“Are Students Really Learning to Be Critical Thinkers?” is the title of an article in BetterEd by Annie Holmquist (http://www.better-ed.org/blog/are-students-really-learning-be-critical-thinkers).  This question has been on my mind for some time as I have listened to and read educational leaders, teachers, professors and literature extol the virtues of “critical thinking.”  But what have they almost always meant by that term?  And what should it mean?  And why should we care?

Working backward, we ought to care of we value a true education and not mere indoctrination.  Critical thinking long ago meant to think logically, that is, rationally, using the tools available from the study of that subject.  These included the study of informal fallacies (of which there are about 130 possible, which all of most of us have violated some time), deductive and formal logic, including the ability to construct valid premises and conclusions, and which hopefully are also true, and the study of inductive logic, which we often call an empirical approach.  All of these operate according to certain rules, which, if we follow them will tend to lead to truth. Now of course we as Christians know that this is not always the result because of our sinful tendency since the Fall to suppress truth.  But if we begin with a commitment to truth, and then circumscribe what we do by Scriptural boundaries, we will tend to come much closer.  And then we supplement that with the logical tools that God built into the human mind and we can move even closer to truth.  That is what I mean by critical thinking.

Unfortunately, many others do not mean that.  They mean being critical of some ideas or set of ideas they don’t like, without even really examining those ideas using the logic I just spoke about.  Though such a distorted notion of critical thinking can be seen among those on the Left and the Right, it seems to have become most predominant in schools and colleges from the Left.  These educators want to “teach” students to be critical of, say, capitalism, Christianity, conservatism, traditional values, “white privilege,” and so on.  Well, that simply is not critical thinking, as the author of the article points out.  That is indoctrination.

Now there is certainly a time in the process of attaining truth that one ought to make a commitment to what he or she takes to be truth in fact. That is what Christians do when their highest truth commitment is to Scripture and the God revealed in that revelation in Christ. That is indeed a kind of value judgment.  However Christians do not “check their brains at the door,” as someone put it.  Our slogan is “faith seeking understanding,” but our faith is not unreasonable, not illogical.  Therefore, critical thinking is about seeking truth using logical tools bit beginning with a premise of the truth of Scripture.

At any rate, what is happening in education that passes for critical thinking is not in reality rigorous thinking.  What can we do about it?  First, I would plead with academics to stop calling what they do in indoctrinating, critical thinking, if in fact they are only indoctrinating.  Be honest.  Second, our schools and colleges really ought to be thinking seriously about requiring courses in logical thinking for all students.  Yes, I am calling for logic to be a dreaded general education course.  In the end our students will thank us for preparing them for real life.

Finally, I will possible be accused, as a Christian, of advocating my own form of indoctrination.  My answer is simple.  Of course we all must start somewhere. I begin there as a bedrock foundation.  Bu I also believe my Christianity is able to withstand logical scrutiny.  So I am not afraid to have it challenged.  However if it is challenged, that challenge itself should be conducted logically and not as some campaign to discredit it through the false advertisement of “critical thinking.”  Next time someone says they want to inculcate critical thinking, your ears should perk up and you should ask what they mean.  If it isn’t logical, rational analysis, it is not really critical thinking.