Do students overall understand their textbooks? Do they even read them; or do they merely memorize or track answers to text questions? And relatedly, is the quality of their education preparing them for the future, for the kind of society they are going to live in? The gravity of these questions is cause for concern, if not alarm, for they underlie the current reading crisis -- and considerable chaos -- in education.

Any parent who is abreast of the current issues in American education knows that something is not quite right with their children's schooling regardless of whether they are failing, getting by, or excelling in their studies. Something clearly is missing; and in a word, it is understanding -- contextual understanding, to be precise.

Textbook comprehension exercises require that students understand what they read, when in fact, understanding of complex textbook material often involves careful analysis and synthesis (summarization, title, theme, main idea, etc.) -- which are necessary steps to comprehension. Yet, standard textbooks do not teach comprehension; they assume that students have that ability already, or if not, then can have it "if they think hard enough." It is this dubious assumption that touches the nerve of the current crisis in education, because the very meaning of the word 'comprehension' implies "an understanding [author's italics] of the object of thought in its entire compass and extent "; which clearly goes beyond the average, and above average, student's textbook reading ability without some kind of training for that attainment.

To the point: The pedagogical weakness in standard textbook learning is that students are required to answer comprehension questions after they read a section or chapter in their textbooks -- which casts doubt on whether they even read the material much less understand it; by which I mean, they can simply read the questions, then track the answers without having to read the material at all. This practice is known as finding the facts, which is one type of rote learning, meaning: mechanical learning by memory or repetition, etc. with little intelligence or reasoning applied -- which has its place in academics, since a good part of academics requires rote learning. My argument, however, is that something complementary to, something more substantial than, rote learning is needed in our times -- and urgently. [As a side note, current textbooks do attempt to minimize rote fact-finding and cursory reading, but in such a way that the study questions are framed in such complicated, comprehensive, inferential, and abstract terms that they only compound the problem by requiring students to "think hard" about what so many of them hardly even understand or bother to read.]

Another type of rote learning that has its failings is recognizing patterns; such as, 'ly' at the end of words which signals adverbs. However, if students do not understand the meaning of an adverb, then they fail to recognize adverbs that are exceptions, such as, "not"; or think that "lovely" is an adverb because it ends 'ly'; when in fact it is an adjective.

Still another type of rote learning that fails students is memorizing definitions without understanding their meaning. Students' definition of a noun is the paradigm of the overall weakness of rote learning. Almost all students say that a noun is "a person, place, thing, or an idea"; yet, there is no such thing as a noun, nor such place, nor such person. A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea. Somehow students miss that essential phrase, "name of," which indicates that the function of a noun is to name anything; and with that understanding, students would be less inclined to confuse the function of nouns with the function of other parts of speech.

As an aside, why I consider this (mis)definition of a noun as the paradigm of the overall weakness of rote learning is that it indicates very succinctly students' proclivity to abbreviate, or eliminate, as much of their reading and understanding as they can. By abbreviating the proper definition of a noun as “A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea,” to “A noun is a person, place, thing, or idea,” the proper meaning of a noun is lost; in which case, this definitional modification identifies a noun as a person, place, thing, and idea; which is an erroneous misplacement of meaning.

These comments lead to the conclusion that an education based primarily on rote learning is superficial at best, and is inadequate to meet the requirements of those students who need to understand what they read. A related consequence -- and a critical one in fact -- concerning this inadequate education is that since standard textbook learning methods do not teach understanding, students accordingly miss much of what they read, and so are inadequately prepared intellectually and psychologically to meet the demands of a highly sophisticated, competitive, troubled, and confused American society -- not to mention the world.

Granting, then, that understanding needs to be an integral part of education, how is it to be taught? Through critical thinking -- which is the current catchword among teachers and educators. But then we have to be very clear on the relationship between critical thinking and understanding; and accordingly, THREE QUESTIONS arise regarding this matter: (1) What is critical thinking, (2) What method would best teach it, and (3) Does such a teaching method exist?

Before answering the second question, we have first to consider that before students can critically evaluate a reading passage, they first have to understand it; and if they do not, they then have to know how to analyze its component ideas. This analysis is called analytical reading. Next, in order to comprehend the passage as a whole, they have to know how to synthesize (summarize, title, find the main idea, and theme, etc.) the material. In simple terms, then, critical thinking requires understanding, and understanding requires analytical and synthetical reading ability. The ideal, of course, is that this threefold intellectual process happens both simultaneously and instantaneously.

Now, to answer the SECOND QUESTION one point at a time. If we expect students to understand what they learn, then they are to be questioned coincidentally with their reading. Such a teaching procedure will ensure that students think through their reading material, not skim through it; and will engage them in an active, challenging, and individualized learning process through which they progress at their own level and pace.

In answer to the THIRD QUESTION, no such teaching method exists in the schools. But it does exist as a studybook curriculum (Studies In Meaning) that complements the regular school curriculum. Many hundreds of students have been benefited markedly by this distinctive critical-creative thinking method, privately; in afterschool programs in three elementary public schools of the Los Angeles Unified School District's, and in one elementary public school of the Redondo Beach Unified School District; and in regular school classes at Coushatta High School, Louisiana, at Hot Springs High School, Arkansas, and currently at 24th Street Elementary of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

CLOSING NOTE: Were teachers not to use such a critical-creative thinking program suggested in this essay, they could easily apply the same teaching method using their regular textbooks. It would be just a matter of the teacher “slowing down” by reading aloud from the textbook; and, not only elaborating on the material, but asking analytical-synthetical-creative (critical thinking) questions about the material to test students' understanding of it

Mother. Yes, it does. I've been thinking about your critical-creative thinking program, and how much it's helped my child in her school work and her thinking. It's given her a confidence that she didn't have before. I believe critical and creative thinking is the future of education, just as the quotation says; especially because of the complex technology in our day; and that's going to be more and more of our future, in our everyday lives, in ways that we can't even imagine at this time. The important thing is that the people who will be using this growing technology, the children of today, will have to know how to process information, how to make associations, how to interpret information. In other words, they will no longer need vast banks of knowledge, because they'll just press the keys of the computer for that information. But they better know how to interpret that information; know what inferences they can make from it; know what they can associate it to; what they can link it too. And this higher order thinking all comes if you have the ability to think critically: to judge the information, to evaluate it. In other words, "You don't need to store your brain anymore with superfluous information, kids; it's all here for you. But if you don't know what to do with it, then you're sunk."

Mother. I think so. You see, learning is going to become more self-discovery; there's no doubt about that in my mind. It's going to be more self-oriented; because, for one thing, this thing about sitting around waiting for this other kid who can hardly even read, and your mind's a million miles away; all that's going to go. It's going to be more self-oriented.

M. Yes, in the classroom. So, let's say that we have textbooks that are a training in critical and creative thinking; and within that training, the child is accumulating facts and knowledge, which is what we want them to have: some accumulation. But the education is being built mainly on how to think about the information they're learning; how to use it, how to exploit it, so it doesn't exploit them.

So, until we get to the point in which there are computers and the internet in all classrooms, for all students, in which information around the world is accessible to everyone - and I see that in the very near future - we're going to have this training in the higher order thinking in textbooks. I would be happy if I thought that's what my daughter is learning today. I'm not happy overall that she's being educated in the same way I was educated. My daughter's being taught in pretty much the same as I was in seventh grade; maybe a bit more advanced. But that makes me very unhappy, because we live in a whole different world than when I was in seventh grade

J. I see your point; yet, from one perspective, I don't see what the problem is. First of all we're still turning out doctors, lawyers, scientists, architects, et al we have perhaps the wealthiest country in the world, we're up on the moon, now on mars, on the internet; we're making so many advances in medicine, in ecology, in our social and environmental awareness, and the list goes on and on. I mean, you wonder, what's wrong with education if it's turning out all these technological, human wonders? Why is there such a need for critical thinking when students from all over the world come to America to be educated here? I'm aware, of course, that our personal and social situations are lagging far behind these technological advances; we're in grave danger in that respect. No doubt such training in critical-creative thinking will help balance us out technologically, socially and psychologically.

M. I believe it will. But one of the important, practical reasons for this training is economics. In the near future there won't be that many lowly jobs available. That's one of the things that is changing very rapidly. There was a time when the kids who didn't make it academically could just get a blue collar job with little nor no training. With the advent of computers, in a bank, for example, there are fewer clerks. Even on assembly lines, almost everything is done by computers and robots.

M. Right, So, if you're not at least trained technically, what's going to happen to you? The country will not be able to support all the unqualified people on welfare. Something's going wrong, and I think we're on the eve of a real breakdown, unless something drastically changes. It's like everything's fine; we're still producing at a high level, we're still making money, we have the highest gross national product, and so on; but on another level, as you pointed out, we're not going forwards. People, in whatever economic strata, are still highly prejudiced; are still subject to superstition; and to the so-called old ways. That's got to change, that's got to break down; there is no going back.

J. And because the new mechanics, electricians, clerks, and the like, are going to have to be computer literate; and for no other reason than that. Children need to be educated on a higher level, so that they can operate the logical complexities of the computer, can read complex technical books. A worker will no longer be able to work mindlessly on an assembly line, but will have to know how to work a computer. And I believe that that is one of the reasons the government is so concerned about the poor performance of so many students across the country; because if they drop out by the scores, or are poorly educated, who are going to run the computers?

J. That's right; if for no other reason than to be able to make a distinction between information and misinformation. This thought applies all the more to the internet; you have to know how to write, since the bulk of information is the written word; you have to know how to decipher complex text, how to argue a case with people all over the world.

M. And expressing yourself effectively. My second child just started kindergarten, and he's extremely bright; and I don't how long it will be before he's going to be bored to tears. They're studying one letter per week, and that means twenty-six weeks before they get through the alphabet. and I realize that some of that is necessary, because he has to learn how to make the letters and all that. But in the meantime, I have a boy who is so intelligent! His mind can be expanding by leaps and bounds at this early age. He could be learning four different languages. You see? And here we are on a letter a week. And a lot of coloring and shapes. I mean, he knew his shapes when he was three. Two years later he's studying shapes. You see, I wish at least part of the day could be critical thinking for him, little science projects; some drama and music and dance and board games and directed physical games; what to do with the information they've learned, such as: corks float; will I float if I attach corks all over me? I think it's just tragic that our children's lives are being wasted in school today. Now that's a blanket statement, of course; many of them are learning something worthwhile; and for the rest, at least they're learning how to get along with others; and they get read to, and have fun and exercise, and so on. I'm just talking about that one area where they're not really learning to their potential. And critical thinking will do that: it will bring them up to their potential.

M. Sure they should. There will always be those who won't want to learn anything complicated; but, if most of the children are trained to think logically, critically, most of them will be able to adapt to new techniques. Besides, I think children will be much more receptive to this type of learning, because it's more self-oriented; and you can go at your own pace; and you can discover in your own way.

M. No. I think that's like saying if we have integration everybody's going to marry across the color line, and all the babies are going to be mixed breeds. Well, we have integration, and that hasn't happened; because there's just a natural attraction to people of like races - usually anyhow. And even if the exception does happen, the world doesn't come to an end. I think it's the same thing here; we all have natural yearnings and leanings and tendencies; and if you can train everybody in this type of thinking, I think in the law of probability, you'll still have the same number of people who just want to stay home and be housewives, let's say; or a certain number of people who want to pilot airplanes, or a certain number of people who want to be musicians or electricians or truck drivers or carpenters; they just have a natural inclination for their chosen field. That's like saying: If we go into public education, and we educate everyone, even the servant's children, well, then everyone's going to want to be doctors and lawyers, and where will I be? It didn't happen, did it. And we do educate everyone, and they do not all become professionals; it just doesn't happen. It's that natural attraction to different things. It's the variety in life.

M. That's right. But to go back to my own children. I'm so upset about how they're being educated overall. Then I heard about how good private schools are, and I looked into that, and I see that they're not really that different. Maybe the teachers are better educated, maybe the textbooks are newer and harder. I've talked to some of the children who attend the private school here, and elsewhere, and I don't seen that they're any more enlightened than my children. So the private schools are not the answer. The answer is that we can't continue to educate the children as if it were 1947, because it's not 1947.

J. But don't many students who are interested in a given subject, such as Uganda society, go to the library and research it; they don't need to be prompted, or to be taught critical thinking. They either research on their own volition or are assigned by their teachers to do so. I think you're underestimating the rigor of study so many students go through, especially in fine schools - all without critical thinking skills as part of their curriculum. Though, I realize that much research that is done for school assignments is simply copying the necessary material for the report, and following format.

But I think what you're saying is - or at least what I'm getting from you - is that it may be true that some students have a natural scholarly talent, but we have to make more and more people aware of Uganda and its culture and it problems, because we're becoming more and more one world economically; and if we're going to become more and more one world economically, we'd better become more and more one world psychologically and socially. We'd better learn about the people we're selling coca cola and jeans to, because we have to work with them deal with them, even socialize with them. We're faced with all the differences between them and us. Are we going to carry over into different cultures our racial prejudices and different religions and morals with us. That's what we're talking about in this need for critical thinking.

M. Yes. It helps develop a global perspective on life. Even if you don't want the United States to trade with any other country, even if you're very nationalistic; that's fine; but you still have to have that global perspective, because you don't live in the world separate from others. And now with the information explosion, with the technology, that's here to stay; it's not going to go away. It's going to become more and more complex, and yet simpler. You can no longer bury your head in the sand. And I want to make sure that my children are never afraid of information from all quarters; never afraid to go out and explore.

You talked about the child who goes to the library to get all these books on a subject he likes; still if that child hasn't been trained to think critically, that child will not know what to do with all the information in all those books; because, realistically, if you can think critically, then you can even understand the whole relationship between, let's say, the children in Uganda to something that is happening in your own life. See, everything will take on meaning once children can think critically. That's one of the problems today: I just don't think that education means much to anyone anymore.

J. Exactly. I remember being very concerned about that objection, because I'm one for the development of the intuitive mind as well as the rational, aspect of it. It's this matter of developing both the right and left parts of the brain; what is it, linear and lateral thinking, I'm not sure? Accordingly, I revised my studies so that there was this balance between critical and creative thinking, which I hyphenated as critical-creative thinking.

J. Simply put, it's this: for almost every critical thinking exercise there is a related creative exercise, so that the student is thinking both critically and creatively at the same time. So, they're expanding their logical, reasoning understanding to include creative thinking which takes them beyond the given material so that they have to dredge up - and that's what it is in good part for many students: "dredging up" - associations, projections, interpretations, relationships, based on the material; they're using their own thoughts buried in their subconscious; they're using their creative imagination. And I can't tell you how difficult that is for so many students however well they may do on the critical exercises. So, there's where associations projections, interpretations, and the like, come into critical thinking. First students analyze the material to help them understand it; then they take that understanding one step further into their creative imagination to make new associations, relationships, interpretations. That is their creative imagination working. And that's why I call my studies critical-creative thinking, because from one aspect, critical thinking is creative as well as analytical. As a matter of fact, I don't know where the dividing line is between rational understanding and creative understanding.

J. And another point is that today's educators, those who write the textbooks are certainly not clear on the meaning of critical thinking. They confuse the logical aspect of critical thinking with its creative aspect. For example, in the many recent textbooks I've reviewed there is almost always a so-called critical thinking exercise when in fact they are creative exercises. Such exercises as: If you were Christopher Columbus, what signs would you have noticed that somehow you had not landed in India? In a word, the word "critical" is a deeply complex concept that has taken me years to fully comprehend - if even I have "fully" comprehended it. But I do know this: that creative thinking is an integral part of critical thinking: the other side of the same coin. We tend to think that critical analysis is the whole of critical thinking, when in fact it subtly includes creative thinking as well; and that is what my creative exercises trains the mind for: to make such a distinction clear.

J. Analytical-synthetic reading: how to analyze the reading material step by step, and then how to synthesize it. All the exercises are developed and structured in this way. Once they understand it, they are next given related creative exercises which expand the given facts into their own pool of knowledge by which they can make associations, interpretations, and so forth. The analytic exercises require students to think analytically, inferentially; logically, to make distinctions; in short: to manipulate the given facts so as to make relationships between the given facts. Is it becoming clearer now?

J. Let me see. All right, here's one. In one of the passages, it says that early TVs had poor sound, small picture tube, and were in black and white. The exercise asks: AGREES or DISAGREES - "Modern TVs are much improved from early TVs." Now, in the passage, there is no mention of, or reference to, the improvement of modern TVs over early TVs. The student has to take the given facts in the passage, relate them, one to the other - juggle them around, so to speak; then "perceive" from the facts that: if early TVs did not have color, and had poor sound quality, and had a small picture; and modern TVs do have color, do have good sound quality, and large pictures - then, "obviously" modern TVs are improved from early TVs. Answer: AGREES. A classic Socrates example of this kind of reasoning is: Given the fact that all men are mortal, and the fact that Socrates is a man, then it follows that Socrates is mortal. Nowhere in the two facts (premises) does it mention Socrates' mortality; it has to be inferred, or concluded, by the given facts. Or one more example I always used to use with my students: The streets are wet, the rooftops are wet, the grass is wet, the cars are wet. Therefore, we can safely - though not necessarily - conclude that it rained. But nowhere in the facts (or premises) is the word "rain" used. It is inferred, or concluded from the facts.

J. And of course, students have to know what the words "improves," and "modern," and "early" means before they can even begin to, first understand the passage, and second analytically evaluate it - which is another problem in itself regarding so many students' lack of extensive reading other than textbooks.

M. And your studies teach children how to make associations by first teaching what associations are, what inferences are, what relationships are, what interpretations are, what projections are. Teachers and textbooks assume that students already know what these terms mean, or simply skim over them, as though they're "understood."

J. Right. I remember a former tutoring student of mine who had just started ninth grade at an elite private school. And she told me that her biology instructor told her class that his class was the one class that they were going to learn how to think hard, really hard. So how do the students learn this hard thinking? By being assigned extremely difficult assignments where they had to really think hard to answer them. So he didn't teach them how to think "hard" at all; he merely gave them hard material for them to think hard about. Circular reasoning, simple as that.

So that is basically what is involved in critical thinking: coming to understand what you're reading through analysis and synthesis, which involves associations, relationships, inferences, and the like. Because before you can critically evaluate what you're reading, you have to understand what you're reading. And then from that understanding of the facts, expand that understanding creatively.

M. Right. Then in time, it becomes automatic. It's like certain physical training. Let's say, we learn how to march a certain way. At first you have to concentrate and make your legs do that march; in time, you can be thinking about the beach and you're marching correctly, because your body does it automatically. So, once their trained in critical thinking, they will do it automatically.

And that's exactly what I did for the next ten years. But during those ten years, when I was twenty years old, I started to read, and decided to study acting. I left Toronto for Los Angeles for that purpose. I studied acting for about three and a half years. But one morning I woke up with a sudden thought that I wanted to go back to school. This was a kind of shock to the system, so to speak. I couldn't believe it at first, since I had invested so many years in acting training, and I was about to go out into the field. I struggled with that for about a year: Should I or should I not? I went to New York to study there. All of a sudden I couldn't act anymore. One time I was doing a scene with someone. I was chasing a girl around the sofa in a love scene, and the thought came to me that this was childish. Why am I chasing a girl around. This is play, and I'm not interested in play. This was my thought, and no discredit to acting. It just happened to me. I had outgrown acting. I always attributed it to the fact that I had read too much. I was more interested in the intellectual life. It was over. I thought that I would be a playwright, since I was in the theatre, and I had been writing for a number of years. I tried that, but it didn't work out.

To cut it short, I returned to school. I made a couple of aborted attempts to restart school in a community college; but finally about nine months later I started back to school. I spent about 2 and a half years there struggling like mad to keep afloat since I had missed my high school years and was not use to studying so intensely; but what made it possible was that I had read so much since my twentieth year in all areas of literature, psychology, poetry, social and physical sciences, and philosophy.

I went from there to UCLA and studied philosophy, since I was interested in philosophical questions, I would study and teach and write in that area. I got my BA in philosophy, and then went to Cal State University for my MA in philosophy. Just as I was finishing my MA requirement, I got a chance to be a camp councilor for the summer at a private academic school to help my income. The director of the school liked my work, and asked me if I wanted to teach a course of my choice for the fall semester. Interestingly, I had another sudden thought prior to her offer that ethics and logic should be taught in high school. I don't know where that thought came to because I had long dropped the idea of teaching; and education was not in the range of my interests. I was a writer, as far as I was concerned. But there it was.

I was camp councilor for the following summer, and during the summer she asked me if I wanted another course to teach; and on the strength of logic course success, I asked for ethic. That was a little shakier, but she approved of it. But the principal was against it, because then, and I suppose now, too, ethics was equated with religion, which is not necessarily the case. so during that summer there was a strong struggle as to whether I was going to teach ethics or not. The principal was dead set against it, and the director sided with her; and yet it remained an open question during the summer. Then at 11th hour, some fortuitous event happened that made her decide for it. she was at a dinner party, and a guest happened to be a ethics professor, and he convinced her of the importance of such a course.

On the strength of this success, during the years that I taught ethics, I was convinced that ethics should be taught in the high schools in general, and so I wrote an essay supporting this idea, and made contact with various educators and teachers to push this idea through. Needless to say, the bureaucracy, being what it is, I didn't succeed, but I came close, very close. But I lost interest after so many fruitless years and effort; and so I shelved the idea.

The math class, a pre-algebra course, I would notice that whenever we got to word problems in the text, a pall of resistance that would pervade the classroom. I could feel that I was going against the current in attempting to make them understand these problems, with the exception of a few students. So I would just touch on the easy exercises, and go on to the next computation section. This went on semester after semester no matter the type of students.

As far as the health class is concerned, there was the usual textbook and workbook. Students would read a chapter, and answer general multiple-choice questions in the workbook. I noticed that the students were not learning thoroughly at all from the reading. They would skim the reading, turn to the workbook, search for the answer in the text, and that was it. That discouraged me, and I thought , what if they answered questions at the same time as they read? That would make them learn more thoroughly. So I started writing individual questions for them that they had to answer a;as they were reading; and which would test their understanding of the material. I did this for three chapter, and it worked very well; they didn't resist it. and I knew what they did and did not understand. Then it got to be too much for me. I couldn't keep up with it; so I stopped.

So that was those two experiences. Now coming back to the ethics, the method in which I taught the ethics, was like a seminar. I would read a passage of the main text - Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics first semester, and Plato's Republic, second semester - and I would ask the students to explain the passage, and we would discuss it thoroughly. I was under no pressure to finish the book. This was with 10th, 11th, and 12th grades.

nd surprisingly, considering the sensitive issues of ethics, no upsetting incidents occurred for the ten years I taught it except one girl ran out of the room in tears; but nothing more came of it. In total, the students were very responsive to in-depth analysis of important ethical and moral-social issues,some, of course, much more than others; and with a few, I formed ethical Friday night meeting with those exceptional students a few years later.

As far as the logic I taught, it too was successful . Of course, it was more precise a study, more analytical, more based on correct formal reasoning. Not only were they responsive overall, but they were capable of doing logical thinking. And I found that even the least intellectual-minded enjoyed the challenge of intellectual discipline.

One other small, but important, teaching experiences related to the importance of our thinking program. I taught a 9th grade history class for part of a semester. I remember a particular test that I gave to the class, which was the usual few questions of understanding parts of the chapters; and they have to find the answers. This one girl, who was a straight A student, in answering the questions, which required only a phrase, she wrote two sentences which included the phrase, but did not indicate that she understood the question at all. When I brought this to her attention, she couldn't answer the question correctly, and she became very upset that I would even think of questioning her; and I left it as a lost cause. And in that same class, we had Chinese and Iranian students who in answering chapter questions, would memorize paragraphs, and write their test answers accordingly.

So in overview of those 11 years of teaching logic, ethics, health, pre-algebra, and history, I suppose it is not surprising that it would "suddenly" come to me that somehow we had to get the one-to-one learning into the classroom. And that was the germinal, seminal, idea that took me on the next ten-year trek, to where I am now.

With this leading idea, I set forth, with the help of my wife, the next two years of trying to find out how to get the teaching method, the learning process, of how to get this quality of one-to-one learning into the classroom. Or, in short, I guess without my realizing it at the time, to have students understand what they are reading. So the crucial question really came, without perhaps being able to articulate it, was : how do we get children to understand what they are reading?

This was in 1982, and two years later, almost to the day, I came upon the leading idea that if you want the students to understand what they're reading, then they must be exercised at the same time as they're reading, so that they know, step by step whether they are understanding the material. And to that concept, I developed worksheets with reading passages in social studies, science, literature, math-logic reasoning and values. In the readings, I highlighted in orange key vocabulary-grammar words, and highlighted in yellow key comprehension sentences. Students would not first read the passage and then answer these exercises, as is the standard learning pattern; rather, when they came to a highlighted word, they would finish reading the sentence, then turn to a worksheet in which their understanding of the vocabulary and grammar of that word would be tested. When they came to a highlighted sentence. They would turn again to the worksheet to have their understanding of that sentence, and previous sentences, tested. In this learning process, they are interacting with the reading material in which case they are thinking through the material rather than skimming through it; and are learning in an integrated manner, in that we were combining vocabulary, grammar, comprehension, writing, research, art into one study.

Having come upon this new learning process after two years of trial and error with our private students, it took us another two years to research, type and complete all the material for the different grade levels, from first grade through the twelfth grade; as well as various extensions of this fundamental idea of exercised while reading.

Interesting enough, no sooner were we finished all the different levels, than our landlord happened to see the studies in passing, and inquired about them. he saw an immediate money maker-that was his main interest, not the education of children, as we came to see. He invested considerable money into the program, which took us from our little house in the back to a suite in an office building, from merely word-of-mouth advertising to advertising in a major Korean newspaper. Korean, because we had started tutoring with one Korean student, and through word of mouth, that one Korean family had grown to about 60 Korean students. We did some advertising in American newspaper but with no response from the Caucasians. So we stayed with the Koreans, who are avid for their children's education.

Next we decided to move into the Chinese community. In the beginning, we were quite successful, but it turned out that we enrolled more Chinese students that didn't have a functional use of the English language, and so couldn't learn from our thinking program. to amend this problem, I embarked on developing an ESL program along the same lines as the Studies in Meaning; but it was too late. We began losing students by the droves. Next we lost our investor, and so our advertising person. The same story, about a business person who got greedy as he saw the money pouring in, so to speak. We went to court against him; he lost the case; but we lost our afterschools. Sharon and I were not business people at the time, and so our afterschool collapsed both inside and out. Sharon went back to teaching in the Los Angeles School District, and I continued trying to market our program to others, with little or no success.

Two years passed, and I started teaching the program to Koreans again, but this time in their home. Again ,through word of mouth, the program began to be popular again in the Korean community. I stopped teaching, Sharon stopped teaching in the school district, contracted teachers to teach the program, and we both began to promote it once again.

We were fortunate enough to arrange a business arrangement with a Korean parent who liked our program enough to want to promote it. She had contact with many other Korean parents, and we gave her an on-going percentage for all the parent parents she would introduce to us. With her, and with two other Korean mothers, within a year, we shot right up to about 500 students in both Los Angeles and Orange counties teaching them in their homes.

Only middle and upper class families can afford the tuition we need to charge to operate as a business. But my wife and I have always to make enough money so that we can afford to give our program to children who can't afford a high tuition, children who need our program even more than the other two classes.

When we started this search for a new learning process, this was not in the air at all in the school system back in the early 1980's. It was about in the middle eighties that the term "critical thinking" started to come into vogue in educational journals. Teachers and educators were writing these articles that something was wrong, was missing, in the classroom, which came to be known as a lack of thinking going on.

I knew it was going to take many years before America would admit, let alone accept, that it was understanding that was missing. I knew that this lack of understanding was the root of the problem. But understanding is a very broad word, and I decided to pick up on the word "critical thinking," because it is critical in as much as meaning discerning what you are reading, that first of all that in reading something, that you understand it, then to ask if it is true or is it false, is it an opinion, or is it a fact, is a subjective or objective exposition. What conclusions are being arrived at, and do the facts lead to sound conclusions. And in this sense of the word "critical," is an appropriate intellectual word.

Yet even this word "critical" is suspect to many people. I remember meeting a man who was very critical of our program from one side of it. He said that ,yes, my program was developing logical, analytical thinking, reasoning. but that it is reason that has turned us into one-sided individuals. There was too much reason, too much logic. In other words, what he meant was that there is not enough heart, not enough intuition, to balance this cold, cut raw reason. It told me, in effect, that what my program was doing was making people even more logical. I defended our program by pointing out that there are creative elements in the studies too -but I knew truly that there was not enough creative thinking in them. From that discussion, I added to critical thinking, creative thinking, which I now call critical-creative learning process, to show the balance between reasoning with intuition, analysis with creativity.

So the current status is the search for a program to teach critical thinking in the classroom, and as far as I know, there have been attempts-many textbooks now employ this phrase "critical thinking." But there has been no new learning method forwarded. My wife and I have it, but the higher-upper's don't know it.

I had decided early on, that I would never send my material to a publishing house, because all I would need is for them to reject the method, then use their own people and resources to develop something like it, and claim it as their own. We would wait until we were strong enough that they would come to us on our terms. and we're getting close to that status.

I have often made the statement that I believe captures the tenor of the crisis not only in education, but in human relations, as well; and that is, that there is so much knowledge yet so little understanding. And that is true so far as it goes. And by "as far as it goes," I mean, not to underestimate knowledge; since, first, our economic and professional institutions are based primarily on quantities of knowledge, facts, statistics, computations, probabilities - there is no escaping this inestimable value of knowledge; and second, not all minds are receptive to understanding. Knowledge is a starting point for many; yet the ending point for others. A simple example would be, one person needs to understand why 9 times 3 is 27; whereas another person is satisfied with simply knowing that 9 times three is 27. He is not interested in the why or how. The facts of knowledge suffice for his type of mind, and it resists the next stage that leads to understanding.

So there are basically two types of minds to consider in the broadest sense in this area of learning : the knowing mind the and understanding mind. The knowing mind is the type of mind that gets along just fine on the surface of knowledge; they can memorize easily, they can track facts easily. Mass, class learning is just fine for them. They can memorize definitions, formulas, quantities of facts. They take their tests, score high, and forget it right after the test. Then there are the understanding minds that must understand what they learn, otherwise, it's meaningless to them. Their minds resist learning and memorizing formulas, definitions, computations that have no meaning to them. And of course they can't continually ask questions in the classroom.; and so it passes them by. So, there they are dealing with this mass of material much of which they don't understand, or don't know how to understand it. so their minds are crying out to understand this, and there is no way of doing it. so they become bitter. If they are fairly or highly intelligent, if they are fortunate enough to a have a tutor or parents who can help them, they'll get by overall; they hardly will excel if this wall of resistance prevails . They become bitter, and resent their poor education.

So, in effect, we can say that the classroom is geared toward mass, formulated education; not toward individualized education. And that's okay. I can understand that. You can't teach understanding in the classroom in the classroom very well. There are too many distractions, or just two or three students who dominate the class intellectually; one cough, one snicker, can through the learning process.

So it's very difficult to teach understanding in the lower grades, even in high school up until about 11th, 12th grade. so the teachers are mainly relegated to lecture and the students to note taking and reading quantity with general multiple choice questions, or fact-finding questions, or memorization. schools are trying various solutions to meet individual needs and better learning methods; but they are only ointments not solutions. The whole learning system has to be changed. There is a difference between general and specific learning. With the schools, it's mostly general learning; our program is mostly specific. The school's way of learning is mostly content; our system is context, -what is the context; let's look into this fact; what does it mean?

So, in answer to the second question at the beginning of this discussion: what is to be done about this crisis? As far as I can see it, I have contributed a very important answer to this question, which is our Studies in Meaning. It doesn't address all educational problems; since there is the whole issue of memorization that has to be dealt with; because no matter how much easier it may be to memorize something you understand, still, this merit cannot compete with those minds who can memorize like a camera. Teaching understanding, our critical-creative program is one essential answer to the problem; another answer would be to develop a memory method to help less gifted students to compete with those camera minds.

What a provocative question, to which at the time I had no answer, except the possibility that since we are living in a computer age that requires at least a logical way of thinking. Students have not been trained to think logically, methodically, step-by-step, except mathematically in matters dealing with sets and probabilities, logarithms, and such like. But again, we are dealing with a elite type of mathematical mind. Computers require language reasoning, not only symbolic reasoning. The inability of most students to solve either word problems or geometric proofs indicate the lack that is evident everywhere., that makes it extremely difficult for most students to be capable of computer analysis, just to mention one area of logical thinking.

Yet, if the schools trained students from their earliest school years to think logically, critically, analytically, synthetically, then when they came to geometric proofs, algebraic word problems, computer analysis, they would not have a fraction of the difficulty that they now have and always have had.

This is one answer to the question "What happened?" because our age is so sophisticatedly scientific, not only technologically, in the physical sciences, but in the social sciences as well, economics in particular; since economics buoys the prosperity of a country. And since so very few minds can think on such highly complex distinctions, even in economics, it is imperative upon education to develop minds that can think critically, logically. It is a matter of economic survival. This is why our government is so concerned with education in our day. If the schools don't turn out graduates who can think carefully and clearly not only scientifically, but wisely, then our civilization is in peril?