Understanding Skills: Thinking, Feeling And Caring

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"Most of our problems arise not from ignorance about how to achieve what we want, but from our failure to properly conceptualise what we want. It is arguable that we are doing very well, if what we want are creative, imaginative, and critical people in the senses logically implied by the way we set about testing, talking about, and teaching these things. The fact that in quite different senses we don't seem to have a society characterised by intelligence, critical capacity, creativity, and imagination, suggests to me that we are doing the wrong things because we have not worked out what these qualities actually involve."

It is widely agreed that education should involve the development of understanding, critical thinking, imagination, and the emotions. But, argues Dr. Barrow, our view of these key concepts is confused and inaccurate. Consequently, what we do in schools is generally inappropriate to our ideal. Preoccupied with form and process at the expense of content and substance, we have created a great divide between the appearance of things and reality. The tendency to think in terms of generic skills, the dominance of the scientific paradigm in educational research, and the materialistic and relativistic tenor of our culture, all combine to distort our understanding of intellectual qualities such as intelligence and critical thinking, of the imaginative and creative powers, and of interpersonal relations. These and related concepts such as values clarification, brainstorming, caring, and giftedness are here re-examined. Professor Barrow presents his argument with his usual lucidity and panache. The criticisms are hard-hitting and telling. But the positive thesis is forcefully stated and gracefully- presented, and the overall message is one of optimism and idealism.

Robin Barrow is a graduate of Oxford University, where he read Classics and Philosophy. He has a Ph.D. from the University of London. He has held a personal Readership in Philosophy of Education at the University of Leicester, and is currently Professor of Education and Director of Graduate Programs at Simon Fraser University. An internationally respected scholar, Dr. Barrow is the author of The Philosophy of Schooling, Happiness, and Gluing Teaching Back to Teachers among many other books. He recently co-authored the highly esteemed Critical Dictionary of Educational Concepts with Geoffrey Milburn.