Just about every school has the goal that its students will learn to think critically (as well as creatively).
Being able to think critically is perhaps more important than ever as we now live in a YouTube world--what Harvard professor Tony Wagner refers to as the age of information "glut and flux".
Despite its importance (and presence in mission statements), critical thinking is not emphasized in schools that are rated and evaluated by their students scores on various standardized tests. Rather, the schools logically focus on preparing students for the questions on these tests, which more often than not focus on lower-level thinking skills.
There is nothing wrong with lower-level thinking skills--like the ability to remember--but it's far easier to construct test questions with one right answer that focus on lower-level thinking skills than questions and answers that require higher-level, critical thinking.
Bloom's Taxonomy of thinking skills has the following stages of increasingly more complex thinking: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create.
Because many schools no longer have students read complete novels or complete longer-term projects (because they don't help prepare students for standardized tests), students are not being given opportunities to develop these higher-level thinking skills, which ironically are what's needed for success in a competitive workplace.
Even when schools--like Orchard--emphasize critical thinking, there are still limits to what we can accomplish. First, students needed to be asked to think in developmentally and cognitively appropriate ways. By the end of 8th grade, most students are still more comfortable thinking literally and concretely and often struggle to think on an abstract level. Almost all of us naturally mature cognitively during our high school and college years, and there's no way to rush this process. Similarly, an adolescent's brain is not fully formed, especially the prefrontal cortex that helps us see cause and effect and evaluate options in a logical, rational manner.
So what should teachers and parents of elementary and middle school children do to foster development of higher-level, critical thinking skills?
A fellow head of school once told me that his main educational objective was to develop in his students "healthy skepticism", where students wouldn't be cynical but would seek evidence and proof of ideas, interpretations, and opinions of others. This includes taking the time to think of the reasons and evidence one has for his/her own opinion. In my classes, students are very willing to state their opinion of almost any topic, yet, if asked to justify, too often students have very little detail or evidence to substantiate their position. While it is a challenge for students to justify their opinions, it is vital that adults constantly push them to do so. Similarly, it's important for us to develop healthy skepticism in kids. Children are often too trusting of anything published, shown on TV, let alone available on the Internet. Constantly asking students to question how reliable and credible a source is will help them become more savvy consumers as well as help them develop critical thinking.
After reading a book or short story, ask a child what an alternative ending could be. Ask them why a character made the decision he/she did and how the story might have been different if the character made different choices. In math and science, students need to time to think and share of multiple ways to solve a problem.
The overall point is we adults in order to help our children learn to think critically need to be more comfortable with ambiguity and less concerned with the one right answer or the one path to success. And while there is inevitability in terms of the biology of children developing the cognitive means to think crticcally, kids still need practice in order to develop fully.
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