It seems to me that any person in America wishing to declare him/herself oriented and educated should need to demonstrate knowledge of conventions and demonstrate an ability to move among them using them. Before anyone specializes in a discipline of study or before he/she enters the workforce he/she should show an ability to put two ideas together and articulate the implications of doing so. Writing would probably be the medium most commonly used. However, I would not discount any of the arts. The critical thinking strategy of “connective thinking” (or strategies that assist students in making meaning of two or more ideas) has proven to be the lesson most profound to me as a teacher of writing across the curriculum. The skill of making meaning fosters in concrete thinkers the ability to abstract. Students who can abstract begin to think for themselves.
The students who succeed in making connections among ideas within and between disciplines are beginning to demonstrate the power of inductive reasoning. Each student goes on to create a meaning-filled world for him/herself. Crafters of general education curricula have been paying diminishing lip service to the arts and humanities and haven’t had a coherent understanding of the value of inductive reasoning. Each one of us either creates the world around him or herself or has it created for him/her by others. Since our world is filled with competing creations, it is vital that each student creates individual meaning from the competing creations and therefore an individual place in the world. Schools that apply serious time and effort in this kind of project, so that every student succeeds at beginning to establish connections between ideas, have students who begin to understand conventions. If every educated person knew how to be comfortable outside conventions, every educated person would have the opportunity to make his/her life a creative project.
The students who succeed in making connections among ideas within and between disciplines are beginning to demonstrate the power of inductive reasoning. Each student goes on to create a meaning-filled world for him/herself. Crafters of general education curricula have been paying diminishing lip service to the arts and humanities and haven’t had a coherent understanding of the value of inductive reasoning. Each one of us either creates the world around him or herself or has it created for him/her by others. Since our world is filled with competing creations, it is vital that each student creates individual meaning from the competing creations and therefore an individual place in the world. Schools that apply serious time and effort in this kind of project, so that every student succeeds at beginning to establish connections between ideas, have students who begin to understand conventions. If every educated person knew how to be comfortable outside conventions, every educated person would have the opportunity to make his/her life a creative project.
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