Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom

American philosopher and educational reformer John Dewey was the first to explore the idea of critical thinking, referred to as “reflective thinking” in his 1910 work How We Think. Dewey describes critical thinking as a consideration of one’s beliefs and the ideas that support them. For Dewey, this was the foundation of scientific thinking. He believed that all children were born with an innate ability to think critically. Their thoughts are malleable, and they are more willing to abandon previous beliefs in favor of new ones. bell hooks reiterates this idea in Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom. She argues that children are born with openness and a sense of wonder that is later abandoned. The social pressure of conformity causes children to let go of their ability to engage in reflective thinking. The work of Dewey, hooks, and other educators seeks to extend the life of critical thinking beyond childhood years.

Critical thinking, put simply, is thinking about thinking. Dewey’s use of the word “reflective” refers to the practice of turning evaluation inward and dismantling ideas from within. Between 1933 and 1941, 300 colleges participated in an 8-year study developed by the Progressive Education Association in the United States to explore how incorporating Dewey’s ideas about critical thinking into the classroom might alter education. These colleges agreed to accept students from experimental secondary schools who did not align with the curricular standards of the time. These secondary schools operated on the belief that students learn when they engage in material that is meaningful to them and when they solve problems using critical thinking. In the study’s 18 measures of success, students from these experimental schools outperformed their peers who grew up in traditional educational settings.

In 1956, a group of researchers developed Bloom’s Taxonomy, which defined hierarchies of thinking called “cognitive domains” and is still used by educators today. The modern version of Bloom’s Taxonomy identifies six domains: remembering, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The final domain is identified as the most complex cognitive function. In the 1970s and 1980s, education saw an increased focused on thinking, and standards were revised to include thinking skills. In 1997, Norman Webb constructed Webb’s Depths of Knowledge to categorize thinking constructs. These four tiers included recall and reproduction, skills and concepts, strategic thinking, and extended thinking. Webb’s DOK model synthesizes Bloom’s Taxonomy into a simple four- tier system. State standards for curriculum now include indicators that reveal the cognitive depth expected for each skill.

Critics of education argue that teachers rely too heavily on the lower cognitive domains. Traditional models of education in which the teacher is the gatekeeper of knowledge and students are passive recipients of material relies heavily on the first tiers of knowledge and comprehension. Students are rarely asked to apply the material, let alone analyze it, in a presentation-style pedagogy. Instead, they receive the information and take an assessment that proves they have retained it. However, as the 8-year study revealed, meaningful engagement with the material leads to deeper understanding and better retention.

hooks revitalized research in critical thinking by connecting it to class, race, gender, sexuality, and culture. She revealed how dominator culture contributes to the cognitive conformity of students. hooks showed that teachers can take measured steps to engage their students in deep and meaningful connection to material and to recapture the wonder of critical thinking of their childhoods. In doing so, students learn to dismantle harmful thoughts and ideas and begin to heal from the damage caused by the colonization of the mind.