Teaching Critical Thinking!

I know, at my work, every improvement project comes down to improved problem solving and critical thinking.  I've heard that same thing discussed in regards to both public education of our children and from other people that are trying to manage a workforce.  I've also heard it recently in reference to 9 year old children.

We talking about teaching that skill set, but what we really want to do is learn em, durn em.
The one thing that teachers, parents, managers have in common is a desire to control other people.  We want to make them do the things they should do, stop them from doing the things they shouldn't do and have them wake up with the ability to "think their way our of a wet paperbag".

How do you teach critical thinking?

My mother would tell you that "practice makes perfect."  My father would say, "do it, just start, how are you going to make that work".  My mother was an amazingly capable control freak but my father was the problem solver.  He could fix things, and make things that had never existed before and find out what the problem was and then come up with a working solution.  It was never perfect, and seldom the first time, but he was inevitably the victor over the issue.

Amazingly, very educated people want to turn critical thinking into a class--hopefully less than 1 hour long, and make everyone critical thinkers and problem solvers that can pass a valid and reliable test after that class. Unfortunately, most of us have had our ability to hunt for new solutions, find a problem's source and come up with ideas squelched by age 8.

By eight, we have been taught what to say, how to follow very specific directions, how to answer any question by finding a line in the book that the question is from that is almost the same as the question.  Parents discourage their children from doing things that are messy or dangerous (danger:  a thing that lurks everywhere so no child shall ever run a microwave, grill a sandwich, light a match or lighter, or even have bubble solution without the "appropriate" bubble blowing equipment.  No parent would ever tell a child that has broken something, "now, how are you going to fix that" and actually expect a response and action.

TVs, computers, electronic devices, are everywhere and most 2 year olds can figure them out.  They watch tv programs that give them the problem and solution, completely, without effort, with no possibility of failure.  They play electronic games in which every problem can be solved using 1 or 2 fingers because the person who built the program included solutions for every problem. Their solutions--no other solutions are possible.  They can even get books that read themselves.  It isn't learning, it is entertainment.  Real learning needs the struggle.  If everything is easy, then no improvement in thinking ability occurs.

So what do we need to do to improve critical thinking?  Most of us need to start with ourselves.   Most of us have become very lazy in our thinking. 

We have to learn to think, to problem solve, and the way to do that is practice.  Let your kids solve their own problems.  Not the truly dangerous ones for their age, but when they tell you they can't find something, don't go find it, ask them when they had it last.  Ask them where they usually use it.  Ask them when they last saw it--play Socrates and help them learn to ask the type of questions that can be used to narrow down possibilities.  Don't teach them a set of "right" questions.  There are no right or wrong questions.  And there are no right or wrong answers.  Critical thinking will not lead to a single yes or no response.  It is an inquiry.  It may take multiple inquiries to find a way to do a thing that works at all.  It may take many more questions and searches to find the way to solve a problem that is both do-able and effective, economical and efficient.  The old --"more than one way to skin a cat", while a disturbing image to we cat-lovers is the quintessential  essence of critical thinking.

Of course, while thinking critically requires some creativity, it also requires discernment.  It is not enough to someone to brainstorm how to get to the planet Mars on a bus for an hour.  Imagination is a great, wonderful, and productively happy thing, but critical thinking also involves making choices about function, about availability, about the whole reality of a thing.  The only way getting to Mars on a bus becomes viable is if you change the name of a space craft to a bus, then there is time, speed, managing fuel needs, is it coming back or a one way trip, life support, for how many, do you need to consider more than the optimum needs or consider the possibility of some or all crew having an increase in metabolism for whatever reason.  I can imagine myself traipsing around the world on a purple unicorn, but while I can dream it,  but I can not create a living, breathing unicorn, forget getting it to then submit to purple hair coloring solution.

So what am I saying?  How do we teach critical thinking skills?

We teach them every day--or we stomp on them--everyday.  We help our children, our family, our coworkers by letting them think while assisting them in their thinking in an open, no right or wrong answer, you can succeed but maybe not the first time--way.  You model critical thinking.  And that means talking outloud as you think through a problem.  Lettimg them see your process, letting them make suggestions and then explaining in a nonderogatory, noncondescending way, why you can't use all of their suggestion.

And maybe, if you start young, and have patience, one day while you are sharing your process, they will solve your problem in a different but better way than you would.  Be ok with that.  Be proud.

You have now successfully taught someone critical thinking.