Critical Thinking

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Teaching critical thinking is a valuable and complex process that involves developing the skills necessary to analyze, evaluate, and interpret information effectively. Here's a detailed step-by-step guide to help you teach critical thinking:

1. Understand Critical Thinking: Before teaching others, ensure you have a clear understanding of what critical thinking is. It involves actively and objectively analyzing information, considering various perspectives, and making reasoned judgments.

2. Define Objectives: Determine what specific critical thinking skills you want to teach. These could include analyzing arguments, evaluating evidence, problem-solving, logical reasoning, and decision-making.

3. Create a Supportive Environment: Foster an open and respectful classroom or learning environment where students feel comfortable expressing their ideas and challenging assumptions.

4. Introduce Concepts: Start by introducing foundational concepts like logic, reasoning, evidence, bias, and fallacies. Use real-world examples to demonstrate these concepts in action.

5. Encourage Questioning: Teach students to question information, assumptions, and conclusions. Ask open-ended questions that encourage them to think deeper and explore different viewpoints.

6. Teach Analytical Skills: Provide exercises that require students to break down complex ideas into their component parts. Analyze different elements of an argument or issue to understand how they relate to each other.

7. Evaluate Evidence: Guide students in assessing the credibility and relevance of sources and evidence. Teach them how to differentiate between reliable sources and unreliable ones.

8. Discuss Bias and Assumptions: Explore the concept of bias and how it can influence thinking. Encourage students to identify their own biases and consider how they might affect their analysis.

9. Practice Problem-Solving: Present real-world problems that require critical thinking to solve. Encourage students to explore multiple solutions, weigh their pros and cons, and justify their choices.

10. Explore Counterarguments: Teach students to engage with counterarguments. This helps them understand opposing viewpoints and strengthens their ability to construct more persuasive arguments.

11. Foster Creative Thinking: Critical thinking also involves creativity. Encourage students to think outside the box, generate innovative solutions, and consider unconventional perspectives.

12. Teach Decision-Making: Guide students through the process of making informed decisions. Discuss factors like risks, benefits, ethical considerations, and long-term consequences.

13. Engage in Socratic Dialogue: Use the Socratic method, where you ask probing questions to guide students to discover answers themselves. This approach promotes active thinking and discussion.

14. Collaborative Learning: Encourage group discussions and debates. Collaborative learning helps students learn from each other's perspectives and enhances critical thinking through interaction.

15. Provide Feedback: Offer constructive feedback on students' arguments and analyses. Emphasize both strengths and areas for improvement.

16. Practice, Practice, Practice: Critical thinking is a skill that improves with practice. Assign regular assignments, case studies, debates, and projects that require students to apply critical thinking.

17. Reflect and Discuss: Periodically have reflective discussions where students share how their critical thinking skills have developed and how they've applied them outside the classroom.

18. Model Critical Thinking: Demonstrate critical thinking in your own discussions, lectures, and interactions. Be open to adjusting your views based on evidence and logical reasoning.

19. Provide Resources: Share books, articles, videos, and online resources that explore critical thinking and its applications.

20. Assess Progress: Use quizzes, exams, presentations, and projects to assess students' critical thinking skills. These assessments should reflect real-world problem-solving scenarios.

Here are some examples for each of the 20 points mentioned earlier:

1. Understand Critical Thinking:

• Example: Explain to students that critical thinking involves examining information from various angles before forming an opinion. Use a news article as an example and discuss how different people might interpret the same story differently based on their perspectives.

2. Define Objectives:

• Example: State that the objective is for students to be able to identify logical fallacies in arguments. Provide a list of common fallacies and ask them to find examples in advertisements or political speeches.

3. Create a Supportive Environment:

• Example: Establish a classroom rule that everyone's opinions will be respected and valued, even if they differ from the majority.

4. Introduce Concepts:

• Example: Teach students the concept of deductive reasoning using the classic example: "All humans are mortal. Socrates is a human. Therefore, Socrates is mortal."

5. Encourage Questioning:

• Example: Present a controversial statement like "Social media is beneficial for society." Ask students to write down reasons supporting and opposing this statement.

6. Teach Analytical Skills:

• Example: Provide a complex argument about climate change and ask students to break it down into its main premises and conclusions.

7. Evaluate Evidence:

• Example: Show students two articles about a scientific discovery, one from a reputable source and another from an unreliable blog. Discuss the differences in evidence and credibility.

8. Discuss Bias and Assumptions:

• Example: Show a news article covering a political event and discuss how the author's bias might have influenced the language used and the information included.

9. Practice Problem-Solving:

• Example: Present a scenario where a town is facing an environmental crisis. Ask students to brainstorm possible solutions, considering short-term and long-term consequences.

10. Explore Counterarguments:

• Example: Assign students a debate on a controversial topic like genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and require them to argue both in favor and against GMOs.

11. Foster Creative Thinking:

• Example: Ask students to imagine an alternative ending to a historical event and explain how it might have impacted the course of history.

12. Teach Decision-Making:

• Example: Present a scenario where a character has to choose between two job offers. Guide students through a decision-making process considering factors like salary, work-life balance, and career growth.

13. Engage in Socratic Dialogue:

• Example: Use the Socratic method to explore the concept of justice by asking a series of questions like "What is justice?" and "Can an unjust action ever be justified?"

14. Collaborative Learning:

• Example: Divide the class into groups to analyze a case study involving a complex ethical dilemma. Each group presents their analysis, and the class discusses different viewpoints.

15. Provide Feedback:

• Example: After a debate, give feedback to each student on their argumentation skills, acknowledging strengths like effective use of evidence and suggesting areas for improvement.

16. Practice, Practice, Practice:

• Example: Assign a weekly "critical thinking challenge" where students analyze a real-world news article, identifying logical fallacies and evaluating the evidence.

17. Reflect and Discuss:

• Example: Hold a class discussion at the end of the semester where students share instances when they applied critical thinking skills outside of the classroom.

18. Model Critical Thinking:

• Example: During a lecture, demonstrate your willingness to change your viewpoint based on strong evidence or compelling arguments from students.

19. Provide Resources:

• Example: Share a TED Talk or an article discussing cognitive biases and how they affect decision-making.

20. Assess Progress:

• Example: Create a final project where students have to analyze a complex issue, present their findings, and defend their conclusions using critical thinking skills.

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The state of Pakistan: Isn't the support for BJP similar?

Fahd Hussain in The Dawn

Imran Khan’s supporters can see no wrong in what he says or does. We have witnessed this phenomenon unfurl itself like a lazy python these last few years, but more so with greater intensity during Khan’s pre- and post-ouster days. On display is a textbook case of blind devotion. Such devotion entails a deliberate — or perhaps subconscious — suspension of critical thinking. Only mass hysteria can explain absolute rejection of facts and a willing embrace of free-flying rhetoric untethered by verifiable information.

And yet, does this really make sense?

Bounce this explanation off actual people around you — friends, families, acquaintances — and you start to feel uncomfortable with the laziness of the explanation.

On your left, for instance, is the professor with a doctorate in natural sciences from one of the top universities in the world, someone whose entire educational foundation and career is based on the power of empirical evidence and scientific rationalism — and here he is hysterically arguing why the PTI deputy speaker’s violation of the constitution is no big deal. On your right is the top executive of a multinational company with an MBA from an Ivy League school, someone whose training and practice of craft is based on hard data crunched with power of sharp logic — and here he is frothing at the mouth in delirium while yelling that the Joe Biden administration actually conspired with the entire top leadership of the PDM to topple Imran Khan. 

These are rational people, you remind yourself. You have known them for years, and admired them for their academic and professional achievements — perhaps even been motivated by their pursuit of success — and yet you see them experiencing a strange quasi-psychedelic meltdown in full public glare. It just does not add up.

It is not just these metaphorical persons — resembling many real ones in all our lives, as it so happens — but hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis from all walks of life locked inside a massive groupthink spurred by sweeping generalisations dressed up as political narrative. No argument, no logic and no rationale — no, nothing makes sense, and nothing is acceptable or even worth considering if it does not gel perfectly with their preconceived notions.

What we are witnessing is a seminal moment in our political evolution — progressive or regressive is a matter of personal perspective — and this moment is situated bang in the centre of a social and political transformation so impactful that it could define the shape of our society for the years ahead.

In an acutely polarised environment, it is easy to pass judgement on those sitting across the fence. Most of us yield to this temptation. When we do, we help reinforce caricatures that have little resemblance to people around us, and these fail to explain why people believe what they believe.

So why do such a large number of people believe what they believe even when overwhelming evidence points towards the opposite conclusion? In our context, this may be due in part to the visceral politicisation of the national discourse and the deep personal loathing of rivals that the PTI has injected into what should otherwise be a contest of ideas and ideologies. At the heart of this is the revulsion against the system because it has not really delivered what it exists to deliver: improving the lives of citizens through protection of rights and provision of services. It is therefore easy and convenient to blame the system, and in turn all those institutions that constitute the system as a whole.

Imran Khan has modelled himself well as the anti-system crusader. He insists very persuasively that he has neither been co-opted nor corrupted by the system; that when he says he wants to change this system, it implies that there is nothing sacrosanct about the system, or for that matter, about the exalted institutions that make up the system. He has been able to establish this narrative successfully because the central theme of his narrative is, in fact, true: the system has not delivered.

But the argument is only half done here. The other half is perhaps even more crucial — diagnosing why it has not delivered. It is here that Imran Khan goes off tangent. And he does so not just in terms of his solutions, but his own shockingly weak performance as the prime minister who had it all but could not do much with it. In fact, after nearly four years in power, and having precious little to show for them, Imran has for all practical purposes joined the long line of those who are, in fact, responsible for the sad reality that the system has not delivered.

But someone forgot to break this news to the PTI supporters.

In essence then, if Pakistani society wants to row itself back from this stage where the electorate is at war with itself on a battlefield littered with semi-truths, partial facts and outright lies, it will need to face up to a bitter fact: what we see unfolding in front of us is the contamination of decades of social and educational decay injected with deadly and potent steroids of propaganda, brainwashing and ‘otherisation’ of anyone who looks, speaks, acts or believes differently.

Those social studies books you read in school and thought you would outgrow — well, now you know how wrong you were?

In this cesspool, everyone points fingers at everyone else when no one really has the right to do so. Seven decades of wrong governance laced with wrong priorities and fuelled by wrong policies have led us to a stage today where traditional parties cannot stomach the aspirations of a new generation, and new parties cannot digest the requirements of what constitutes governance, statecraft and institutional equilibrium within a democratic society.

And you thought holding elections was our biggest problem today. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

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The power of negative thinking

Tim Harford in The FT 

For a road sign to be a road sign, it needs to be placed in proximity to traffic. Inevitably, it is only a matter of time before someone drives into the pole. If the pole is sturdy, the results may be fatal. 

The 99% Invisible City, a delightful new book about the under-appreciated wonders of good design, explains a solution. The poles that support street furniture are often mounted on a “slip base”, which joins an upper pole to a mostly buried lower pole using easily breakable bolts. 

 A car does not wrap itself around a slip-based pole; instead, the base gives way quickly. Some slip bases are even set at an angle, launching the upper pole into the air over the vehicle. The sign is easily repaired, since the base itself is undamaged. Isn’t that clever? 

 There are two elements to the cleverness. One is specific: the detailed design of the slip-base system. But the other, far more general, is a way of thinking which anticipates that things sometimes go wrong and then plans accordingly. 

That way of thinking was evidently missing in England’s stuttering test-and-trace system, which, in early October, failed spectacularly. Public Health England revealed that 15,841 positive test results had neither been published nor passed on to contact tracers. 

The proximate cause of the problem was reported to be the use of an outdated file format in an Excel spreadsheet. Excel is flexible and any idiot can use it but it is not the right tool for this sort of job. It could fail in several disastrous ways; in this case, the spreadsheet simply ran out of rows to store the data. 

But the deeper cause seems to be that nobody with relevant expertise had been invited to consider the failure modes of the system. What if we get hacked? What if someone pastes the wrong formula into the spreadsheet? What if we run out of numbers? 

We should all spend more time thinking about the prospect of failure and what we might do about it. It is a useful mental habit but it is neither easy nor enjoyable. 

We humans thrive on optimism. Without the capacity to banish worst-case scenarios from our minds, we could hardly live life at all. Who could marry, try for a baby, set up a business or do anything else that matters while obsessing about what might go wrong? It is more pleasant and more natural to hope for the best. 

We must be careful, then, when we allow ourselves to stare steadily at the prospect of failure. Stare too long, or with eyes too wide, and we will be so paralysed with anxiety that success, too, becomes impossible. 

Care is also needed in the steps we take to prevent disaster. Some precautions cause more trouble than they prevent. Any safety engineer can reel off a list of accidents caused by malfunctioning safety systems: too many backups add complexity and new ways to fail. 

My favourite example — described in the excellent book Meltdown by Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik — was the fiasco at the Academy Awards of 2017, when La La Land was announced as the winner of the Best Picture Oscar that was intended for Moonlight. The mix-up was made possible by the existence of duplicates of each award envelope — a precaution that triggered the catastrophe. 

But just because it is hard to think productively about the risk of failure does not mean we should give up. One gain is that of contingency planning: if you anticipate possible problems, you have the opportunity to prevent them or to prepare the ideal response. 

A second advantage is the possibility of rapid learning. When the aeronautical engineer Paul MacCready was working on human-powered aircraft in the 1970s, his plane — the Gossamer Condor — was designed to be easily modified and easily repaired after the inevitable crashes. (At one stage, the tail flap was adjusted by taping a Manila folder to it.) 

Where others had spent years failing to win the prestigious Kremer prize for human-powered flight, MacCready’s team succeeded in months. One secret to their success was that the feedback loop of fly —> crash —> adapt was quick and cheap. 

Not every project is an aeroplane but there are plenty of analogies. When we launch a new project we might think about prototyping, gathering data, designing small experiments and avidly searching for feedback from the people who might see what we do not. 

If we expect that things will go wrong, we design our projects to make learning and adapting part of the process. When we ignore the possibility of failure, when it comes it is likely to be expensive and hard to learn from. 

The third advantage of thinking seriously about failure is that we may turn away from projects that are doomed from the outset. From the invasion of Iraq to the process of Brexit, seriously exploring the daunting prospect of disaster might have provoked the wise decision not to start in the first place. 

But I have strayed a long way from the humble slip base. It would be nice if all failure could be anticipated so perfectly and elegantly. Alas, the world is a messier place. All around us are failures — of business models, of pandemic planning, even of our democratic institutions. It is fanciful to imagine designing slip bases for everything. 

Still: most things fail, sooner or later. Some fail gracefully, some disgracefully. It is worth giving that some thought.