Sibert Medal Honoree Melissa Stewart has written more than 200 science books for children. Here, she argues that many children gravitate towards nonfiction books, but adults may be steering them away because of their own assumptions and biases, to the detriment. of young readers.
Susan Chambers Cantrell, a professor within the University of Kentucky’s College of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, is one of the 14 University Research Professors for 2022-2023. The University Research Professorship Awards honor faculty members who have demonstrated excellence that addresses scientific, social, cultural and economic challenges in our region and around the world.
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It’s time to put our thinking caps on. Use your critical thinking skills to evaluate this sentence.
“Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier’s support for conscription during World War II strengthened the Canadian federation because it reassured French Canadians that the federal government took their concerns seriously.”
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Hopefully, you didn’t need more than two seconds to reject this claim. That’s because it is completely false. First, Wilfrid Laurier died in 1919, so clearly he wasn’t prime minister during the Second World War. Not only that, but Laurier was actually a strong opponent of conscription during the First World War.
Too Much Groupthink in Public Education
Commentary
“I live in a rather special world. I know only one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know.”
So said liberal film critic Pauline Kael after Richard Nixon won the 1972 American presidential election. To her surprise, it wasn’t a close result. Nixon won 49 out of 50 states and took more than 60 percent of the popular vote. Needless to say, the results would have been quite different if the election was up to Kael and her liberal friends.
What Kael implicitly acknowledged in her comment about the 1972 election was that she had surrounded herself by likeminded people. This naturally leads to groupthink, a psychological phenomenon whereby everyone in a group of people begins to think the same way on every issue. The desire for conformity becomes so great that it becomes distinctly uncomfortable to challenge each other’s opinions.