Beyer on Sequence for Crit Thinking Skills Instruction

Barry K. Beyer, "Developing a Scope and Sequence for Thinking Skills Instruction" [DM, pp. 248-252]

This reading includes some useful charts which I won't try to reproduce in html here. I did find the 'thinking skills and strategies' table problematic, I think because he puts "level 1" at the top -- and these are the hardest/aspirational level items. So you'd expect level 1 to be the basic items, at the bottom, and for level 2 to be advanced/build from there, etc.

He also advocates for only introducing a few skills at a time and coordinating carefully among grades in terms of when each item is introduced. This sounds groovy, but it's got a few problems ... namely that students roam from school to school and coordination inside the school or inside the district is not enough. It implies a need for a national curriculum...and the problem here is that this denies teachers the ability to make the most effective use of their own gifts. They might be able to teach an outstanding version of (skill X) to (age Y) -- but if it's not in the Big National Plan....too bad. It seems like there has to be a better way than a heavy national plan or purely arbitrary local plans -- maybe a less heavy national plan with some competency blocks to the side, similar to how a college curriculum might mix required courses and electives? This practice is under assault and yet it seems like the best approach; we want students to graduate with a basic understanding of (ABC), and to have been exposed to higher-order stuff of interest to them -- during which they learned groovy content but also sharpened their overall skills in ways that are broadly applicable. If this "balanced diet" was then able to be represented in a student portfolio, parents might be able to plan their children's education more actively. "Oh look, Johnny has gotten great exposure to most crit thinking skills on the Beyer chart, but he hasn't seen a lot of decision-making strategies because the emphasis was on critical thinking and analysis. I'll make sure to sign him up for Pretend To Be President summer camp, or model UN, or whatever extracurricular spurs these skills"