Most of us have heard the parable of the three blind men who come across an elephant, an animal that none of them had encountered before. Each of them touch a different part of the elephant and describe what they stumble upon or “notice” based on their limited experience. They all have valid knowledge based on their experience but without hearing what the other two men know, their knowledge is incomplete. By the same token, complex issues lend themselves to multiple perspectives and we cannot ignore the role of perspectives in solving  problems as well as fostering social harmony.

https://teachheart.org/2019/08/21/understanding-multiple-perspectives/

I earned a Master’s in Educational Psychology from George Mason University where I learned to apply principles of learning, cognition, and motivation to vital problems in the area of education in a variety of formal as well as informal settings. For my capstone project titled ‘Learning and Cognition in the Visual Arts’ I utilized my skills accrued while pursuing the Master’s degree to investigate the kind of learning that takes place in and through the visual arts.

I worked as a middle-high school teacher in a covent of Jesus and Mary in India. One of the highlights of my experience was how group activities and collaborative learning encourage intellectual skills like decision making, envisioning, exploring options, developing perspectives, and so forth.

Our system of education, especially in schools, needs a sizeable change. But until we envision what we want to accomplish through education, aligned with innate abilities and potential of humans and particularly children, the change is far from happening. The ‘what’ has sadly been compressed to getting “good grades” in lieu of nurturing intellectual skills like being curious, seeking evidence, considering perspectives and open-mindedly exploring ideas as individuals engage in multifaceted contexts throughout life.

Learning ceases when kids get disengaged. Unfortunately, what’s valued and rewarded in classrooms is retention capacity- how much a child knows/has learned from textbooks. Our approach of getting the “single right answer” deters kids away from persisting unless they know the “right answer.”

WHY Critical Thinking?

The boundaries of the needs and demands of educational and professional development are rapidly expanding. Education systems are confronted with more extensive and dire challenges of educational quality and relevance. With the dawn of social media, with just a touch of a button on our screens, we’re barraged with information from every corner of the world. More often than not, the information is nothing but half-baked ideas or opinions in the garb of facts, not to speak of disinformation as well as misinformation, hearsay, and so forth. To be able to glean truth from cascades of information, we need to  be equipped with certain kinds of thinking skills like being open-minded and curious, seeking evidence, considering perspectives, and so forth to reach plausible conclusions.

This recognition of the need for students to be curious heralds a modification in the educational system and draws attention to the need to nurture specific thinking skills that equip individuals in making sense of the information soaked world around them. I think educators have dropped the ball on developing critical thinking by wrongly focusing on what kids learn in lieu of how they learn.

In my view, education is a long-term investment that can impact children’s lives. Then shouldn’t the goals of education also be long-term- much beyond the limited “grades and subsequent placement in the job field.” Ideally, educational goal must broaden its scope to developing intellectual thinking behaviors that support life-long learning as individuals, buffeted by new challenges, engage in multifaceted contexts in a constantly changing world, throughout life.

What do kids learn when they explore? How can educators create an environment that supports the tendency to explore, wonder and probe? When kids explore topics like gravity, planets, forests, etc, they begin to lay the groundwork for independent inquiry that steers them to new understandings.

What are good thinking skills? How can educators make students better thinkers? Why in the first place should one need to ‘think’ to learn what Einstein theorized, or what Galileo formulated? Research educators at PZ think these skills can be taught by providing opportunities that allow kids to be curious, explore, consider options and perspectives, be flexible and so forth.

What is it about ‘looking’ at art in museums that’s drawing the attention of researchers in the educational field? Is there any link between looking and cognition? In what ways can art observation promote broader thinking skills that facilitate learning? Why do developmental psychologists and academics in the field of education like Howard Gardner contend art to be a matter of the mind?