Why is Teaching Critical Thinking Important?
After looking at what constitutes critical thinking, it is then prudent to inspect why it is important to teach. These reasons include:
- Improving learning via critical thinking skills ("learning is the most important goal of schooling (Kassem, 2000)")
- Liberating the mind by creating "competent" and "independent" judges (Siegel, 1980)
- Sustaining democracy since critical thought "sustains, builds, and perpetuates the democracy (Abrami, et al., 2008)"
- Providing economic opportunities as "people with well-developed critical thinking skills are in high demand (Willingham, 2008)"
- Enabling people to keep pace with the modern, ever-changing world
Improving Learning
Liberating the Mind
Sustaining Democracy
Providing Economic Opportunities
Enabling People to Keep Pace
Changes are not only happening in the workplace, but in society has a whole. This can be seen through changes in educational structure. Today’s teaching style places much less emphasis memorization and recitation and more on teaching students how to think and process information. Geerstsen sums up the outlook behind this approach when he makes the comment to one of his students that "half of everything I have taught you the past ten weeks will be obsolete in twenty years. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you which half that is, so you will have to find out on your own (2003)." This is the nature of the modern world and, in that regard, it is sublimely important for teachers to instruct students not in rote skills, but instead in how to integrate their current understandings when presented with conflicting information. Inherent in this new learning environment is the ability to find the most correct, applicable, and relevant information to assimilate into their working mind, all tasks which require the use of critical thought. Without this ability, students are ill prepared for the modern world.