The Importance Of Groupthink In Education - 1767 Words

The great ancient thinker Socrates once said, â€Å"The unexamined life is not worth living.† Socrates emphasized the importance of meaningful questioning and inspiration. What good is living a life not searching for answers and inspiration? Unfortunately, if Socrates had made this statement in today’s world, he would have been sent to a therapist to check his mental state. Our world has become so advanced so quickly over the last century that today’s youngest generation no longer questions. This lifestyle of contentedness and stagnation has brought about one of the most dangerous media buzzwords of all time: groupthink. Loosely defined, groupthink occurs when individuals value beliefs held by a group they belong to over individual belief. The†¦show more content†¦But, since the terms and definitions will be in the matching section of the test, students spend hours flipping color-coded flash cards and deem their time studying. Instead of mindless notes w ith terms and definitions, classes and lectures should be spent having students think about the material they are presented. Whether that form of thinking comes about in debates, discussions, papers, or whatever else, students must be forced to critically think about the presented material or they will turn to mindless robots who contribute nothing to society. Unfortunately, critical thought and individual inspiration rarely happen in today’s education system. Students fill out fill in the blank notes sheets off of a Powerpoint presentation project every unit, and that presentation tells them everything they need to know, often including opinions from a teacher. Sometimes expressing an opinion in these uniform, powerpoint notes is not bad as long as it is quite generic. For instance, it is probably okay to tell a group of students that slavery is bad. That’s a good opinion for a teacher to tell students as it is not controversial and few people do not subscribe to it. The problem happens when the teacher tells students that they believe the Civil War had little to do with slavery and was more a fight for states rights. This is quite an opinion, and in fact, many historians would agree. The problem is that this stance taking opinion is so easy forShow MoreRelatedGroupthink : Negative Effects And Effective Strategies1879 Words   |  8 Pages Groupthink: Negative Effects and Effective Strategies Nicholas J Dawson University of Southern Queensland In an effort to avoid conflict in the pursuit of consensus a working group may fail to carefully analyse a situation and approach it with reasoned decision making. This is known as Groupthink and the negative effects involved with it can be disastrous. 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