About Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is centrally concerned with developing sound judgment. In other words, our responsibility is not simply to expect students to think for themselves in answering these questions. Our educational directive is to systematically nurture their ability and inclination to do so. Consequently, central to our work is teaching (and assessing) the intellectual resources or “tools” for sound thinking. This includes getting students to appreciate the criteria for adjudicating among the options before them, building their vocabulary about thinking, instructing them in strategies for organizing and focussing their thinking and instilling mental habits such as openness to new ideas and intellectual persistence. It also necessitates that students acquire some knowledge of the topics of their deliberations.

Critical thinking is not a discrete dimension of an educator’s job such as teaching fractions in mathematics or Ancient Greece in social studies. Rather, it is an ethic or way of life that should infuse almost anything students do in class. As such, critical thinking needs be modeled and continuously lived as part of a larger climate or ethos in the classroom. An important dimension of our approach is learning to nurture a classroom community of thinkers where the norms and practices of thoughtful reflection are reinforced.