Theme of the Month: Critical Thinking There’s an old story about Socrates that one day someone came running up to him and blurted out “Socrates, I want to tell you what I just heard about one of your students.” Socrates stopped him, saying “Wait, wait, before you tell me anything about someone else, have you made sure that it is true?” “Well, no,” the man admitted, “but I did hear about it.” “But you’re not certain of its truth?” “Not certain,” said the man. “Well, then, tell me this,” continued Socrates, “Is what you wish to tell me about my student something good? “No, no, to the contrary,” said the man. Really? Socrates inquired. You want to tell me something bad about one of my students, even though youre not sure that its true? The man looked away, confused. “Then let me ask you one last question,” said Socrates. “Is what you are about to say about my student going to be of any use to me?” The man thought for a moment, and then slowly replied, “probably not.” Well then, concluded Socrates, if what you want to tell me is neither true, nor good, nor even useful, why tell it to me at all? The man walked away deflated. What we like so much about this story is that Socrates actually establishes a standard for tale-telling. In other words, he lays out a set of criteria for determining whether or not it’s right to tell someone something about someone else. In this case the criteria are: is it true, is it good, is it useful. You might even call this a lesson in critical thinking (which, lo and behold, happens to be what we call it). Critical thinking? You bet. Critical thinking is all about establishing the validity of an assumption or an action when you see or hear it, and especially before you say it or do it. You get there by asking the right questions and then seeking out honest answers, regardless of where it takes you. It’s a great tool when applied to character education. And how do we do that? By constantly challenging our students to scrutinize their thoughts and actions, to think deeply and honestly about how they make choices in life, to question commonly held assumptions. And it’s really not hard to do. Suppose you read this Socrates anecdote to your students and then asked them what lessons in life they saw in this story? Do you think that would get a discussion going? Do you think that might lead to meaningful reflection? Wouldn’t that be character education? In designing our classroom materials we have always employed critical thinking techniques to focus on choices and behaviors—our particular niche. We use critical thinking as a tool for affective (and effective) education as we attempt to teach students to use their heads about issues of the heart. In putting together this bloggish newsletter we discovered a number of articles and lesson plans that we think will be useful to those of you who would like to delve more deeply into critical thinking with the young people you work with. Critical thinking is a serious discipline—practically a science of thought. In schools it can do wonders almost anywhere across the curriculum. Check out the following links. Apply them thoughtfully. So, what about that Socrates story—do you think it’s true? Probably. Is it good? We think so. Is it useful? You’ll just have to try it and find out.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 18:41:06 +0000
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