another class reading Burbles

The last two articles that we have read in this class not only confused me as to how this applies to my teaching education now, but for the most part lost me somewhere in the middle. This article dragged out the concept of critical thinking and ways we can look at critical thinking, until I forgot what I had originally thought about critical thinking and it’s affects inside the classroom. Looking through my bloglines I read that many of you had a hard time with this article, so I took comfort in that I was not alone.

Once again I felt like this was another article that should be used latter in out teaching development. I don’t know how I’m going to get everyone in my classroom quite enough to listen to me let alone think critically about what I am teaching them. Burbles states that “critical education can increase freedom and enlarge the scope of human possibilities.” However, if we as educators aren’t allotted that freedom ourselves with standardized tests and state approved curriculum how are we going to not only convey this idea but have time to incorporate critical thinking into our classrooms. The bottom line is no matter what material we read or how many authors think its important for people to think critically, if the state and our district does not think it’s important than we have no choice but to teach the same regurgitated stuff over and over again. It is nice to read articles that challenge our thinking and how we look at teaching but it is just not practical for the majority of school districts that we will be hired into our first years out there.