Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!dykimber
From: dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Student and Course Integrity
Message-ID: <5111@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 3 Jan 89 07:10:27 GMT
References: <4550@homxc.UUCP> <4847@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <542@mccc.UUCP> <9208@ut-emx.UUCP>
Reply-To: dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg)
Distribution: na
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 13

In article <9208@ut-emx.UUCP> nather@ut-emx.UUCP (Ed Nather) writes:
>A majority of students (and many faculty) make no distinction
>between memorizing facts and having a basic understanding of why the facts
>are true, and how we know they're true.  Critical, deductive thinking seems
>rarely to be taught except by accident.  Why?

Maybe it can't be taught.  Which isn't to say that there aren't people who
didn't think critically and then did, but which is to say that maybe there
are people (in significant numbers) who will not be taught to think critically
in the same way that you or I do (just as I, for instance, will never be a
nobel prize winning physicist, no matter what instruction I get).

                                                  -Dan