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Christopher Melvin Rodriguez

Instructor Douglas

ENG 112-01

1 February 2017

Critical Thinking: Should We Teach More of It

Have you ever thought about how teachers teach in school and how the students use

critical thinking in school? Teaching critical thinking in schools is a very controversial topic in

our society today and how it can affect students who take standardized tests. There have been

many articles on whether we should teach it and the different ways that it can be taught. Maricia

Clemmitt, article Teaching Critical Thinking talks about the ways the students ability to use

critical thinking can affect students, how we can make students smarter, and if the PISA test

which is a one of the few standardized tests to assess thinking skills and the ability to apply

knowledge really matter and stands for Programme for International Student Assessment. Ron

Ritchhart and David Perkins, article Making Thinking Visible challenges the idea of critical

thinking and suggests six key principles of visible thinking for students.

Marcia Clemmitt writes a very interesting article on the viable ways we can make

students smatter and discusses if the PISA test should really matter in her article which was

published in 2015. She truly writes an informational and statistic article giving many examples

which helps her get the point toward the audience. Clemmitt explains how experts can make
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students smatter by teaching numerous critical thinking approaches in school. Cultivating

certain attitudes toward thinking is a vital part of learning to think effectively, and constant

reinforcement of these attitudes is required Art Costa explains, a professor at the California

State University. Clemmitt also explains if the PISA test actually matters and whether it really

shows the quality of American schools. She continues to help the audience by organizing We

Can Make Kids Smarter and Does the PISA Test Matter into two sections. She enhances the

article by explaining to the audience by giving an example which is that in 2012 our reading and

science scores internationally was average and our math was below average. Some of the

strengths in her article are that she points out standardized testing statistics and what the PISA

tests actually measures which is a students potential for deep analytical thinking and problem

solving. Overall, she gives valid information on how experts can make kids smarter and an

argument the PISA and if the test actually matters and how it should or should not shows the

quality of American schools. She makes a strong argument on what it is and some of the

problems of the PISA test in context that it shows a supposed representation of a students

intelligence.

In Ron Ritchhart and David Perkins article Making Thinking Visible they write a very

organized and through article on what visible thinking is and methods of it they also give the

audience an example of how a teacher used a visible thinking in her classroom. They continue

with a strength in the article with giving the audience examples of what visible thinking is some

of the examples would be. Good thinking is not only a matter of skills but also a matter of

dispositions, the development of thinking requires making thinking visible, the development of

thinking is a social endeavor etc., and how they demonstrated it in the school environment. They

also discuss an example of a some of the principles in action they took a preK-12 school in
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Australia which is a school that goes from kindergarten to 12th grade and used these methods to

demonstrate these strategies in a class setting. In Ron Rithhart and Don Perkins research they

show a tremendous amount of evidence throughout their article.

Some examples of their evidence are show the effectiveness of these methods are one, a

routine called the think-puzzle-explore method which enabled the teachers to uncover students

thinking. The teacher would then ask a question on the topic and the student would reply with

their opinion. Some questions focused on tragedy when asked about a mining accident which

then the students started to follow the news, bring in articles and started coming up with their

own theories about how it happened. This is one of strategies that enabled students to think

harder and follow facts to determine things on their own. Another strategy used in this study was

they asked the students What do you Know? What do you Want to know? And What have you

learned? About this mining accident this also gave the students the chance to prompt conditional

language that suggests possibilities and openness rather than absolutes.

The last thing they mentioned was with these methods that with using them students who

previously believed they lack a voice or ideas did not have to worry about that. Not only that

with the methods mentioned high school students thinking routines were changed to structure

better thinking before writing essays. Which boosted their confidence and increased the time

spent thinking.

Critical Thinking is clearly an ongoing debate on if there are ways to make children

smarter and if PISA test really matter on determining quality of American schools. Also, if

making thinking visible can really improve critical thinking in an individual. Ron Ritchhart and

David Perkins successfully made there point with examples of strategies on how to make

thinking visible by using tons of facts and a real-life example on the strategies in a classroom
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scenario. Both authors would agree that thinking is a very important matter in the school system.

The American culture has led us to many questions with the public-school system for

standardized tests and the use of critical thinking in them. Ron Ritchart and David Perkins article

shows a more effective way to implement it into school making their article more appealing to

more people and they succeed by showing real life examples of thinking and how to make it

visible. How is it taught? Is it taught in a correct way? Why should a test determine a societies

quality? Even though public is speaking up about this it is up to the childrens future articles like

Clemmitts, Richharts and Perkins to keep the conversations relevant, so other experts in the

future can address this in the future so that generations forward have evidence and facts to

address this topic.

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References

Clemmitt, Marcia. "Teaching Critical Thinking." CQ Researcher 10 Apr. 2015: 313-36.

Web. 1 Feb. 2017.

Langer, E., & Piper, A. (1987). The prevention of mindlessness. Journal of Personality

and Social Psychology, 53, 280287.

Lyman, F. T. (1981). The responsive classroom discussion: The inclusion of all students.

In A. Anderson (Ed.), Mainstreaming Digest (pp. 109113). College Park: University of

Maryland Press.

Marshall, H. H. (1988). In pursuit of learning-oriented classrooms. Teaching and Teacher

Education, 4(2), 8598.

Perkins, D. N., & Ritchhart, R. (2004). When is good thinking? In D. Y. Dai & R. J.

Sternberg (Eds.), Motivation, emotion, and cognition: Integrative perspectives on intellectual

functioning and development (pp. 351384). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Perkins, D. N., Tishman, S., Ritchhart, R., Donis, K., & Andrade, A. (2000). Intelligence

in the wild: A dispositional view of intellectual traits. Educational Psychology Review, 12(3),

269293.
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Ritchhart, R. (2002). Intellectual character: What it is, why it matters, and how to get it.

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Ritchhart, R. (2007). Cultivating a culture of thinking in museums. Journal of Museum

Education, 32(2), 137154.

Ritchhart, R., Hadar, L., & Turner, T. (2008, March). Uncovering students' thinking about

thinking using concept maps. Paper to be presented at American Educational Research

Association, New York.

Ritchhart, R., Palmer, P., Church, M., & Tishman, S. (2006, April). Thinking routines:

Establishing patterns of thinking in the classroom. Paper presented at American Educational

Research Association, San Francisco.

Ritchhart, R., & Perkins, D. N. (2000). Life in the mindful classroom: Nurturing the

disposition of mindfulness. Journal of Social Issues, 56(1), 2747.