A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

I spoke at a conference once where we talked about how to think well. One of the questions came up about certainty, and how you could know something for sure.

What we know is that even an objective fact gets shared by a subjective self. No matter how much people can agree that something is real and true, factual and verifiable, it’s how we talk about the “objective truth” that shapes our shared reality. Your interpretation immediately impacts how that fact is received: “It may be raining: one of us is happy about it and the other pissed off!”

Another Way

Here’s what I said in my book, Raising Critical Thinkers:

The alternative to certainty is intimacy. Intimacy means knowing more of the subject with more of yourself. It looks like a greater and greater tenderness toward a field of study— a hunger to become close to it, to know its compelling contours and unavoidable flaws. It means reading the subject’s ardent fans and listening with patience to its detractors. Intimacy leads to both a fascination with and protection of a subject’s inherent value. There’s inscrutability and mystery within every subject. Intimacy in learning means developing an ongoing relationship to that discipline, allowing it to morph and change, which requires humility. Mastery is a myth.

Intiimacy means when you feel tweaked or smug or concerned or urgent, that’s the moment to get curious. What else is there to know? Why does the other person see the same information so differently?

BIG NEWS! Introducing BECOMING A CRITICAL THINKER (for ages 12-18). I took the exercises that were inside Raising Critical Thinkers and added a slew more. I included journal prompts, checklists, ranking bars, and boxed spaces for kids to write directly in the book. BECOMING A CRITICAL THINKER is open for presale and will publish on May 7!

How does the queen of no workbooks get arm-twisted into writing one?

Compliments.

My editors believed in me. They thought you’d all want a book that gave your 12-18 year olds a way to work through the exercises in Raising Critical Thinkers. They also thought that I had more exercises and tricks up my sleeve (they were right).

And so, I made a thing and I like it! I hope you do too.

It’s called Becoming a Critical Thinker and it’s written directly to your teens.

Preorder Your Copy!

I have some big announcements related to the workbook coming closer to publication day (May 7, 2024) so stay tuned for those. But in the meantime: Yay! I wrote a workbook I would actually use with my own kids!

Editor’s Description

At a time when we’re constantly flooded with contradictory information and opinions, critical thinking skills are more important than ever. This accessible workbook is full of valuable insights, thought-provoking questions, and useful exercises to help teens and preteens expand their perspectives, skillfully navigate thorny issues, recognize bias, identify misinformation, and become more comfortable with dissent and differences of opinion. Becoming a Critical Thinker offers essential tools for students to mature into thoughtful, curious, and empathetic learners.

How do we hear one another while holding our own ideas with conviction?

Remind ourselves that listening to someone else is in no way threatening to the conclusions we’ve already drawn.

Sometimes we find listening painful. To hear another viewpoint can feel as though we are allowing ourselves to be attacked or invalidated or undermined.

That’s not what’s happening.

Instead, when we give another person the floor to make their case, we are allowing for ideas to surface that need to be heard and accounted for (even in our own thinking). We may not be giving up anything about our position, but we at least can now imagine and understand the way in which our viewpoint is not addressing the core concerns of someone with a different perspective.

To be curious without defensiveness, then, is to allow someone else the space to say what they have to say without rushing in with a “gotcha” comment or the need to immediately retort with all the reasons their logic doesn’t work for us.

To show curiosity also doesn’t mean we can’t also express how we see it. Not only that, the best conversations include viewpoints—beliefs and perspectives that each person holds.

Curiosity without defensiveness starts at home with our little dissidents. Our kids will challenge our good ideas every day. Once in a while, ask them to share more. Discover how they put the pieces together for themselves and think about how we can account for:

• their needs,
• their beliefs,
• their ideas in the solutions we create together.

I write a lot about these ideas with practical activities in my book, Raising Critical Thinkers.

Knowing what to think is not the same as knowing how to think.

What parent doesn’t want to give their kids a shortcut to a safe, meaningful, values-driven life?

I do!

The biggest temptation we face is what I call the “Parental Propaganda Program.” We have the belief that we’ve figured out how to live correctly. All we have to do is teach our kids what to think.

We tell them “sleeping eight hours makes you less cranky” and “eating vegetables matters” and “standing for this belief is essential.”

Teaching kids what to think short-circuits their ability to think well for themselves. They learn that someone else has the answers for them and to trust an authority figure more than their own research.

You may feel good about being that source of authority in your child’s life. After all, you’re that figure…for now. What about when they’re teens? Who will they select to tell them the one right path/answer? I’m here to tell you—many of them choose a slightly older teenager!

Learning How to Think

What happens if we put learning “how to think” first? It means taking a child’s dissent (or challenges) seriously. It means setting aside your preconceptions.

“I hate vegetables” becomes an opportunity. You support your child doing their own research, to honor their experiences.

Kids discover that their experiences drive meaningful questions that deserve to be asked (not automatically answered).

The choice to hold back our “better answers” is challenging for us!

And yet, parents often parrot information they’ve learned from an authority without thinking it through themselves.

I might ask myself:

• Why do I assume vegetables are important?
• What ways did people get nourished before supermarkets and year-round produce?
• What else can I learn with my child about this subject?

Learning how to think protects a child from cults, peer pressure, and bullying others.

You owe no homeschool expert total allegiance.

In fact, it is your obligation to think critically about any educational philosophy you adopt, consider, explore.

How do you do that? You ask lots of questions. Oodles of them.

Starter questions to pose to any educational philosophy:

• Who created this philosophy and when? For what audience?
• What problem is this philosophy trying to solve? Is that problem active in my family?
• Who has traditionally benefited from this philosophy? Who benefits now?
• What do the detractors say?
• How comprehensive is this way of educating?
• Do some subjects thrive in these conditions? Which ones?
• Are some subjects overlooked or diminished in this system?
• Does the philosophy of education imply a worldview that causes harm?
• Does it imply an association with religious or secular ideas and do either of those matter to me?
• How critical is the role of the teacher? And am I prepared to participate (or not!) at that level?
• Which of my children might this suit? Which might it harm or impair?
• How flexible is it? How flexible am I?
• Why am I attracted to it?
• What ideal version of myself does it imply?
• Who would I be seen as if I don’t live up to its standards?
• Am I okay with not being good at it, yet doing it anyway?
• How expensive is it to implement?
• What accommodations can be made for my special needs children?
• How much support is there when I have questions?
• Who are the “experts”? Do I resonate with them?
• Is there a way to “try” the philosophy before committing?