Best OS So Far

"Wolf K" wrote

| The mistake is to think "critical thinking" is a some kind of generic
| skill. It isn't. Neither is writing. You can teach people how to write a
| history paper, and/or an English essay, and/or a science paper, etc, and
| the thinking that goes along with each. You can't teach any skill in the
| abstract.

Maybe critical thinking isn't the best term to use.
Some basic skills can be taught, surely. Writing can
be taught as a mode of expression. Vocabulary.
Parts of speech. Sentence structure. The specific
techniques for writing a history paper or science
paper would be separate from the ability to
express ideas clearly, in full sentences. Isn't
that literacy, after all? Going further, I don't
see why students can't also be acclimated
to gathering their thoughts. But that's not
what's being asked of them. They're asked
to imitate the appearance of intelligence. To
accord with requirements. To write to the
test. So that's what they do.
(Then, presumably, Microsoft
hires them to write highfalutin nonsense like,
"Leveraging next-gen technologies to solutionize
problems across the enterprise will be the principal
applicational transaction of our new bleeding-edge
tool, Success Enhancing Support and Fulfillment
Framework, or SESFF.")

I wouldn't say that person has critical thinking
ability. They don't know they're writing nonsense.
They just mimic a style of stringing together
fashionable trigger words.

I guess what I'm thinking of, which seems to be
missing, is intelligent attention, or capable reflection.
I'm not a teacher, but I suspect that could be taught
by encouraging students to figure things out for
themselves. It's my impression that higher education
used to be exactly that. Teaching people to think
so that they could go on to be leaders, rather than
just selling them social connections and terminology
so that they could go on to make 6 figures as cogs
in the machinery.

On 1/21/2017 6:31 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Wolf K" wrote

| The mistake is to think "critical thinking" is a some kind of generic
| skill. It isn't. Neither is writing. You can teach people how to write a
| history paper, and/or an English essay, and/or a science paper, etc, and
| the thinking that goes along with each. You can't teach any skill in the
| abstract.

Maybe critical thinking isn't the best term to use.
Some basic skills can be taught, surely. Writing can
be taught as a mode of expression. Vocabulary.
Parts of speech. Sentence structure. The specific
techniques for writing a history paper or science
paper would be separate from the ability to
express ideas clearly, in full sentences. Isn't
that literacy, after all? Going further, I don't
see why students can't also be acclimated
to gathering their thoughts. But that's not
what's being asked of them. They're asked
to imitate the appearance of intelligence. To
accord with requirements. To write to the
test. So that's what they do.
(Then, presumably, Microsoft
hires them to write highfalutin nonsense like,
"Leveraging next-gen technologies to solutionize
problems across the enterprise will be the principal
applicational transaction of our new bleeding-edge
tool, Success Enhancing Support and Fulfillment
Framework, or SESFF.")

I wouldn't say that person has critical thinking
ability. They don't know they're writing nonsense.
They just mimic a style of stringing together
fashionable trigger words.

I guess what I'm thinking of, which seems to be
missing, is intelligent attention, or capable reflection.
I'm not a teacher, but I suspect that could be taught
by encouraging students to figure things out for
themselves. It's my impression that higher education
used to be exactly that. Teaching people to think
so that they could go on to be leaders, rather than
just selling them social connections and terminology
so that they could go on to make 6 figures as cogs
in the machinery.


YES!
I spent a lot of years selecting and managing engineers.
I've known many very smart engineers with specific skills.
I've known very few who have what you called
intelligent attention.

You can teach an engineer HOW to bias a transistor.
It's much more difficult to teach them to imagine that a
transistor has useful characteristics outside the
mainstream of providing gain. 40 years ago, I suggested
building a switching power supply based on a Johnson counter.
Engineers told me I was crazy, but it worked first time.

You can teach 'em to HOW simulate a circuit.
It's much more difficult to teach them to decide
WHAT to simulate.

Most any endeavor can be modeled as a decision tree.
Most people pick a branch and head up the tree.
They're so invested in their chosen branch that
they don't even consider the possibility that
they might be better off on a different branch.

I've been unsuccessful teaching an engineer to:
think/extrapolate beyond his experience
put himself into the mindset of the user of the product
see the big picture

I never had any kids, so I can't access early life pliability,
but by the time they get to the workforce, they either have
it or they don't. They seem to understand the concept,
they're just unable to embrace it.

Since the same thing happens with management, people who
do have the skills are "troublemakers" and are suppressed.
The deck is stacked in favor of people who tell you what
you want to hear.

People actively resist concepts that they didn't conceive
or come from outside their focus area.

I used to crash meetings of other design teams.
The conversation went something like:

If you implemented this capability, you'd solve these
user problems and sell more stuff.

You're an idiot, it's not in the spec.

Well, what if you...?

Maybe, but we can't do that.

Ok, here's one way to do that...

Hmmm, but you're still an idiot.

Two years later, I get a copy of the patent
with me named as co-inventor. Most
teams I invaded were not that generous.

In message , mike
writes:
[]
YES!
[]
I've been unsuccessful teaching an engineer to:
think/extrapolate beyond his experience
put himself into the mindset of the user of the product
see the big picture

Or the maintainer of the product. I work in the tail-end department -
R&S, which is nominally "readiness and sustainment" (!), but everyone
knows is really repairs and spares. Since it's avionics, this involves
equipment often decades old - people, especially military, expect
aircraft to last (and be supported) for a LONG time.

Lots of the kit I work on was clearly _not_ designed by someone who put
themselves into the mindset of the maintainer: it can take half an
hour's dismantling (and that's with practice) to get at something
trivial, probably involving the destruction and thus replacement of some
parts - which a little more thought at the design stage could have made
so much easier.

(To remain vaguely on-topic: this also applies to the software, in some
ways - both that in the product, and that in the test equipment. Though
the chances of _changing_ either of those are remote anyway, the source
code having been lost, and/or the compilers necessary being obsolete.)
[]
Since the same thing happens with management, people who
do have the skills are "troublemakers" and are suppressed.

BIG grin and +1!
[]
If you implemented this capability, you'd solve these
user problems and sell more stuff.

You're an idiot, it's not in the spec.
[]
You're preaching to the choir here! I have many suggestions in our
company's suggestion scheme (jokingly called "Empower" - as if!), most
of which were made not to get kudos but actually to improve things and
make life easier for others, but which have been set aside because
implementing them would be too much effort, as a one-off exercise, for
someone (probably not connected with those it would help).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging
their prejudices." - William James