I think you could rephrase your headline to most pure not very curious about the subject. Curiosity drives all the aspects for critical thinking you describe.
It’s good to have the labels for the various rhetorical techniques but you can add an algorithmic step. Ask when would this be wrong. Sir Ken spends a lot of time delivering speeches and clearly he believes this time imparts something. So even he thinks his criticism of delivering is wrong when he does it.
As for moving classes every 40 minutes. Lawyers bill on 5 or 6 minute increments, doctors move to the next room to see a new patient every 15. Executives move from meeting to meeting every 60 minutes or so. Clearly his analogy is crap when you look at what some of the most educated people do.
Thanks Stan. "It’s good to have the labels for the various rhetorical techniques but you can add an algorithmic step. Ask when would this be wrong." This sounds interesting but I have no idea how to add an algorithmic step. Help.
This is such an important conversation. Robinson’s analogy works because it taps into shared frustrations and emotions about the education system, but that’s also why we need to push further. Simplistic comparisons, like equating schools to businesses or restaurants, flatten the complexity of what schools are designed to do—support cognitive, emotional, and social development, which can’t be measured or structured the same way as a business.
The real issue is how easily these kinds of statements gain traction. They feel validating, especially for educators already frustrated with rigid systems, but they rarely hold up to critical scrutiny. Instead, they perpetuate the idea that the system is entirely broken without offering meaningful solutions.
As educators and thinkers, it’s our responsibility to push beyond emotional agreement and ask deeper questions. What assumptions are being made here? Is the analogy valid? What’s actually working in schools, and how can we build on that? By challenging these oversimplified narratives, we can model the critical thinking that our profession—and our students—deserve.
Yes Jo. This is what we need to do. Give a push back to these simplistic emotional agreement and ask questions. Before agreeing/disagreeing and jumping into a conclusion that might "feel" right, we need to check the presuppositions, assumptions, and beliefs in the popular quotes (and popular figures in education).
Natalie Wexler likes to say that knowledge is what we think with. You cannot think critically without knowledge or information. You cannot recognize a flawed argument if you have no facts to hold it up against. I am concerned, though, that worse than this silly push for “critical thinking skills” is the push towards a system where all children are treated as if they have special needs. The use of UDL in all classes, and staff meetings for that matter, is a condescending infantilization of our students and our colleagues. And please, I would like any reply on paper, in short, numbered sentences, and highlighted in different colors. 😉
I agree with you. And, also this push towards "soft language" around teaching and assessment, just to "protect" students from so called threatening words like "test" or "drill". That's where teachers too need to practice critical thinking and check their beliefs, instead of just simply nodding to whatever edutopia posts on instagram.
I think you could rephrase your headline to most pure not very curious about the subject. Curiosity drives all the aspects for critical thinking you describe.
It’s good to have the labels for the various rhetorical techniques but you can add an algorithmic step. Ask when would this be wrong. Sir Ken spends a lot of time delivering speeches and clearly he believes this time imparts something. So even he thinks his criticism of delivering is wrong when he does it.
As for moving classes every 40 minutes. Lawyers bill on 5 or 6 minute increments, doctors move to the next room to see a new patient every 15. Executives move from meeting to meeting every 60 minutes or so. Clearly his analogy is crap when you look at what some of the most educated people do.
Thanks Stan. "It’s good to have the labels for the various rhetorical techniques but you can add an algorithmic step. Ask when would this be wrong." This sounds interesting but I have no idea how to add an algorithmic step. Help.
This is such an important conversation. Robinson’s analogy works because it taps into shared frustrations and emotions about the education system, but that’s also why we need to push further. Simplistic comparisons, like equating schools to businesses or restaurants, flatten the complexity of what schools are designed to do—support cognitive, emotional, and social development, which can’t be measured or structured the same way as a business.
The real issue is how easily these kinds of statements gain traction. They feel validating, especially for educators already frustrated with rigid systems, but they rarely hold up to critical scrutiny. Instead, they perpetuate the idea that the system is entirely broken without offering meaningful solutions.
As educators and thinkers, it’s our responsibility to push beyond emotional agreement and ask deeper questions. What assumptions are being made here? Is the analogy valid? What’s actually working in schools, and how can we build on that? By challenging these oversimplified narratives, we can model the critical thinking that our profession—and our students—deserve.
Yes Jo. This is what we need to do. Give a push back to these simplistic emotional agreement and ask questions. Before agreeing/disagreeing and jumping into a conclusion that might "feel" right, we need to check the presuppositions, assumptions, and beliefs in the popular quotes (and popular figures in education).
Natalie Wexler likes to say that knowledge is what we think with. You cannot think critically without knowledge or information. You cannot recognize a flawed argument if you have no facts to hold it up against. I am concerned, though, that worse than this silly push for “critical thinking skills” is the push towards a system where all children are treated as if they have special needs. The use of UDL in all classes, and staff meetings for that matter, is a condescending infantilization of our students and our colleagues. And please, I would like any reply on paper, in short, numbered sentences, and highlighted in different colors. 😉
I agree with you. And, also this push towards "soft language" around teaching and assessment, just to "protect" students from so called threatening words like "test" or "drill". That's where teachers too need to practice critical thinking and check their beliefs, instead of just simply nodding to whatever edutopia posts on instagram.