DOI:
10.18413/2313-8971-2017-3-1-46-51
TEACHING CRITICAL THINKING TO NON-WESTERN EDUCATED STUDENTS: A CAUTIONARY TALE
In this case study, it was found that exporting educational concepts such as critical thinking to the post-Soviet nations of Kazakhstan and Russia presented unforeseen challenges to Western-trained instructors at the university level, especially those in language training. In-service and pre-service language teachers (i.e., recipients of the borrowed policies and methodologies) said they wanted to learn critical thinking strategies, but they often seemed unwilling to abandon memorization and regurgitation as well as drills, multiple choice, fill in the blanks, and oral exams, whose answers had been memorized before test day. Even if teachers tried some techniques, they soon reverted to their old practices. This paper describes the resistance teachers exhibited toward bringing these concepts into their own classrooms. It also explains this resistance using Jost et al.’s [6] framework of the authoritarian personality and sociocultural theories of Leontiev [9] and Vygotsky [20, 21]. Educational lenders in all fields are cautioned to pay attention to these rarely discussed sociocultural and sociocognitive influences on student learning, or risk frustration and perhaps failure. Some methods to circumvent that resistance are included
Keywords: Critical thinking,
(post)Soviet education,
educational transfer,
educational lending,
cognition,
learning,
sociocultural,
sociocognitive.
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