How to Teach Students to Not Guess the Teacher’s Password?

Petruchio

As a teacher, I wonder if it is possible to instill this skill into students the skills of rationality and critical thinking. I teach the third grade, and it is not immediately apparent how to apply this with my own class.

The problems I foresee are as follows:

Young children often do not know the basics on the subject which they are learning, be it math, science, art, religion, literature etc.
Many children are very shy, and try to give as short of an answer as doable to a verbal prompt.
Written prompts are arduous, straining the attention span and writing capabilities of the students. This is not a bad thing, but it presents difficulties in the economy of time and material to be presented.
Attention spans in general are very short.
Experiments can be very infrequent, and nigh impossible with certain subjects.
Children, at this age, are likely to take the words of a parent or teacher at face value, and naturally parrot it back. This may be a hard habit to break.

In the sequences, it is suggested teachers should drill into students words don't count, only anticipation-controllers. How practical is this for an elementary school level? Also appreciated would be any ideas or experiences on how to do this, or how to combat the above problems. Hearing from other teachers would be excellent especially.

The problems I foresee are as follows:

Young children often do not know the basics on the subject which they are learning, be it math, science, art, religion, literature etc.
Many children are very shy, and try to give as short of an answer as doable to a verbal prompt.
Written prompts are arduous, straining the attention span and writing capabilities of the students. This is not a bad thing, but it presents difficulties in the economy of time and material to be presented.
Attention spans in general are very short.
Experiments can be very infrequent, and nigh impossible with certain subjects.
Children, at this age, are likely to take the words of a parent or teacher at face value, and naturally parrot it back. This may be a hard habit to break.

I agree I gained critical thinking skills throughout my childhood, much more aided by school than impeded. Science was science. I had a 5th grade science teacher who was an idiot, but when I argued with him over his stupidities, he didn't shut me down, he argued back. And all along I was learning that this was a description of the world and the world, not some authority, got the last say.

Not all kids are going to be as good at critical thinking as all other kids. This is not a failure of the education system, it is a failure of the human race. The best a system can do is add a delta in the right direction, on average, to most of us. My kids are pretty normal girls, but they are reasonable arguers and don't believe stupid stuff. This latter from training if I do say so myself. They think their opinions matter and so they put some effort in to them.

I had a 5th grade science teacher who was an idiot, but when I argued with him over his stupidities, he didn't shut me down, he argued back.

This seems lucky, from what I've seen the standard is lower.

9DaFranker14y

This is very atypical, from what I know. I could name several local high schools and at least two cégeps where not a single teacher would consistently respond with a "the world and reality have the last say" attitude or be willing to argue rather than use the Authority and That's How It Is cards. I know of only one place, a private college, where about 20% of teachers would be as reasonable as your education seems to have been. The typical interaction between me and teachers during my own time in high school went more along the lines of: Me: How does gravity work? Where does the seemingly-unlimited energy for the force come from? (Physics) Teacher: Potential energy, due to the work that was put in raising the object to a certain altitude. *shows me a "standard" equation for calculating that* Me: But that doesn't work! How does gravity first happen with planets and in space, then? And also, here, *points at some places where those equations are just completely disconnected from reality and explains why there's something missing* Teacher: This is what is taught. You do what is taught, and it is the Right way. Don't ever mention this again. No, I'm not exaggerating. This actually happened. It's only months later that I learned (by reading an arxiv physics paper, heh) that both of us were completely off the mark with regards to the (then-)current best understanding of how gravity works. From what I gather, in general, most of north american education seems closer to my experience than to yours. This is horrible, if true (which I'm very convinced it is).

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How to Teach Students to Not Guess the Teacher’s Password?

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How to Teach Students to Not Guess the Teacher’s Password?

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