Dewey believes that the only real education - Essay Example

Those so-called educators and journalistic professionals who continue to lament the death of critical thinking among the modern youth do so because they no longer understand, nor belong, to the new age of education and information technology. Academicians and journalists tend to be resistant to changes around them and, therefore, tend to cry out that critical thinking has passed on (Males, “Critics of Student's Critical Thinking Ain't Either”). They fail to see that critical thinking has merely taken on a new shape and form.

One that is consistent with the continued evolution of the critical thinking and mental capacity of the future generations of learners and academicians. The critics who view critical thinking as a dead practice among the students of today base that point of view on their incomplete observation based upon the Foundation for Critical Thinking's definition of “critical thinking” (Males, “Critics of Student's Critical Thinking Ain't Either” ) as: . the intellectual scrutiny of a given statement's "purpose, problem, or question-at- issue; assumptions; concepts; empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions; implications and consequences; objections from alternative viewpoints; and frame of reference.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, the advent of the Internet has allowed students to learn outside of the four corners of the classroom. No longer are the university professors or high school teachers viewed as infallible mentors in their areas of teaching expertise. These days, students can easily verify any given information with a few taps into a search engine. Thus, allowing them the freedom question the authority of their educators when it comes to certain information being fed to them.

Students can no longer be spoon-fed these days. Instead, educators must be prepared to answer questions based upon the personal learning or research of students. The likes of Google, Bing, and Yahoo search engines have presented students with an opportunity to clarify certain information for themselves (Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” ), as class discussions have left them with more questions than answers. Then they go back to their teachers and ask them to explain further. That is why the belief that the Internet and its search engines have made our students stupid is actually without basis.

The Internet has rather produced a new era of students who no longer take their teacher's word for anything. Which is why teachers now need to be more up to date and even more addicted to research via Internet than their students are if they do not wish to be shown up as lacking in actual expertise on the subjects they teach. Cable television shows and channels, such as the National Geographic, Animal Planet, Discovery, and the History Channel, have also contributed greatly to the forward thinking and critical analysis skills of the students today.

While everything taught in school tends to be one-dimensional and lecture-type, these cable channels have provided students with an almost hands on learning ability about these highly interesting topics that tend to become boring when taught in school. Learning is no longer limited to Board of Education approved books with boring, black and white illustrations. These days, learning is a highly interactive process that