First Encounters of Bradbury

On a breezy autumn day a comfy chair sits near a sunny window awaiting someone to curl up to their favorite book, although on this particular day the wall of flashing lights calls to those who would rather not. This unfortunately has become a reality for most…

 

Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451, is correct in believing some will fall prey to censorship, while others protest its travesties. Perhaps only those who value literature, as he would see how underutilized authors can become. His fear of a society of robotic thought is creeping its way into reality. His intention was to bring an entertaining fiction that could enlighten those in a time of powerful beliefs being pushed on a people. His use of characters that represented technology was a way to foreworn an inevitable future if one is careless with their knowledge.  

 While television and the Internet have surely become societies’ source of entertaining knowledge, it certainly has become a silk screen to which clouds ones ability to think critically. The main concern is whether newer generations will have access to and an appreciation for the creative written word. It will be up to those who hold its value to become those who ‘remember’.

In today’s world of the environmentally conscious, books may not be burned but recycled. What would Bradbury think of his prized possessions (books) as art? We have already been introduced to a futuristic way of burning books and it is better known as an eBook. While this new form will encourage those tech junkies to read something other than a tweet, it merely feeds their need for the latest and greatest THING. While we are certainly not headed towards mass book burnings as WWII or China’s Qin Dynasty, the tangible book is slowly becoming barbaric.

 As long as this country remains founded on free speech, then there is no great threat to the form of writing. The only threat may be that one becomes more familiar with a gadget to bind their favorite literature than the old fashioned paperback. These eBooks as there better known do carry a lot of buzz about its ability to hold a memory of over twenty literary works. Now for an avid reader who may like to dabble in many a genre at one time, or a traveler this would be the best invention known to man. With all this said, censorship and edit become the biggest fear of those who love to write and read. These will become the modern day book burning if allowed, it is important to keep our minds fresh on what we allow our brains to process and how, keep critical thinking alive and kicking!

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. ~Ray Bradbury

An interview with Ray Bradbury...

Our Children: Their Critical Thinking and Reasoning

Primary schools today have begun to adapt their curriculum in order to include reasoning and/or critical thinking skills. This will become important in preparing our children for the world beyond the classroom and their understanding of the curriculum provided for them. According to June Pelligrini, of the Yale-New Haven Teacher Institute, “Higher order thinking skills are now recognized as important for those who will enter the twenty-first century work force, where the information age will require individuals who are flexible, dynamic, and resilient.” The Yale-New Haven Teacher Institute provides a model of how higher learning can support the concept of a child learning reason/logic at an early age.

 In 1956, Benjamin Bloom, an education scholar developed a classification for levels of intellectual behavior in learning; it is known as Bloom’s Taxonomy. Teacher Tap, a professional resource online for educators/librarians states, “This taxonomy contains three overlapping domains: the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective.” It was Bloom’s belief that these domains are used in our behaviors of learning. In this video below an eleven-year-old girl guides her classmates in a discussion about another peers work. She actively engages them in a partner debate of critical/creative thinking. This demonstrates that if allowed a child can grasp the concept of reason and critical thinking. It is important that every child have the chance to comprehend their reasoning skills as well and know that in their world of authority it will be honored. 

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 Critical thinking and reasoning skills will become an important aspect of a child’s education in a 
world of technology and cyber-socializing. Howard Rheingold, a critic and writer believes, “the teachable skill of knowing how to make decisions based on values has become particularly important with the new medium that connects young people to each other and to the world’s knowledge…” As a parent in today’s world the struggle is to retain a balance of my children’s understanding of how they feel and think about life around them. If school won’t aide them in learning this tool, then parents should see fit to teach these skills at home. The only problem is bias framing a parent’s way of expressing critical thinking. Perhaps this is why there is not more emphasis on the subject for primary aged children.

As our society battles the ever-growing question of whether our children are prepared for the world around them, the question that most needs answering is why not? Why not offer children every benefit that their brains can gain from thinking about thinking? We prepare them for every aspect of life except for that. It should be seen as unethical for schools to not allow for critical thinking and reasoning skills to be utilized. If this were true then standardized testing could be obsolete, but then who wants to open that can of worms? Reaching for the can opener…while testing is necessary to gage one’s level of knowledge and comprehension, it is unnecessary to use it as a guide for curriculum. Those who believe that hardcore testing is the only way would be the ones who also believe a child cannot grasp critical thinking.

Works Cited

Johnson, Larry, and Annette Lamb. "Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains." Colocation | Broadband Wireless | Dedicated Servers | Web Design & Development | DocSTAR | DSL | Web Hosting | Infinity Internet. 2000,2007. Web. 26 Oct. 2010. <http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html>.

Rheingold, Howard, and Robin Good. "New Media Literacy In Education: Learning Media Use While Developing Critical Thinking Skills." Professional Online Publishing: New Media Trends, Communication Skills, Online Marketing - Robin Good's MasterNewMedia. 28 Oct. 2007. Web. 26 Oct. 2010. <http://www.masternewmedia.org/learning_educational_technologies/media-literacy/new-media-literacy-critical-thinking-Howard-Rheingold-20071019.htm>.

Communication and Technology

“Communication that is what we try to do, speak to those near us” as Don Clark states. Our society today is becoming less likely to speak and more inclined to type/text what they want to say to one another. Technology has allowed our innovations to evolve, but with new ideas is the loss of a simple life. Gone are the days of face to face communication, for in its place is cyberspace.

For centuries communication has been either the rise or fall of civilization. For early settlers to the new world, the ability to communicate with the natives led them to believe they were savages. Of course bias played a key role in that thought, but if they were able to speak to them they would gain a better understanding of each other. About.com shows a timeline of how technology has played a role in communication dating back to 3500 B.C., when the Phoenicians created the alphabet.

Human society now uses technology to express their thoughts and emotions to one another. Soon we will become a society that would rather speak to one another through an electronic device. Media and technology will soon consume our brains as it was portrayed in the Disney movie Wall-E. This movie not only touched on the importance of technology, but if society becomes controlled by it they will lose the importance of human contact and their natural instinct. “In the modern world, the chime of incoming e-mail can override the goal of writing a business plan or playing catch with the children”, says Matt Richtel of The New York Times. His article called Attached to Technology and Paying a Price is a take on the 1980’s anti-drug commercial, Your Brain on Drugs.

With communication as the key to success in life, technology will either become society’s link to the world or its shelter from human contact.