Crucial Need for Critical Thinking

"We want our political leaders to use the best possible knowledge to guide our country into greater safety and economic stability. We want the pilots of our airplanes to know how to respond if the plane runs into turbulence, icy conditions, bird strikes, thunderstorms or mechanical problems..." writes Ellen Galinsky, in her book, Mind in the Making.

"At its core, critical thinking is the ongoing search for valid and reliable knowledge to guide our beliefs and actions...The skill of critical thinking follows a developmental path through childhood and into adulthood, but its use must be promoted...Critical thinking involves 'thinking about our thinking' by reflecting, analyzing, reasoning, planning and evaluating."

Galinsky poses this important question to educators: "How do we help children know when to trust their own experiences and when to dig deeper, ask more questions, and test out more possibilities? How do we help them learn to discern which people are reliable providers of information and which people aren't?"

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