From the bottom of the page: A spokesman for the Republican Party of Texas said that the "critical thinking skills" language should not have been included in the document after the words "values clarification," reports Talking Points Memo. The members of the subcommittee "regret" the mistake, he told TPM—however, since the platform was approved, "it cannot be corrected until the next state convention in 2014."
They regret the mistake, it sounds like, so I guess it's all good. Nothing to see here.
* their curriculum explicitly aims to develop "lifelong, critical thinkers"
* they feel "reading, writing, and
critical thinking continue to play central roles in the development of literate individuals"
* students learn to "Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning"
I understand that you're saying beliefs such as creationism don't stand up to any real critical thought, and I agree. But I feel the same way about many beliefs that left-leaning people tend to hold.
Sure. Many people (both commentators and friends of mine) express extreme forms of race and gender essentialism, regularly referring to groups like "white men" or "black women" as though they all have the same thoughts, feelings, and desires.
