My long vacation is coming to an end and soon it will be time to go back to the heat and the college routine. These six months were amazing....exploring villages in the hills, reading in the most quaint library I've seen, and trying out an experiment in teaching(not successful though).
The thesis was that 10-12 years old can be taught critical thinking.
There are two schools of thought..some believe that critical thinking must be embedded in regular teaching (infusion) ,while others believe it must be taught explicitly http://www.nwrel.org/archive/sirs/6/cu11.html.
I lean towards the latter.
So I went to this village school and told the principal that without disturbing their routine, I would like to try out an experiment.
My plan was that I would have a pretest, conduct my workshop,and after a few months I would have a post test. Lo behold!! the post test would be a dramatic improvement on the pretset and I would have a scientific basis for my claim that critical thinking can be taught.
Of course, it didn't workout. Some of the kids who came for the pretest attended two sessions and then said their mothers want them to come home early. In subsequent sessions, the demography was fluid...those who came one day, did not come the next, but came back after a few days. Real confusion. After a point I stopped figuring out who came for what and just had a bit of fun with the kids.
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