Salam and dear all,
The following notes, taken from an article 'Need to produce thinking students' by Nik Roskiman Abdul Samad, IKIM Views, The Star Online, 3rd June 2009 (http://thestar.com.my) talks about the 'ills' of the current approach in teaching and learning and of the needs for students to be taught on how to think;
... Education is not about teaching particular “subjects”. Neither it is about the number of subjects taught in schools. It is about nurturing a human being to be a “good man”.
Modern students today are certainly taught more subjects, but that does not mean they are actually “good” or know more; nor does it mean they are better equipped than those before them.
Compared with students of the Athenean Middle Ages, who only studied three subjects at the trivium and four subjects at the quadrivium, for example, today’s students should perform better, considering their intellectual growth.
But this is not the case. Many a time an interview panel is frustrated with the performance of our graduates, despite their having spent more than a decade at the primary and secondary education levels and approximately four years at the tertiary level.
They certainly “studied” hundreds of subjects and, yet, they do not know the basics, have no confidence in speaking, no critical and logical thought when arguing, have no common sense, rational thought and so on. Why?
Because they had never been taught to think, how to use reason or how to argue during their entire “formal” education.
The only reason they have succeeded thus far is, perhaps, purely because they were good at memorising data – not that their intellect has been developed...
Wassalam.
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