It has become a cliché to repeat the fact that so few of our young people are learning how to think critically. Everyone of a certain age appears to have assumed that they are critical thinkers and that something has changed recently which is consistently preventing school students in today’s schools from learning some key critical skill in their classes. Speculation abounds about what is missing now or what has gone wrong to inhibit the learning of this logical and practical skill.
Is critical thinking just another term for maturity? Is this just a matter of older people not understanding or respecting young people?
Critical thinking, contrary to what seems to be the common consensus, is not a unitary skill or something one studies in a class organized around one given principle or a series of principles, (although there are actually people now claiming on the Internet to be able to teach it!) Critical thinking involves a set of several complex skills which take a considerable amount of time to form and develop. They are involved also, certainly, in the process of maturation.
However, this kind of thinking is more of an approach to life, an attitude, a willingness to get past the superficial and the obvious, and an ability to discern what is more important and more critical in navigating through life and in successfully living together and resolving issues. It is thinking on a level which employs finer distinctions and discrimination and goes beyond the ordinary, the mundane, or the lower order of curiosity, analysis, and problem solving in simply maintaining life or an existence.
Most importantly however, these skills require the refining of an ability to dispense with rationalizations, with self-deception, and with facile answers and intellectual dishonesty and to practice intense self-scrutiny and introspection. These skills are probably typically as unconscious as they are conscious. They are derived in part from emotion, sentiment, sensation, perception, and fleeting thoughts and cognition, which are seldom translated into articulated language.
The first thing that must be understood about critical thinking is that it is, in fact, a style and an approach to cognition. One’s reality formation or awareness and openness, one’s knowledge and life philosophy, and one’s appreciation for rigorous science, as opposed to superstition or merely sloppy and careless thinking are all significant factors in one’s capacity for thinking in a way that transcends superficiality and naked self-interest.
An inclination toward or susceptibility for professional cons or conspiracy theories and various scams and deceptive ideas, advertising, or unfounded propaganda are strong indicators of a lack of critical thinking skill. Most recently, these have been at the forefront for average people, particularly with respect to specific areas, such as politics and social media diversions taking one down hazardous rabbit holes.
However, the inability to merely think clearly about a topic or to evaluate simple facts and information or to reach prudent decisions and make successful choices are more often seen as the crucial issues for ordinary people. When we older people complain about the choices and actions of younger people, this is more frequently the thing to which we refer. It is almost certainly true that there has been a decline in this kind of critical thinking capability in the last few decades.
All of this implies, in any case, that critical thinking skills are not learned from one source, one experience, one teacher, or one process. They are created and honed through internal processes, careful and deliberative observation, private and undisturbed rumination relative to personal as well as impersonal or social experience, through study, and through exposure to a broad range of thinking or beliefs.
It seems quite clear from all this, if all true, that there will be no required class for credit in critical thinking for two semesters in junior high school, taught by a critical thinking specialist in the near future. If such a course becomes available, do not expect much. One does not “study” critical thinking effectively and efficiently as a discipline or as a set of readily identifiable skills which can be formulated, reproduced, and administered in school or as part of a standardized “core” curriculum. It does not work that way.
But then, I have rejected traditional classes and curricular programs for much of anything in the pursuit of education. So maybe my thoughts on critical thinking will also fall on deaf ears.
Indeed, we have already reached the root of the problem and the origin of the failure of so many students to acquire critical thinking skills, in my estimation. Authentic knowledge, whether critical or casual is not taught. It is not learned as part of an official formalized process.
Don’t be silly. Knowledge belongs to the individual and is acquired, accumulated, and assimilated through dynamic processes which cannot be prefabricated and injected via a prescribed educational regimen, no matter how rigorous or rigid, and no matter what genius creates it.
Knowledge is an integral part of living in a real world (as opposed to an artificial and contrived school world). It requires the opportunity to respond on one’s own initiative to curiosity to a great extent. It requires many extended moments of private, personal rumination, contemplation, and reflection, such as one experiences in reading a captivating book or even in writing and engaging in a serious but focused and relaxed discussion. It requires a measure of passion, liberty, and love for the discovery of new insights, information, and vistas.
Now, we are in the realm of the ideal and the imaginary, admittedly. School cannot be, nor can it ever afford all those things to students. Life for the ordinary child and for large groups of children in a community cannot be perfect or totally carefree and organic all of the time, every day. Not everyone will become a critical thinker even under the best circumstances.
Not all children will have the inclination to learn what is most useful and beneficial and not all will make the best use of their time (by any standard or by their own parents’ standard). A ‘hands off’ approach with every child will result in chaos and pandemonium, however. There must be structure and even a degree of control and authority, which is to say adults must be authoritative, not authoritarian. Adults must assume supervisory and guidance roles. Schools do indeed have very legitimate purposes.
The essential compromise is, nevertheless, to eliminate the arbitrary and often capricious authority which is an inescapable feature of state control necessitated by attendance law. If we are presumably critical thinkers, we must deal with the facts as they exist, not as we would like them to be. Critical thinking skills, like all aspects of education cannot be forced down the throat like so much “castor oil”.
The fact is that arbitrary authority is indispensable to the application and enforcement of any and all laws. In schooling and “education”, however one chooses to define those things, arbitrariness, coercion, control, manipulation, intimidation, and management in a top-down structure are misanthropic and counterproductive. This means that we are required NOW to make a choice.
For many generations, that choice was made for everyone, because certain people had an agenda which revolved around training young people for the industrial revolution, for a stable and conservative society, religious practice, consumerism, and primarily for males, military service. If we keep that paradigm, we perpetuate a dysfunctional institutional structure for inculcating young people into society. Children thrive when they have autonomy and are stifled and frustrated when they are controlled excessively. We can do much, much better.
What has been done in the past, at least in this case, can be undone. There is simply no reason under the sun (or the moon and stars) that there must be laws requiring school attendance. If children are refusing to attend, it is because we have failed to provide what they intuitively know what they need or we have allowed an ugly image of an inhospitable environment to be projected.
It is our obligation to create a situation which attracts children and provides benefits which are worth their precious time. Freedom is the most critical element of childhood, especially for preparing them for participating in democratic processes.
Inquiring minds want to know. Well, alright, just this one inquiring mind wants to know. Do educators not have an affirmative obligation to use critical skills and better judgment to assure better experiences and outcomes for students? Do school officials and bigwigs not owe it to students and to their communities to stop recycling fantastic ideas for comprehensive reform interminably, none of which can go far or survive long in an authoritarian milieu, regardless of their practical merit and potential?
Biases and prejudices have been identified within our systems. The source of much if not all of the chronic conflict and failure is there in the record and in the history, easy to locate. Bad laws were passed using false pretenses and flawed reasoning. Age discrimination and infantilization of students are insulting and abusive.
We presumably are well aware of what is right and what is wrong with regard to practices and policies. It is wrong to allow any child to be harmed when harm could easily be avoided.
Some astute scholars and scientists have already dug deeper, analyzed all the available facts and all the scientific evidence. They have utilized logical problem-solving techniques to find the truth. Why in god’s name are those with the duty and the ability to take action finding every excuse in the book to avoid taking even the first step?
Compulsory attendance laws create many more problems than they solve. Think critically. Act responsibly. Grow a spine. It is time to stop beating our heads against the wall, or more accurately, beating the heads of our children against the wall. Demand that the bad laws be removed and the civil and constitutional rights of children to real and equal educational opportunity be respected. We are about to enter 2024, not 1824. You - - Yes you. I am talking to YOU.