Head of School Blog "Critical Thinking"
Dear Orchard Community,
The term “critical thinking” has become something of a buzzword in education circles. The other day a confounded trustee asked me what it really meant. What follows is my answer.
The term “critical thinking” has become something of a buzzword in education circles. The other day a confounded trustee asked me what it really meant. What follows is my answer.
To begin, it is the ability to think for oneself. This is more difficult than one might realize since group-think and following the crowd has limited original thinking for centuries. Just contemplate the example of Galileo, who dared to suggest that the heavenly spheres were not perfect and that the earth was not at the center of the universe. How did he know? He constructed a telescope and looked for himself rather than accept the prevailing dogma. His reward, of course, was to be put under house arrest. Nonetheless, he stands out as a shining example of a person having the courage of their convictions.
Beyond encouraging the formation of original opinions, how do we help young thinkers to make certain that their conclusions are based on logical steps, supported by evidence and provable theory, and can be linked back to a text or a theorem? We gently but regularly challenge them to show us how they solved a problem in math, to redirect us to an ambiguous passage in a novel and explicate the text or to walk us through their hypothesis in science and then require scientific method to prove their suppositions.
But it does not end there. It is also critical to expose students to complexity and help make them comfortable with ambiguity. One narrative usually does not do justice to a story and it is critical that Orchard students are exposed to multiple perspectives around a historical event, for example, to understand that one country’s glorious voyage of discovery might be viewed as a clash of cultures from another perspective. Additionally, what we select to read or problems we choose to discuss should be just challenging enough to stretch their minds in what the psychologist Lev Vygotsky termed “the zone of proximal development”. Our graduates will be living in an increasingly pluralistic world and their comfort with their own identities as well as respectful appreciation and understanding of the experiences and values of others will be essential.
Critical thinkers also are born out of schools that inspire engagement and the attendant depth. If we pose problems and design projects that the students genuinely care about they will stay focused longer, think harder, solve problems more creatively and do the mental heavy lifting that yields true insights. This takes exceptional teachers. We have them.
Additionally, fostering the right habits of mind are critical. Some of the softer skills we teach are grit, industry, discipline and perseverance and the willingness to pose a question.
A final emphasis at Orchard is wisdom. Skills and intellectual prowess are not enough without the heart and judgment to use insights, cognitive power and understanding to make the world a better place and to comprehend the consequences of one’s actions. Witness the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project and then wondered if just because they could unleash the power of an atomic bomb did not necessarily mean they should have.
So, to return to the curious case of the puzzled trustee. I am glad he asked. Questioning is one of the most important steps to understanding. I hope our students and graduates never become intellectually complacent.
The other day, a first grader questioned her teacher’s statement that the world is round. “It looks flat. If it were round why don’t we roll away?” Good for her. A new age of enlightenment will live with questions like that.
Truly,
Tom
Truly,
Tom
