[moduspol]

Well, my understanding is that "critical thinking" is already very commonly considered to be part of various course curricula. If it's not being taught, then we'd need to do something differently.

I've been hearing claims of the need to teach "critical thinking" since I was in high school. To me it always came across as one of those things that can't easily be taught, particularly in a traditional academic setting. Everyone agrees it should be taught, but if there were a clear way of doing it, we would.

[mistermann]

There's plenty of material out there that isn't remotely touched upon in a traditional education.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_logic

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-classical/

https://distancelearning.ubc.ca/courses-and-programs/distanc...

> If it's not being taught, then we'd need to do something differently.

When reading the news, forums, or overhearing conversations, do you not regularly encounter people who obviously have no significant skills in critical thinking?

[moduspol]

> There's plenty of material out there that isn't remotely touched upon in a traditional education.

Right. I took a logic class for my undergraduate degree. It's actually the source of the "modus" in my username. I guess to me that's a far cry from what people refer to as "critical thinking." Being able to identify textbook logical fallacies isn't the same thing as rationally and objectively forming a judgment about something.

It's certainly a helpful part, but I doubt most would remember it any better than geometry or 1800s history.

> When reading the news, forums, or overhearing conversations, do you not regularly encounter people who obviously have no significant skills in critical thinking?

I do, but it's rarely a clear-cut example of misunderstanding a logical fallacy. More often than not, it's the blind acceptance of supporting evidence while rejecting opposing evidence. Or assigning way too much value to a poorly-sourced news story. Or approaching the issue with a different worldview / values. Or any number of other biases that affect decision-making.

To be clear, though: I agree it's clearly not being taught. I'm just not convinced you can take a bunch of high schoolers, put them in a room, and after X weeks of doing something, they'll be critical thinkers. I agree you could probably teach them logical fallacies well enough to pass a test on them, but that's not the same thing.

[mistermann]

Do you think we've reached the absolute apex of having a well-informed citizenry?

If not, if critical thinking doesn't work, what could we do to improve this situation?

[moduspol]

> Do you think we've reached the absolute apex of having a well-informed citizenry?

Of course not.

> If not, if critical thinking doesn't work, what could we do to improve this situation?

I'm not sure "well-informed" and "critical thinking" are even relevant to each other, but putting that aside, I genuinely don't know. That's why I asked how you teach critical thinking.

It's possible people are bound to retreat to their biases and it's a futile effort. I'm just not convinced attempting to teach people "critical thinking" will work, because it hasn't.

[mistermann]

> because it hasn't.

Implying it's been tried, and failed.

Where has widespread teaching of critical thinking been tried?

[moduspol]

I've seen it in numerous course syllabi and mandates. I'm not sure how to cite that, though. Here are a few examples where it is assumed the existing education system / teachers claim to be teaching critical thinking.

> Public school teachers and administrators will tell you that one of the mandates of public education is to develop critical thinking skills in students. They believe that curricula are designed, at least in part, with this goal in mind. [1]

> Common Core, the federal curriculum guidelines adopted by the vast majority of states, describes itself as “developing the critical-thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills students will need to be successful.” [2]

> Many teachers say they strive to teach their students to be critical thinkers. They even pride themselves on it; after all, who wants children to just take in knowledge passively? [3]

Are you willing to acknowledge educators / curricula commonly claim to teach critical thinking? To me it's always come across as something claimed to be taught pretty much everywhere. Yet we both seem to agree it's not working.

We could try teaching critical thinking differently and potentially meet some success, but that doesn't change how it's been claimed to have been taught for some time with poor results.

[1] http://argumentninja.com/public-schools-were-never-designed-...

[2] http://www.newsweek.com/youre-100-percent-wrong-about-critic...

[3] http://theconversation.com/lets-stop-trying-to-teach-student...

[jessaustin]

Judging solely on the number of HN commentators who are absolutely incapable of detecting irony or satire, and indeed who may feel those are entirely out of place on HN, the average citizen isn't capable of considering two mutually contradictory propositions at the same time, let alone becoming "well-informed". The various exhortations in this thread to "just teach them!" bespeak a similar innocence. We have a rather large number of trained professionals engaged in the teaching already, so such pleas should at the very least be accompanied by considerations of why those efforts have not yet sufficed.

[labster]

Dialectics are hard, man.

But to be fair, the longer we get into the current era of politics, the harder it is to distinguish between earnestness and satire. Young people who watch the movie Network today don't see Howard Beale as satirical, because there are too many people like him today who are deadly serious.

[mistermann]

Critical thinking, specifically, is taught on a widespread basis?

What country are you writing from, and could you give some specific examples?

[jessaustin]

Most of our high schools despair of teaching mathematics to the level of algebra, to most of their students. Many haven't yet despaired of conveying literacy to those same students, but the outcome is by no means certain. I would consider both of those prerequisites to "critical thinking", no matter what particular idiosyncratic definition of that phrase you might prefer. Therefore I suggest that we aim lower, for a sort of animal suspicion that comes naturally to all humans. The result, from the perspective of political harmony, will be the same: hundreds of millions of critical thinkers would not magically all arrive at the same conclusions on any set of topics. In a perfect world of critical education, not only would you still disagree with most people's conclusions, but you would also still disagree with how they arrived at those conclusions.