>Unfortunately, we don't really know how to do this.
Can't say I agree, Socrates figured it out thousands of years ago!
>Unfortunately, we don't really know how to do this. Longitudinal studies of critical thinking skills across 4 years of college show a modest improvement but there are caveats [1]. For one, the usual courses you'd expect to improve critical thinking (logic, philosophy, statistics) don't do very well.
I'd argue that these courses are, at best, tangentially related to critical thinking. We need to teach the Socratic Method of learning to children from day 1, in all areas of study. Teaching children how to think and how to be intellectually curious is ultimately far more effective than our current methods if your desired result is an informed and intellectually capable populace.
Teaching children how to think and how to be intellectually curious is ultimately far more effective than our current methods if your desired result is an informed and intellectually capable populace.
You're preaching to the choir here. I am studying pure mathematics and minoring in philosophy and astrophysics, with the eventual goal of becoming a teacher. I dream of teaching kids critical thinking and deep problem solving skills, not rote memorization.
In the intro to mathematics education course, which I took as part of my program, we focused exclusively on teaching mathematics in the Socratic style. It was fantastic teaching my fellow classmates and a ton of fun to boot.
Unfortunately, I have to add this again, in my experience volunteering as a tutor (2 hours a week for the past 4 years) for high school students, I've noticed them really struggle with critical thinking type problems. Show them any mathematical problem where the structure of the question is different from what they've learned in class and they can't do it.
They don't really understand what they're doing, they only know how to repeat the procedure they were taught with cookie-cutter problems.
>It was fantastic teaching my fellow classmates and a ton of fun to boot.
I think this is as important a point as any. Children are naturally curious. The Socratic Method of learning is all about building on that curiosity to constantly ask (and answer) questions. Learning in this way allows children to exploit their natural curiosity and find their intellectual niche in a fun and fruitful way, rather than boring them to death with rote instruction that is little more than a memorization lesson.
It is awesome, but then my classmates for that course are all students who got admitted to my school (which admits around 7% of applicants to math) so I would expect them to be more engaged and to have better critical thinking skills than the average high school student.
I think the other issue we have (speaking for teachers now) is that you don't get to teach students from K-12, you get them for one or two grades max. I think the reason kids of highly educated parents tend to be better off is because they get the benefit over their entire childhood, rather than teachers who vary a lot from year to year.
> Can't say I agree, Socrates figured it out thousands of years ago!
Now as an exercise, analyze this critically. What are the known historical sources for this claim, what biases and motivations they had? Did he really succeeded at consistently teaching people critical skills, or we just assume so cause we learned in school that he was cool and dont know more about him?
Historical Socrates and popular Socratic Method are different things. Studies whether it actually measurably teaches critical thinking are less optimistic.
Can't say I agree, Socrates figured it out thousands of years ago!
>Unfortunately, we don't really know how to do this. Longitudinal studies of critical thinking skills across 4 years of college show a modest improvement but there are caveats [1]. For one, the usual courses you'd expect to improve critical thinking (logic, philosophy, statistics) don't do very well.
I'd argue that these courses are, at best, tangentially related to critical thinking. We need to teach the Socratic Method of learning to children from day 1, in all areas of study. Teaching children how to think and how to be intellectually curious is ultimately far more effective than our current methods if your desired result is an informed and intellectually capable populace.