Are Classrooms The Best Venue For Critical Thinking

Education vs Indoctrination vs Critical Thinking
Contributed by: whelan costen
by Catherine Whelan Costen
January 14,2007
In the last few months a very powerful and thought-provoking message has been repeated over and over on a website I frequent. The message is, “it is ignorance of the law when we do not know our own rights’. The poster is examining the law to seek out the areas which he believes every person should know. His pursuit is admirable as he seeks to learn what he was denied throughout his educational process. Albert Einstein must have discovered the same, as he is quoted thus, “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.”
Knowing the law seems to be a critical part of our modern lives. We live by what seems to be a never ending set of rules/laws. Yet most citizens do not know the law. They rely heavily on lawyers to interpret the law. Then a judge interprets it for everyone. So knowing the law is not the same as interpreting the law. Living by an increasingly more complicated set of rules becomes part of our modern-day survival skills. We could probably dedicate our lives to understanding the rules we are meant to live by. It is designed in a way that we are primarily dependent on someone else to help us with the rules. Most of us spend our youth in a classroom learning the rules of life, but not the laws we are governed by. We are told that getting an education is critical to our success as an adult. Success is defined for us. We are taught what to think. Not, how to think. Just like our relationship to the law, we are always just a bit short of having all the tools to function.
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Note: I wasn't sure which section this applies to, because without critical thinking all areas of our lives are impacted.
Thanks to Dio for bringing up the issue.
This is one person's observation and other opinions are certainly appreciated.