At school, children learn to repeat what the teacher or textbook says. They learn to follow the right steps in the proper order to get the correct answer. Classrooms are filled with exercises, memorization, and homework instead of teaching students to think. It is up to us as parents to complement our children's education with examples of critical thinking and education in daily life. So, let's look at why we help our children become critical thinkers and how we do it.
What is Critical Thinking?
Critical thinking is a set of mental skills and habits, including identifying a problem, identifying assumptions, analyzing ideas and the critical mind, then systematically listing different possible causes, creating reasonable solutions or evaluating their validity using logical thinking. Also, it includes the ability to make creative connections between ideas from various disciplines.
The American philosopher, psychologist, and educator John Dewey (1859-1952) called this “reflective thinking,” and Dewey defined critical thinking as an active, ongoing, and accurate study of a supposed belief or form of knowledge that involves actively subjecting ideas to critical scrutiny rather than passively accepting them.
Critical thinking is about helping children develop thinking skills. The critical thinker asks the right questions rather than just saying, “Yes, that's the right answer,” and analyzes things and looks at their causes and all alternatives.
Why is critical thinking important?
Critical thinking is one of the essential life skills because it teaches us how to use discipline and logical skills to solve problems, and it is considerable for the growth of the child's brain and cognitive development, as these skills allow children to understand how things work in the real world and come up with creative ideas.
Besides gaining problem-solving skills, thinking independently will allow children to resist peer pressure and form their own opinions and confidence when asked to do things they do not want. For everyday problems, it may be sufficient to rely on rote learning, which is low in the order our children receive from their schools.
However, bias, narrow-mindedness, emotion, or dogma can diminish its usefulness quickly. When faced with complex problems, people who are not used to critical thinking usually rely on simplistic facts, but they often need to be more accurate, updated and published by the media. Using the higher thinking method, we can avoid making illogical mistakes that we usually make if we see the world through our emotions, biases, and irrational thoughts.
Why is it so hard to teach critical thinking?
If critical thinking is such an essential part of learning, why doesn't the school focus on teaching critical skills? The answer is, “They try, but they can't.”
This is because to “think critically” about a topic, one needs to have a deep knowledge of the subject and apply formal logic, and there is no helpful way to teach “general” and “deep” learning. Critical thinking skills acquired in specific subject programs do not transfer to other areas.
How to teach children to think critically?
Although it is difficult to teach critical thinking on specific topics, there are things parents can do to help children form a critical thinking mindset and develop a desire to seek more profound knowledge of the field to solve problems in real life. The main idea is to teach children to apply higher thought processes in any situation requiring daily decision-making skills.
While there are activities or games to promote critical thinking, critical thinking isn't just about asking open-ended questions, so here are some tips for what parents can do to teach children to think critically about everyday life:
1. Start early and explain everything
Young children often ask questions that strain parents to the point of saying, “This is what it's supposed to be,” but knowing why is the crucial first step in critical thinking. When children are taught from a young age how to ask different types of questions and formulate judgments through objective evidence and logical thinking, they grow confident in their ability to question assumptions and think with logic rather than emotions.
So, don't ignore them just because they're younger children, and explain things to them as much as possible at an early age -when you can't answer questions, you can say, “That's a good question, and I want to know the answer too.”
2. Don't ask for blind obedience
Asking children to obey and follow adult orders blindly discourages the development of critical thinking. Stanley Milgram's book Obedience to Authority Experiments makes this point quite clear.
In this famous series of experiments, people were asked to perform electric shocks on a stranger when asked to do so by a person in authority, and in some cases, the shock was painful enough to cause serious injury, but under “power” instructions, participants gradually increased these intensities of the electric shocks and then used lethal shocks without any objection. This is the risk of obeying authority blindly without exercising critical thinking to question its decision.
Parents often ask children to obey for their good, while we must explain why we want them to do what we ask. Saying, “ Because I said so,” will not develop children's reasoning skills. The child needs to know why they think independently and make sound judgments.
When we use logic and logical reasoning to explain what we ask children to do, we practice inductive discipline. Studies show that inductive discipline is the best way to discipline than imposing force and punishment. So, children have fewer behavioral problems, better emotional regulation, higher academic performance, and more skills when they learn to think critically.
3. Encourage questions and foster curiosity in children
Logical thinking is an objective and critical analysis of an idea rather than an emotional response or self-understanding. Critical thinking is challenging your opinions with new information and diverse perspectives. When safety and health are not at stake, allow children to question and discuss the legitimacy of what we say. Doing so helps them develop intellectual curiosity and analytical skills.
4. Teach open-mindedness
Open and flexible thinking when dealing with a new problem is essential in critical thinking. We can teach children to be open-minded by suggesting different perspectives, alternative interpretations, or diverse solutions to problems. Sometimes, some things have specific, repeatable answers, such as math and science, but often, there are different answers based on one's point of view. Do not encourage children to solve problems in new and different ways by connecting ideas from other fields.
5. Explain the difference between correlation and reason
One of the most significant barriers to logical thinking is confusing correlation with causation.
They're connected when two things happen together, but that doesn't necessarily mean one causes the other. It may or may not be, and we only know if we have more information to prove that one is a direct cause of the other.
For example, when a child wears a blue shirt at school, and the teacher calls them to answer a question, does it mean that wearing a blue shirt prompted the teacher to do so? Perhaps the teacher likes to call the children who wear blue shirts, but it is not necessarily the case. It may be a coincidence, or when they wear a blue shirt, they are more alert, and the teacher thinks they should know the answer. We do not know if this is the case without asking the teacher to confirm, so we can only conclude that the blue shirt asks the teacher questions if we have tangible evidence of the cause and effect.
In conclusion
Critical thinking is essential not only for children but also for adults. It is important to teach children through our words and actions as well. More than teaching children how to use logical thinking is required. We need to learn how to use this valuable skill in parenting in our daily lives. Reflective thinking is also what prevents lousy parenting.
Add comment