Where is the "how to think" class in school?

I'd like kids to be taught to think, so later when I deal with them as adults I roll my eyes less when listening to others' snap-conclusions on just about anything.

For instance, the Scientific Method should show you how hard it is to really draw a conclusion, and how very difficult it is to find a correlation and know the cause. Or in eastern philosophies, could children learn that things are not always as they seem and that its likely you'll seem to know very much about something and then find you have only an illusion to guide you toward reality? Take heart, it's still good information even if its not "the TRUTH." Truth for humankind evolves as we do.

A useful illusion, or oversimplification is a model. Models help us continue to learn the truth but never necessarily to the point of comprehension. Newton, then Einstein, now Quantum Mechanics, and someday all to be outdone by Superstring-like theories where we learn more and more about what we see, while comprehending less and less. It expands your mind making you skeptical in a positive way.

In media and advertising, America has rules about what lies or half-truths and manipulations can be shown and how. Do we know them? I know one thing... that hyper buff guy didn't get his abs just from that silly product he sells.

We also have rules in journalism to keep news reporters unbiased for example, but television journalists are not encouraged to present facts to let us draw a conclusion. For example, maybe in the news I saw more gang activity say in August than three months ago. Did we also learn that it was raining most of June and graffiti and loitering are kind of a dry-weather thing? Or was I just told the gangs are getting worse or schools should go 12 months with a few intermittent breaks. I can't imagine the end of a news story about increased gang activity ending with, "then again, it could just be better weather for gangs to be out causing trouble this month". What we see isn't necessarily news at all, but magazine-like articles with spins on information.

You can tell if someone is lying or remembering by which way their eyes roll when pausing to think of the next sentence- or if they are afraid by their pupils dilating. Maybe we should teach kids that before watching a public speech or when being pushed around by other kids, and not just save it for later when college kids are learning about professional poker players.

I'd spend time giving a "math is really used" class before kids even have choices on taking math classes. They'd learn the basics and when they stopped believing it's necessary, (groan "why do i need this!?" ) we give them a much needed break of actually doing math and instead spend a year learning how helpful it can be. It's out there when you need it. What a great beginning to learning math as an older person who learns because it makes he or she more educated. There should be some kind of a passage for a student in his or her school experience. This wouldn't be accounting and story problems. This would be a holistic class with a lot of trips and short books and videos so there is no doubt that people find advantages in life with math.

Knowing what you can look up is great. We could talk about how to surf the Web and get real information, and why not to believe everything you read until you judge the writer's credibility and motivation... show how the voter's pamphlet prints exactly who pays for what ads on every argument for or against when reading the support and opposition.... (no you can't just count the for and against and decide that way. some people do that. Its often just one rich group and the group is actually a band of companies who have an ulterior motive!)

Has a kid ever checked a book's bibliography to know if the author cites real experts or just other opinionated writers who are dingbats themselves? The only thing I was taught about bibliographies was a librarian fetish about what is italicized.

I'm frustrated because recently I've run into too many people who don't have he the thinking skills needed to draw conclusions, let alone make a good argument for them. The only thing they know how to do is not change their minds, and not let other ideas in. Parents may have to make their own classes to guide kids through school like guidance counselors and be ready to validate and invalidate things the kids pick up from their teachers and peers after a day of being inundated with logic errors. http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm Copyright © Stephen Downes, 1995,1998 is a good start. I'd take a not-so-good newspaper or even a pretty biased leaflet and find any blanket "proven" statement and see where the fallacy is as a game. Where's that class in public schools? It would make teachers have to do a lot of homework after the kids knew how to ask questions for sure. And the thing about learning how to think is, you never forget it. Once you learn to take care of yourself, you won't allow yourself to be fooled.