The Purpose of Challenging Fixed Beliefs

I want to go back for a second to the Texas GOP Party Platform on education.  This summer, I'm taking a couple of online classes for my Master's in SPED, one of which is "Technology and Education," which is taught by Wittgenstein scholar/ liberal blogger Prof. Nicholas Burbules.  Anyways, the class got into an awesome chatroom conversation about the statements made by the Texas GOP, and I think we got just a little bit closer to the heart of the matter.  For a refresher, here's the statement again: 

We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcomes Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

And here's the part that the class highlighted: "...have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs..."  At this point, there was this kind of communal epiphany, that was kind of cool coming from an online class, as you can "see" everyone thinking because they have all stopped typing away furiously in the little chat box.  The point is that people tend to have a certain set of beliefs that provide the foundations for their world views, beliefs that provide the scaffolding for all of the other things that they believe in the world.  These include certain assumptions that we act upon all the time without thinking about it - "The world has lasted longer than I have been alive," or "I have two hands." - as well as beliefs about ourselves, our identities, and our place in the world.  ("I am a man." "I am a Christian." "I am a homosexual." "I am Hispanic." "I have a disability." "I am poor.")  It is these types of fixed beliefs that influence how folks behave, and in a very real way enter the political sphere, because they influence who we (think) we are, and how we ought to treat one another. 

This is why critical thinking, or, as I like to call it, philosophy, is such a dangerous thing, and why the Texas GOP is so openly hostile to it.  An individual who can think critically about her self, her world and her place in it can also analyze and discern facts about that world; she suddenly has some kind of power.  And because "authority" - even parental authority - is predicated on a certain imbalance in power, it will always be hostile towards critical Thought.   As Prof. Burbules put it in our class, " "Belief" can sometimes be a real impediment to learning." And so we have two very different perspectives on the meaning of education: One that calls for it to reinforce the dominant values, and to ensure the perpetuation of the current state of affairs in the world, and another, which calls for a purposeful challenging of fixed beliefs for the purpose of evaluating authority and, if judged necessary, challenging it.  As a Special Education teacher, that is, someone whose job it is to best serve a population of citizens who are dis-served by the prevailing authority, I don't think I really have a choice in the matter. 

This, of course, is nothing new.  When the Athenians brought Socrates to trial, they charged him with three things: Atheism, making the weaker argument appear the stronger, and corruption of the youth.  I would bet dollars to dimes that, if you asked a Texas Republican to list three things wrong with public education today, his list would sound strangely similar.