CRITICAL THINKING

The California Superintendent of Public Instruction recommends a change in the school testing approach to increase emphasis on critical thinking. The testing changes will also mandate changes to the curriculum. 

A good idea although we might anticipate some objections.  Those who think critically are not always good followers.  Yet critical thinkers are needed for discovery and innovation which are necessary for the U.S. to maintain its challenged global leadership in many areas.

Some thinking is required to envision the impact of critical thinking.  An example that I like is that of Nicholaus Copernicus (1473-1543).  For decades of observing the celestial objects, he reasoned that the earth must be revolving around the sun, not the other way around as was a common belief and an edict of the Church.  He documented his findings secretly providing a rich basis for future scientists’ work.

Another example of a critical thinker was Christopher Columbus.  He ignored some primitive fears that the world was flat and that ships would fall off of it into…something.  He reasoned that since the world is a globe, one could sail due west and arrive at the other side of the Eurasian-African land mass where spices and other desired commodities could be found.  He had it right, of course, but he had no idea that American land mass would be in his way.   His critical thinking set in place centuries of the New World exploration and development.

There are also some examples of non-critical thinking.  Think about 2008 when the economy collapsed and many banks nearly went under.  The combined efforts of Wall Street, the banks, realtors and home buyers created a huge bubble that was destined to explode.  What were they thinking?

Another example of non-critical thinking is in the political battling (grandstanding) about the federal deficit.  Both sides appear to agree that government spending cuts are necessary for deficit reduction, yet both want the other side to specify the reductions and take the heat from the electorate.   Critical thinking on both sides might result in a working together to find the cuts that will cause the least hurt to the citizenry.

At the risk of sounding negative, I suspect that control of the debt and deficit will be passed on to our future generations.  Let us hope that our descendants will have developed the skill of critical thinking to solve these problems.