Texas GOP wages war on thinking

www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/22/156979/commentary-texas-gop-wages-war.html?storylink=MI_emailed

Posted on Sunday, July 22, 2012
By Leonard Pitts Jr

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a plank from the 2012 platform of the Republican Party of Texas which, astonishingly enough, reads as follows: "We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."

Holy wow. That is, without a doubt, the most frightening sentence this side of a Stephen King novel.

The Texas GOP has set itself explicitly against teaching children to be critical thinkers. Never mind the creeping stupidization of this country, the growing dumbification of our children, our mounting rejection of, even contempt for, objective fact. Never mind educators who lament the inability of American children to think, to weigh conflicting paradigms, analyze competing arguments, to reason, ruminate, question and reach a thoughtful conclusion. Never mind that this promises the loss of our ability to compete in an ever more complex and technology-driven world.

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For what it's worth, the Texas GOP says that language was not supposed to be in the platform. Spokesman Chris Elam says its inclusion "was an oversight on the subcommittee's part."

If that explanation leaves you cold, join the club. That such an asinine position was even under consideration is hardly comforting. And the fact that something so neon stupid escaped notice of both the subcommittee and the full platform committee suggests the Texas GOP could use a little critical thinking instruction itself.

Remember when Republicans were grown-ups? Agree with them or not, you never thought of Bob Dole, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, even Richard Nixon as less than serious, substantive adults, susceptible like all serious, substantive adults, to logic and reason.

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