Policy and Research Dilemmas in the Teaching of Reasoning: Unplanned Designs

Abstract

reasoning powers now adds one more R to the traditional three.' Documenting the current appeal of instruction in reasoning need go no further than the eruption of national reports and studies in the early years of this decade on America's apparent second-rate schools. A presidentially appointed commission noted how many students graduate without extensive training in thinking. Researchers acknowledged the limited presence among both teachers and students of critical thought in classrooms. Corporate-funded reports underscored a lack of independent and imaginative thinking among high school graduates-traits that top executives prize for both entry level and managerial positions.2 These reports and studies often drew from the same well for evidence: test results and first-hand observations of classrooms. Often citing National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data and standardized achievement and aptitude scores, report writers also included what experienced observers recorded in their school visits. Both sets of data converged to produce a portrait of intellectually impoverished classrooms where unimaginative instruction tried to stuff a whale of knowledge into a sardine can of a student.3 But why the renewal of civic affection for reasoning in the early 1980s? Again, the answers can be partially located in these reports and the response of national media to them. The diminished international stature of the United States, a faltering economy, a growing trade deficit to nations that were once wartime enemies, and the rapid penetration of the computer into home and work provided sufficient justification for Americans to worry about their schools. National media spotlighted school failures and the rising tide of mediocrity-a phrase tailored for the media (no pun intended)-and hooked the attention of policymaker and citizen at every level of government. Calls for more engineers and mathematicians, better trained teachers, higher academic standards, and dozens of other reforms spilled from these reports. In short, a national consensus swiftly coalesced around the notion that unless steel was poured into the educational spine of the nation, America's global superiority would continue to slip. Schools, then, are the nation's second line of defense, another fail-safe system, in coping with an uncertain and unstable world. Echoes from earlier decades when Americans turned to their schools to rescue the country from complicated and costly problems can be easily heard in the current calls for school improvement.4

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