I remember back in grade school the old beatup textbooks would have a chapter, then a section of questions after the chapter. One of the subsections was labeled, "critical thinking" We used to skip that one because those took to long and we had something else to do after.
I think the issue isn't scientific literacy. We have as Americans, been intentionally denied education and fundamental skills for evaluating the world. Cause we don't just misunderstand science we are kinda shit at everything. I tried fucking with the "Rationalist' movement and they had some good ideas but it is a crypto libertarian thing out of silicon valley so that doesn't really help. There is also the fact that people don't live in a logical world so developing skills related to scientific understanding doesn't help them understand it. If science says X and the government does Y the absurdity of it breaks a persons ability to rationalize you know.
So, here is my plan. Make DnD a part of high school curriculum. It is only in the relm of pure creative imagination that people have the ability to try making logical choices in this life. So, to develop that skill to use in life, they need to practice living outside reality to create a lens to view reality from. Replace government/econ in 8th grade with creative writing and improv theater.
i got a bachelors degree in the sciences but instead of pursuing research and grad school i immediately left that field after graduation for working in the arts. my reasoning was actually pretty similar to what you describe here. i went through a "skeptic"/new atheist/rationalist phase, tried to go deep into understanding the epistimological biases of my particular field of study, and eventually felt like the issues were more cultural than knowledge/fact-based. that's not to say we don't need a huge revamp of how we teach critical thinking and the scientific method in the USA- we definitely do! but after i graduated i felt I could have more impact in changing circumstances via fostering the creative imagination in the cultural sphere rather than siloed into some extremely specific research within an institution.
10ish years later, the jury is still out on whether that was a sound decision (lol). if I had stayed in that field I would probably be either a highly paid data scientist or an extremely low paid academic researcher. i've done a lot of cool things since within arts/culture but there's maybe even larger issues in promoting creative pedagogy/thinking in the USA compared to scientific literacy.
That's rad, and I am pleased I hit on a element of truth with my idea. I did the opposite. I was going for sociology until I discovered all the questions were answered people just don't want to do them. Now, I am trying to go for nursing.
I am really curious, do you feel comfortable sharing any of your work or your methodology?
I remember back in grade school the old beatup textbooks would have a chapter, then a section of questions after the chapter. One of the subsections was labeled, "critical thinking" We used to skip that one because those took to long and we had something else to do after.
I think the issue isn't scientific literacy. We have as Americans, been intentionally denied education and fundamental skills for evaluating the world. Cause we don't just misunderstand science we are kinda shit at everything. I tried fucking with the "Rationalist' movement and they had some good ideas but it is a crypto libertarian thing out of silicon valley so that doesn't really help. There is also the fact that people don't live in a logical world so developing skills related to scientific understanding doesn't help them understand it. If science says X and the government does Y the absurdity of it breaks a persons ability to rationalize you know.
So, here is my plan. Make DnD a part of high school curriculum. It is only in the relm of pure creative imagination that people have the ability to try making logical choices in this life. So, to develop that skill to use in life, they need to practice living outside reality to create a lens to view reality from. Replace government/econ in 8th grade with creative writing and improv theater.
i got a bachelors degree in the sciences but instead of pursuing research and grad school i immediately left that field after graduation for working in the arts. my reasoning was actually pretty similar to what you describe here. i went through a "skeptic"/new atheist/rationalist phase, tried to go deep into understanding the epistimological biases of my particular field of study, and eventually felt like the issues were more cultural than knowledge/fact-based. that's not to say we don't need a huge revamp of how we teach critical thinking and the scientific method in the USA- we definitely do! but after i graduated i felt I could have more impact in changing circumstances via fostering the creative imagination in the cultural sphere rather than siloed into some extremely specific research within an institution.
10ish years later, the jury is still out on whether that was a sound decision (lol). if I had stayed in that field I would probably be either a highly paid data scientist or an extremely low paid academic researcher. i've done a lot of cool things since within arts/culture but there's maybe even larger issues in promoting creative pedagogy/thinking in the USA compared to scientific literacy.
That's rad, and I am pleased I hit on a element of truth with my idea. I did the opposite. I was going for sociology until I discovered all the questions were answered people just don't want to do them. Now, I am trying to go for nursing.
I am really curious, do you feel comfortable sharing any of your work or your methodology?
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