[sprucely]

Who is we? YMMV, but any sort of emphasis on critical thinking wasn't my experience in an Arizona school district in the late eighties/early nineties. If such curriculum was available, the kids who took it were likely outliers in having influences to push them in that direction.

[usrn]

Yeah, I was homeschooled. It sounds to me like public schools actively discourage this kind of thing.