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To engage in some critical thinking about the article submitted here (which was recommended to me by a private message from a Facebook friend), I should point o

To engage in some critical thinking about the article submitted here (which was recommended to me by a private message from a Facebook friend), I should point out that it is by no means clear that critical thinking is a coherent skill that is readily taught.[1] Perhaps the best way to learn critical thinking as a habit is to learn several traditional knowledge domains deeply through grappling with problems as well as through mere exercises.[2] There are some good textbooks on critical thinking for beginning university students, with miscellaneous lessons about various techniques of skeptical thinking.[3] [1] "Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach?" by Daniel T. Willingham http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Crit_Thinking.pdf http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Crit_Thin... [2] "Word Problems in Russia and America" by Andrei Toom (which I think I first learned about from another Hacker News participant) http://www.de.ufpe.br/~toom/travel/sweden05/WP-SWEDEN-NEW.pdf http://www.de.ufpe.br/~toom/travel/sweden05/WP-SWEDEN-NEW.pd... [3] For example, How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age by Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn http://www.amazon.com/How-Think-About-Weird-Things/dp/0078038367/ http://www.amazon.com/How-Think-About-Weird-Things/dp/007803...

bane 11y ago
> it is by no means clear that critical thinking is a coherent skill that is readily taught. I agree with this...in so much as its not teachable in a traditional classroom setting. I think public pressure on universities is why there are so many programs that require a crappy 1 Saturday = 1 Credit Hour critical thinking course -- most of which amount to "think carefully about things". I think teaching/learning critical thinking requires constant slow exposure to it and a commitment from the "teacher" to ferret out bad thinking over long periods of time. It requires exposure to hundreds, if not thousands, of real world scenarios so that the application of this kind of rational thought can be learned. The hardest part is not falling back into the kind of irrational thinking that came before learning critical thought...it's a discipline and it needs to be cultivated and practiced over long periods of time.
- mjklin 11y ago
  I would much rather the focus be on QUESTIONS than "thinking", which is an imprecise term. Isn't formulating and answering questions what "critical thinking" is all about? "Once you have learned to ask questions - relevant and appropriate and substantial questions - you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know." - Neil Postman
rodgerd 11y ago
> I should point out that it is by no means clear that critical thinking is a coherent skill that is readily taught.[1] Possibly not, but the Form 3 and 4 Social Studies modules I did on analysis of the language of politics and advertising were very useful. I was shocked to discover as an adult that while Social Studies was a mandatory high school class in New Zealand, those modules weren't.
- rinze 11y ago
  Could you provide some textbook reference? I'd really appreciate it.
  - rodgerd 11y ago
    Probably not, since this was 1986. I'll have a look.
evv555 11y ago
>I should point out that it is by no means clear that critical thinking is a coherent skill that is readily taught.[1] Critical thinking is domain dependent. Just because someone is good at breaking down CS problems doesn't mean they will be able to generalize those analytical skills to their relationships, politics, nutrition, etc... It's not enough to teach people to think critically. They need to think critically in a way that is domain independent or in the domains that are important for them as individuals and society at large.
japhyr 11y ago
I teach high school math and science, and I often give students assignments that ask them to develop their own questions. I make a point of telling them we won't be answering all of these questions; some of the best questions would take a lifetime to answer. This helps break students out of the mindset that every question asked in school needs to be answered, and the answer needs to be evaluated as right or wrong. Many students don't know how to craft a good question, but given the space and time to do so many of them can develop the skill. Classroom conversations change significantly when the guiding questions we're focusing on have been thoughtfully crafted by students.
- lovboat 11y ago
  Don't they feel sometimes defrauded because their long time worked question is left aside unanswered? Don't they feel that other student are being given full attention meanwhile they are not considered properly?, don't you think that asking and not answering my sound like not a fair game to play? Education has many problems, and the majority of questions about it are unanswered or the real answer is today unknown.
  - nine_k 11y ago
    Unanswered != not paid attention to. Some good questions may be equivalent to known unanswered (P = NP) or unanswerable (halting problem) questions.
- Malician 11y ago
  Have you seen this? http://kiriakakis.net/comics/mused/a-day-at-the-park http://kiriakakis.net/comics/mused/a-day-at-the-park (It's one of my favorite serious comic-works and is basically a telling of your exact point.)
- cryoshon 11y ago
  Yes! Formulation of scientific questions is an essential skill which I think that every person should have. A scientific question is a request for evidence from the world in the context of what we already think is correct.
lovboat 11y ago
When I was in my teens I read "Straight and crooked thinking", it seems to be online here: https://www.divinetruth.com/www/en/pdf/People/Other/Robert%20Thouless%20-%20Straight%20And%20Crooked%20Thinking.pdf https://www.divinetruth.com/www/en/pdf/People/Other/Robert%2...
bordercases 11y ago
I see learning how to program as being contingent for learning critical thinking, and may be why the demographic on HN are so well-off in this regard. When I think about why certain people around me are so well off in how they think, I believe it's because they view thinking as a /set of operations to perform/ rather than /a bunch of rules to follow/. The operations are usually discovered during their work and applied as heuristics. Programming against hard problems makes you discover your limits at how well you can think. One particular operation I have is that "I always know something" and that even I don't see the big picture, starting from that one thing I know and continuing to reason with it just to see where it will go is sometimes fruitful, and sometimes not. If not, then I try again. It's an insight I had that was quite personal, and I find it unlikely that telling someone about this will automatically make them understand it. When such heuristics are communicated to me, I apply them wherever I can, fishing for the insight that makes me get it.
thelastguy 11y ago
I've found that the biggest problem preventing people from developing critical thinking skills is cognitive dissonance. Even when they're smart people, who can read and write, and can comprehend pretty complex models, they all seem to have some kind of cognitive dissonance that prevents them from seeing literally what's in front of them.

bane 11y ago

> it is by no means clear that critical thinking is a coherent skill that is readily taught. I agree with this...in so much as its not teachable in a traditional classroom setting. I think public pressure on universities is why there are so many programs that require a crappy 1 Saturday = 1 Credit Hour critical thinking course -- most of which amount to "think carefully about things". I think teaching/learning critical thinking requires constant slow exposure to it and a commitment from the "teacher" to ferret out bad thinking over long periods of time. It requires exposure to hundreds, if not thousands, of real world scenarios so that the application of this kind of rational thought can be learned. The hardest part is not falling back into the kind of irrational thinking that came before learning critical thought...it's a discipline and it needs to be cultivated and practiced over long periods of time.

mjklin 11y ago
I would much rather the focus be on QUESTIONS than "thinking", which is an imprecise term. Isn't formulating and answering questions what "critical thinking" is all about? "Once you have learned to ask questions - relevant and appropriate and substantial questions - you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know." - Neil Postman

rodgerd 11y ago

> I should point out that it is by no means clear that critical thinking is a coherent skill that is readily taught.[1] Possibly not, but the Form 3 and 4 Social Studies modules I did on analysis of the language of politics and advertising were very useful. I was shocked to discover as an adult that while Social Studies was a mandatory high school class in New Zealand, those modules weren't.

rinze 11y ago
Could you provide some textbook reference? I'd really appreciate it.
- rodgerd 11y ago
  Probably not, since this was 1986. I'll have a look.

evv555 11y ago

>I should point out that it is by no means clear that critical thinking is a coherent skill that is readily taught.[1] Critical thinking is domain dependent. Just because someone is good at breaking down CS problems doesn't mean they will be able to generalize those analytical skills to their relationships, politics, nutrition, etc... It's not enough to teach people to think critically. They need to think critically in a way that is domain independent or in the domains that are important for them as individuals and society at large.

japhyr 11y ago

I teach high school math and science, and I often give students assignments that ask them to develop their own questions. I make a point of telling them we won't be answering all of these questions; some of the best questions would take a lifetime to answer. This helps break students out of the mindset that every question asked in school needs to be answered, and the answer needs to be evaluated as right or wrong. Many students don't know how to craft a good question, but given the space and time to do so many of them can develop the skill. Classroom conversations change significantly when the guiding questions we're focusing on have been thoughtfully crafted by students.

lovboat 11y ago
Don't they feel sometimes defrauded because their long time worked question is left aside unanswered? Don't they feel that other student are being given full attention meanwhile they are not considered properly?, don't you think that asking and not answering my sound like not a fair game to play? Education has many problems, and the majority of questions about it are unanswered or the real answer is today unknown.
- nine_k 11y ago
  Unanswered != not paid attention to. Some good questions may be equivalent to known unanswered (P = NP) or unanswerable (halting problem) questions.
Malician 11y ago
Have you seen this? http://kiriakakis.net/comics/mused/a-day-at-the-park http://kiriakakis.net/comics/mused/a-day-at-the-park (It's one of my favorite serious comic-works and is basically a telling of your exact point.)
cryoshon 11y ago
Yes! Formulation of scientific questions is an essential skill which I think that every person should have. A scientific question is a request for evidence from the world in the context of what we already think is correct.

lovboat 11y ago

When I was in my teens I read "Straight and crooked thinking", it seems to be online here: https://www.divinetruth.com/www/en/pdf/People/Other/Robert%20Thouless%20-%20Straight%20And%20Crooked%20Thinking.pdf https://www.divinetruth.com/www/en/pdf/People/Other/Robert%2...

bordercases 11y ago

I see learning how to program as being contingent for learning critical thinking, and may be why the demographic on HN are so well-off in this regard. When I think about why certain people around me are so well off in how they think, I believe it's because they view thinking as a /set of operations to perform/ rather than /a bunch of rules to follow/. The operations are usually discovered during their work and applied as heuristics. Programming against hard problems makes you discover your limits at how well you can think. One particular operation I have is that "I always know something" and that even I don't see the big picture, starting from that one thing I know and continuing to reason with it just to see where it will go is sometimes fruitful, and sometimes not. If not, then I try again. It's an insight I had that was quite personal, and I find it unlikely that telling someone about this will automatically make them understand it. When such heuristics are communicated to me, I apply them wherever I can, fishing for the insight that makes me get it.

thelastguy 11y ago

I've found that the biggest problem preventing people from developing critical thinking skills is cognitive dissonance. Even when they're smart people, who can read and write, and can comprehend pretty complex models, they all seem to have some kind of cognitive dissonance that prevents them from seeing literally what's in front of them.