together the mother of all Biblical foam board timelines on my office wall.  As we learn a story or a part of a story the girls help me  put pictures and key words on the timeline to help us remember the significant points of the story (tactile learning). 

For instance, today we studied the young Moses.  We made a special note of Miriam (as we are going to highlight women of the Bible) and the burning bush.  Under a picture of the burning bush we put “you are chosen.” 

I hope to blog updates of our progress as we muddle through this process, hopefully getting better and having more fun learning about the Bible.

As my girls and I work on this big God story together, I pray that over time, the understanding of God’s love for us, which began at the beginning of time and has never stopped, will be tattooed on their hearts.  And that time we spend together talking about God, in the presence of God, will deepen their knowledge of their daddy’s love for them as well.