Learning and Thinking

Learning and thinking is an interesting topic to reflect on, especially considering that the two supposedly go hand in hand. Typically, an educated or "learn ed" person has the ability to think critically. This means they can take a situation and examine two sides and determine the correct course of action.

To me, this doesn't necessarily mean that an uneducated-or rather-under educated person does not have the ability to think things through. Instead, i think it all comes down to choice. There are those in society who literally choose to let someone else do their thinking for them. Perhaps that is one reason we have some of the problems we have in our current society. People do not take the time to think about how their actions, or lack of it, will affect another.

The question I find myself asking is, " What does learning have to do with thinking?"

I think the answer lies in the current state of our education system. An 2014 article from the Huffington Post by Eric Cooper talks about how schools were beginning to focus more on students testing ability rather than their ability to solve problems. In it he states "...teaching students to take a test is not the same as teaching them to think critically."

This begs the question: Are students in American schools being challenged to come up with their own views and opinions, or are they being told how to think?

I am of the opinion that the future of society is a scary thing if the answer to that question is the latter. Imagine what the world will be like in twenty years, when today's high school students are closing in on their forties having gone through their twenties expecting to be told the answers and not being able to figure things out on their own. Terrifying. A society without creative or critical thinking is a society that has lost its way.