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An important job of educators is teaching critical thinking skills. When secular educationists talk about teaching students to think, they usually mean teaching them to become skeptics, agnostics, and humanists. To this end, the secularists promote values-clarification techniques and the use of open-ended questions. When they pretend to teach students how to think using these methods, they are saying, in effect, “Break loose from authoritative teachings and think for yourself. Come up with your own meaning.” But without some fixed principles, these students cannot think; they are at the mercy of the liberals and soon accept their ideas. Thus, the liberals are actually teaching students what to think instead of how to think. A Beka Book teaches students to think using the following methods. 1. We teach students to think by giving them something to think about. Learning to think is a byproduct of learning subject matter. One cannot think in a vacuum; one cannot learn concepts without content. How can one generalize from particulars with out having the particulars to generalize from? We teach universal truths and help our students store their minds with useful, interesting, important facts and ideas. With this foundation, the students are able to learn how to think. We present the material in a sensible way so that the students can compare ideas as they come before their minds, see the relation ships of those ideas, and systematize them. For example, in presenting history we teach chronology and geography so that the students can make connections between old and new, past and present, far and near, and gain insight into the influence of these, the one on the other. Teaching subject matter is anathema to the liberal, of course, because he denies the existence of truth. Christians should be wary of whom they follow. Truth exists, and we need to teach it. At best, the taboo against teaching facts is laziness; at worst it is agnosticism. Students need to be taught the accumulated wisdom of the past from God’s point of view and trained in the way they should go (Prov. 22:6) so that they will have a firm foundation from which to evaluate the present and make proper decisions for the future. 2. We teach students to think by using traditional methods of teaching subject matter. a. Bible class gives students the foundation of all wisdom. By means of teacher-directed Bible lessons for young children rather than workbook-directed lessons, we ensure that learning takes place in the affective as well as the cognitive domain. The Bible gives us the universal truths which are necessary for all thinking. “Thinking” that does not begin with the fear of the Lord is foolishness. b. Intensive phonics training, in contrast to the rote-memorization, sight-word method of beginning reading, trains students in analytical thinking. Rather than being told that c-a-t spells cat, they are taught why c-a-t spells cat. They are given the rules and taught how to apply them to figure out words for themselves (think). c. Reading lessons in the A Beka Book program place the emphasis on reading for meaning. Students are expected to read every day, and they are held account able for what they read by means of teacher questions and quizzes that require students to recall facts, see relationships, draw inferences, and make evaluations. Workbooks are seldom used, because they take too much time away from reading and tend to bore students with busy work. d. Grammar study requires students to figure out how the parts of a sentence go together to form a whole, how the parts are related to each other, and how the main ideas can be distinguished from supporting details. Diagramming forces the student to figure out how every item in a sentence functions and to place it in a diagram so that the function is apparent. This practice of analyzing and describing the elements of a sentence effectually teaches students to think. e. Vocabulary training further sharpens students’ thinking skills as they deal with the precise meanings of words and the history of their formation. The more words students know, the better equipped they are to think. f. Literature helps students to fill their minds with thoughts from some of the world’s greatest writers so that they may think great thoughts and learn to express them to others. The questions at the end of the selections in the A Beka Book literature anthologies involve students in all levels of thinking. g. Composition is thinking. When students are regularly required to work on a thesis sentence until its subject and predicate express exactly what the composition will attempt to prove, the students are getting some of the finest practice on thinking that they can get. When they write accurate definitions, classifications, analyses, and critiques, they are exercising thinking skills. h. Spelling and handwriting free students’ minds from the mechanics of written language so that they can think. i. History teaches students what man has done with the time God has given him, and what have been the consequences of man’s thoughts and actions. It thus enables the students to make reasonable decisions for their own lives and times. Most history books ignore the history of ideas. We believe that the events of history are the products of ideas (“As he thinketh in his heart, so is he” Prov. 23:7) and that high school students are capable of grasping and evaluating some of the important ideas that have shaped history. If students are not given, at the appropriate level, a chance to understand such ideas as determinism, pragmatism, humanism, existentialism, and rationalism, they are likely to be taken in by these ideas. A history lesson, properly taught, can give students invaluable les sons in how to think. j. Science taught in Christian perspective helps students to think God’s thoughts after Him. It opens their minds to the wonders of creation and shows them how man can subdue the physical creation for the glory of God and the benefit of man kind. Learning the facts of science gives students the materials with which to think scientifically. Observing demonstrations, performing experiments, and completing science projects train them in the use of the scientific method. k. Traditional mathematics trains students to think clearly, precisely, mathematically. It leads them to analyze problems, see connections, and work for solutions. Learning the multiplication tables frees them to use arithmetic for solving daily problems. Learning higher mathematics trains them in logic. 3. We teach students to think by training them in those habits which are necessary for thinking and by supplying quizzes and tests which necessitate thinking, not just a simple recall of facts. Thinking is hard work. It requires diligence, regularity, concentration, and persevering application. When a teacher says, “My students don’t think,” he usually means, “My students don’t pay attention; they don’t know how to concentrate on any thing.” Students learn to concentrate and focus their attention only when they are trained by traditional methods. Action-oriented progressive education does not encourage the discipline necessary for thinking. There is purpose behind the teaching techniques described in the A Beka Book teacher guides, and part of that purpose is to help students become careful, disciplined thinkers. Teachers need to give students incentives to exercise and sharpen their minds. They should expect their pupils to remember, think, and apply the things that they learn. Teachers need to ask questions over lectures, reading, and activities to check the students’ understanding and to clarify important concepts. Questions that test all levels of thinking are supplied in great number in the A Beka Book textbooks and teaching materials, and good teachers also ask questions aimed at the specific needs of their students at the moment. There is also a place for workbooks in certain skill areas, but they should not be used as a substitute for teachers making sure that their students concentrate and think. Workbooks train the hand; teachers train the mind. Teachers need to make sure that all students take part in class discussions, answer comprehension questions, put forth an effort to write well thought- out papers, and strive for achievement on tests and quizzes. A Beka Book holds forth a standard of excellence in order to teach students how to think.
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