About Us
The Critical Thinking Consortium (TC²) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting critical, creative, and collaborative thinking. We provide professional learning and education resources for teachers, schools, school boards, school districts, education centres, and organizations with a goal of creating an environment that nurtures critical thinking.
Our goal is to enable learners with:
- enhanced abilities and inclinations to think effectively
- deeper understanding of the curriculum
- increased engagement in the world
- greater willingness to act in thoughtful, ethically responsible ways
Our work
Our work can be categorized into four areas:
- Resource development: Develop and promote innovative print and digital learning and assessment resources for educators, students, and parents
- Professional learning: Design and facilitate professional growth opportunities for teachers and educational leaders at all levels
- Research and innovation: Develop and share research on the impact of critical thinking, and implement and support innovative extensions of critical thinking as a pedagogy
- Community building: Activate and sustain individual and institutional networks at the local, provincial, and national level
Read more about the projects we’ve done.
Guiding principles
We’re committed to the following principles:
- As an educational provider, to offer exemplary services and products that are innovative, inclusive, responsive, and provocative and that lead to meaningful change
- As an educational leader, to work in a manner that is collaborative, proactive, and models the virtues of an ethical, critically thoughtful person
- As a non-profit organization, to develop an efficient, self-sustaining, financially viable and stable operation
- As an employer, to nurture a working environment that is collegial, satisfying, and rewarding, challenging but not overwhelming or unrealistic, and supportive of continuous learning and growth
Guiding principles for equity
At The Critical Thinking Consortium (TC²), we commit to working towards more equitable outcomes in education by taking a lead role in supporting educators and leaders to engage conflict and controversy productively. We will create resources, provide professional learning, and support educators and system leaders in alignment with the principles outlined below. In addition, we will highlight and implement specific practices in diverse areas of our work to embody these principles and work towards concrete goals and outcomes. As part of this commitment, we will regularly assess and evaluate our progress in each of these areas.
We recognize that language is constantly evolving and that areas, groups and issues that require our greatest focus will shift. We are committed to being responsive based on emerging data and our growing understanding of people’s lived experiences. While we have not named who is included or excluded by the phrase “historically and currently underserved students” or “marginalized groups” in the below statements, we are cognizant of the historical and ongoing disparities experienced by Black and Indigenous learners in particular. We will work with districts to support them in better serving those learners who are underserved in their regions as revealed by the local data.
At TC², we will:
We are dedicated to our powerful framework for integrating critical, creative, and collaborative thinking as core dimensions of quality thinking. We have come to recognize that an explicit commitment to equitable thinking is important in helping us realize our mission and vision. We want to model the use of the intellectual tools, particularly habits of mind, to support thoughtful and anti-oppressive actions within our organization and within education systems.
Our framework can play a leading role in helping educators address the pressing information literacy and numeracy challenges facing our society. One of the ways we do this is by nurturing the intellectual tools required to critically analyze diverse sources of evidence and knowledge. We recognize that productive conversations that benefit marginalized groups can be undermined by dis/misinformation and believe we can support educators in thoughtfully engaging current information ecosystems.
We believe we can contribute to thoughtful approaches that honour each learner's unique beliefs and values while prioritizing resources that center non-dominant narratives and amplify the voices and experiences of learners and communities experiencing inequities. We aim to deepen our engagement and form respectful and reciprocal relationships with the communities we want to serve through our work and look to them for advice, direction and guidance while co-creating equitable pathways.
We want to support the work of educators by ensuring that both the format and content of our work adhere to accessibility requirements that respect the diverse lived experiences and knowledge of each learner. We hope that our work contributes to feelings of belonging for all members of thinking communities by seeing themselves reflected in their learning experiences.
We want to be explicitly focused on the success of learners experiencing inequitable outcomes and to amplify their voices and experiences when working with educators and leaders. Our aim is to nurture communities of thinkers that are critically thoughtful, open-minded, and compassionate in their approaches to equity.
We want to build and engage in routines that help us regularly reflect on whether our actions align with our commitments and demonstrate accountability and humility when we do not live up to them. As a key part of our commitment to accountability and transparency, we will seek out community guidance and perspectives as a reflex and remain attuned to innovative approaches, research, and practices related to equity, diversity, inclusion, belonging and decolonization to inform our thinking.
Our history
TC² was constituted on November 18th, 1993 at an inaugural meeting held at Simon Fraser University attended by approximately 30 district leaders, academics and educators. This association, then called The Critical Thinking Cooperative, was formed in response to emerging interest in a document about critical thinking commissioned by the BC Ministry of Education in May 1993 and released in September of that year. Written by Jerrold Coombs and LeRoi Daniels of the University of British Columbia and Sharon Bailin and Roland Case of Simon Fraser University, the report laid out a conception of critical thinking for use in guiding curriculum, instruction and assessment.
Roland Case, 1999
The conception was formally presented at a keynote address to the BC Social Studies Professional Specialist Association Conference on October 15th, 1993. Initial professional learning offerings began in 1994 consisting of a field-based course in critical thinking offered in Richmond School District and a three-day summer institute in Burnaby School District. Since these early beginnings, awareness of and support for TC²'s conception of critical thinking has grown from a provincial phenomenon, facilitated by a small group of committed individuals, to an internationally renowned non-profit organization built on a network of over sixty educational Partners.
Since our formation, we’ve worked with over 190,000 educators across Canada, and in the United States, England, Israel, Finland, China, India, Hong Kong, Dubai, Lebanon, France and the Caribbean. We’ve undertaken significant resource development projects for ministries of education in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, and for many notable governmental and non-governmental agencies to produce numerous award-winning print and online resources that support critical thinking in various subject areas and across grade levels.