Topics Education

Question One of my pet peeves has been that Critical Thinking is not a requirement at the high school level. If high school is supposed to prepare kids to make important life decisions, it would seem to be one of the most important disciplines. I rarely hear any discussion about the issue, however. Do you think an introduction to critical thinking (or for that matter, an introduction to philosophy) should be required at the high school level or before? Why isn't it?

Accepted:
October 12, 2005

Comments

I agree that critical thinkingskills are vital. Taking a course in critical thinking is not the onlyway to gain these skills, however, and so I think the most importantquestion is whether high school students have plentiful opportunitiesto do this.

Inpart, this is a matter of curriculum. I suspect that required coursesin critical thinking or introduction to philosophy are not the bestways to inspire high school students to work hard on developingcritical thinking skills. Instead, I agree with the idea that criticalthinking should be taught “across the curriculum,” which is to sayshould be taught in diverse ways in nearly every course. The trick, ofcourse, is designing excellent curriculum that does this well.

Thatsaid, I suspect that quality of teaching matters more than curriculardesign: it is our relationships with individual teachers that caninspire us to work hard and learn the most, and the most importanteducational reforms may be those that help our teachers to learn how toinspire as many of their students as possible.