Two Great Teachers Teach Me

What REALLY drives me up a wall is that the two are NOT mutually exclusive. The reality is you cannot have one without the other!!!! This seems so elementary to me. How can I have a "higher order discussion" or have "critical thinking" about the faults of the Treaty of Versailles (which I did today by the way) without my kids knowing many "disparate" and supposedly "unconnected" facts about World War I, France, Germany and Britain, not to mention separate definitions about terms like "reparations" and "militarism?" Bottom line: Find me one person who is an expert in their field (and can hence think at a high level) who does not completely MASTER all the basic facts.

As I always say to other teachers: "You have to actually know something about the topic in order to actually think about it." Then I follow it up with this: "If you have students that you say 'cannot think' it is almost always because they have not mastered the basic facts about the topic/issue/problem you are trying to discuss." You must first know something before you can think about it.

In the end, knowing "facts" IS important. Connecting the facts to something is even better, but even those connections are facts themselves. One leads to another -- we are not able to choose "high order thinking skills" over "facts" as many would have us believe.

It's a straw man. If teachers consider which kids can "think" the best, it is often the ones who have the most firmly established knowledge base -- those who have the facts down pat.

I always strive for high level thinking with my students, but at the same time, just knowing a few facts about something can be a pretty darn good thing.

In history, I am constantly showing my kids how what they learn in World History is referenced in our culture. For example, I show lots of clips from movies, TV shows, or articles from newspapers that reference history in culture. One clip I show is from the movie "Hitch." Will Smith is talking to this geeky guy that he is going to help get the woman of his dreams and Smith asks: "Have you ever heard of the Sistine Chapel?" The guy nods yes. Smith points at himself and says "Michelangelo." Then he points at the guy and says, "Sistine Chapel." Pause. "Let's get working on that ceiling."

Now many of my kids don't know Michelangelo or the Sistine Chapel before they have me, but just knowing some basic facts about the topic allows them to fully understand this cultural reference. You should see how excited the kids are every time I show these clips. When I showed the "Hitch" clip, this one girl Jess immediately says, "Wow, I never understood that before now! Awesome!"

I could site dozens of such examples, but I won't belabor the point. I conclude by saying -- people can criticize the tests because they only test "basic facts" (although, as you said they really don't), but facts themselves are the crucial building blocks of thinking skills. We would do better as a profession if you acknowledged this and stopped acting like the word "fact" is a pejorative word.