College Students and Critical Thinking: An Oxymoron?
Since the Boston Marathon bombing there has been quite a bit of
speculation about how the Tsarnaevs' Muslim faith ties into the
devastation they committed last week. Last night I read an interesting article about
the fact that the brothers' racial identity as being White has been
difficult for some to accept. I won't go on about the article as you can
read it for yourself and decide.
What I want to comment on is that I'm hearing how a PC college student who is being taught to be a critical thinker and is entering into the vocation of teaching actually believes that all Muslims are suspect because of the Tsarnaevs. I'm not so much surprised as I am disappointed that this student and perhaps others are graduating with a lack of understanding about other perspectives as well as the seeming inability to critically think about world events, politics, etc.
The unfortunate truth is that we forget too easily the lessons we learned from the past like 9-11 or the Holocaust. Also we forget that being an "educated" person does not preclude us from stereotyping and negatively discriminating others.
In the past year, bias incidents and hate crimes happened on the most elite college campuses: Hamilton, Williams, Dartmouth, Oberlin, Skidmore, Colby, University of New Hampshire, Elizabethtown, Grand Valley State University, University of North Alabama, University of Mississippi, and Emory.
And lest we think we are immune to such incidents, we too at Providence College have had our share of bias incidents in the past year and a half since I've been at the college.
A sobering reality...
What I want to comment on is that I'm hearing how a PC college student who is being taught to be a critical thinker and is entering into the vocation of teaching actually believes that all Muslims are suspect because of the Tsarnaevs. I'm not so much surprised as I am disappointed that this student and perhaps others are graduating with a lack of understanding about other perspectives as well as the seeming inability to critically think about world events, politics, etc.
The unfortunate truth is that we forget too easily the lessons we learned from the past like 9-11 or the Holocaust. Also we forget that being an "educated" person does not preclude us from stereotyping and negatively discriminating others.
In the past year, bias incidents and hate crimes happened on the most elite college campuses: Hamilton, Williams, Dartmouth, Oberlin, Skidmore, Colby, University of New Hampshire, Elizabethtown, Grand Valley State University, University of North Alabama, University of Mississippi, and Emory.
And lest we think we are immune to such incidents, we too at Providence College have had our share of bias incidents in the past year and a half since I've been at the college.
A sobering reality...
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