Feels like I'm just posting to the void since I'm just getting started here, but why not. I write a weekly newsletter, and this week I write about how far away from reading and critical thinking we’ve come. It's lacking in our education, COVID learning loss, social media attention spans, all of it.
Comments
Thinking, and Civics. We refused to worry about whether he was aware of what was going on in the world because of what was not being taught in school.
It absolutely quiets the anxiety about the unknown of what is ahead. I am present in the story. For me what works is fiction though. It can’t be
non-fiction.
Reading though has always been my lifeline, my lifesaver holding me up from going under.
One of my greatest joys
After the election I read ‘Just for the Summer’ by Abby Jimenez. Highly recommend. Great writing.
Then Emily Henry bks ‘Happy Place’ & ‘Funny Story’
Great escapism books
I created a Family Activity Book to strengthen Critical Thinking Skills!
https://SavvySerenity.Gumroad.com
https://www.wired.com/2011/03/the-importance-of-logic-critical-thinking/
We DO need to read more and reintroduce critical thinking as a positive attribute into social interactions. But I have no idea how to.
We went through a period of "whole word" reading instruction. Students with any species of dyslexia struggle with this method, and everybody has to just memorize all the weird spelling issues in English.
Good luck 🍀
Critical thinking replaced with ten second headlines. Opinion handed down to us from Mount YouTube.
It’s also how I feel about Chromebooks and IPads being used for assignments.
i.e Kids nowadays make fun of someone in the trades and dream to become a streamer or influencer.
There is lots of old sci-fi in Project Gutenberg now:
Omnilingual by H Beam Piper
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/19445
Damned If You Don't by Randall Garrett
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/24064
Badge of Infamy by Lester Del Rey
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/19471
But here’s a Bluesky + Substack twofer follow!
Just thinking tho that sound info is difficult to access now. Paywalls & subscriptions
It is worth to read this passage from his book The Demon-Haunted World
Are you blaming the "learning loss" on a few months' disruption, four years ago, and ignoring the cognitive damage caused by the ongoing pandemic?
Great writing, thanks. It will find its audience.
👏👏👏
All round the world - US, Europe, Ukraine/Russia, Israel, Afghanistan - day will come.
Stalin learned that in the 1930's
trump has read the memo
The old axiom of "don't believe everything you see on the internet" needs to be returned to the fore for Gen Z and everyone else in school.
My husband is a political science geek. He's taught me so much. I love learning from him. ❤️