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Critical thinking can bridge differences

I’m offering a symposium at a conference in a few weeks on the use of on-line learning communities to transform critical thinking and biases. I’ll be using some of the many anonymous comments that I have collected from my students the past four years. They include comments like these:

“Hearing from 16 other people allowed me to work indepently yet come together on-line for meaningful discussions.”

“It made sure I heard all voices.”

Jeff Linn is the chairman of the department of educational administration at the College at Brockport and a member of the GS4A steering committee.


Hearing all voices is key to critical thinking. This is a challenge in today’s fractured political environment. Critical thinkers strive to understand the influence that context, assumptions, and stereotypes have on their own thinking.

Critical thinkers consider the evidence and sources of information instead of depending on hearsay and opinion. They recognize that sources like the non-partisan Rochester Area Community Foundation’s Poverty and Self –Suficiency report (2016) consist of raw data that we must analyze before drawing conclusions.

Critical thinkers understand the role perspective plays in their thinking. They work to consider other points of views in order to find “win-win” scenarios, and not settle for the “win-lose” results that many city schoolchildren face. And critical thinkers reach conclusions based on evidence and informed evaluation of an issue. They recognize that politics, stereotypes and generalizations play a role in their own thinking, but they are reflective enough to acknowledge this. Critical thinking is hard because we must look at our own biases throughout the process.

Critical thinking may be the toughest cognitive work that we do. Throughout the process of composing questions for my classes and writing these blogs I have been forced to look the biases that I have about suburbanites who don’t care for the idea of more socioeconomically diverse schools and not be so judgmental. I am striving to understand those who view this issue differently than I do.

And I think I get some of it. Everyone wants what is best for his or her kid. Some suburban parents fear that children from the city will bring “urban problems” with them. Perhaps they think that the poor are poor because they are lazy or that they do not value education as much as more affluent families do. Or they think that poor parents are ineffective parents. But how do they know any of this is true without reading and thinking critically about the issue? And I’ve concluded that we will get nowhere saying that people are stereotyping. I prefer to he phrase that they are “making a generalization” because they know so few people unlike themselves in either race or social class.

I am trying to understand their perspectives so that those of us who advocate for more integrated schools can look for those “win-wins.” It is difficult to acknowledge the generalizations I have about the suburbs and suburban parents—because they expose my own assumptions, biases and blind spots. And they are there.

No matter how difficult it is, however, we must continue to struggle and model critical thinking for the people who think they own the truth. I don’t know any other way to do it.

We don’t have nearly enough critical thinkers as role models. We are (temporarily) in an era in which some of leaders model behaviors that are thin-skinned, narcissistic and vengeful. But our capacity for critical thinking grows as we become attuned to others and we cannot descend to that level of thinking. We need both humility and character. And to do this we must try to put aside grudges that only serve to weigh us down and cloud our judgment.

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