A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Have you noticed that some people think they’re expressing facts when really they’re telling you a story about a fact?

Facts matter, but it’s what we say about them that determines how we think. Sometimes the stories we tell become so powerful, we adopt beliefs that undermine the fact itself. I’ve watched people use the same fact to prove entirely opposing ideas or beliefs.

Self-Awareness

That’s why I like to remind everyone that critical thinking starts with self-awareness. We can notice the way our own desire to be right or to fit into our communities or to know more than someone else undermines our ability to learn or have our assumptions challenged. We might even reject a fact just because it conflicts with what our community expects us to believe.

My workbook BECOMING A CRITICAL THINKER teaches your 12-18 year olds how to hold a bias while examining uncomfortable views. It gives them direct experience with examining their assumptions and exploring the ideas and beliefs of people who see the world differently. They will have tools that help them identify scams and charlatans.

Let’s raise a generation of kids who don’t get sucked into black-and-white, antagonistic thinking! Teach them to think for themselves and to think well!

Our in-person lives tend to put us in relationships built on agreement.

The internet, however, introduces us to people we would never meet in person. That’s both wonderful and challenging. We never know the condition of a person’s mind, heart, or personality when we encounter them online. The person replying to your comment could be a retired professor, someone killing time on canada casino sites, or a fourteen-year-old doing homework. Others come to us without context.

Yet we also have the chance to learn perspectives that would otherwise be completely hidden from us if we didn’t have online life together with so many different types of people and experiences.

The trouble is…

We’ve been conditioned to believe that if we declare a “fact” with a source of authority, everyone will fall into line and agree with us. Isn’t that what happens in school? One right answer for each test question, established by the authority, enforced by that teacher, regardless of who you are.

So we are struggling to adapt to a world where lots of answers with many sources of authority compete for space and truth value. It’s a huge adjustment! It will take time to overcome.

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Also, for extra support in the process, my book Raising Critical Thinkers goes into much more depth about these ideas.

Have you ever felt like someone was pressuring you to take their viewpoint? They may:

• use coercive language,
• shame you,
• be condescending,
• or criticize your character.

That’s not critical thinking. That’s group think. That’s the pressure to pick sides or to prove your loyalty.

I use these five principles to help me when I feel slammed by pushy messages, comments, or remarks from family or friends.

5 Principles

1. Critical thinking starts with caring.
2. We believe we’re sharing facts, when in fact (ha!) we’re sharing interpretations of facts.
3. Knowing you’re biased is half the journey to self-aware critical thinking.
4. Underneath our desire to have the correct point of view is a drive for sameness—the certainty of agreement rather than the discomfort of difference.
5. Deeper thinking depends on the ability to expand the field of vision, to notice our emotional reactivity, and to assess the judgments we’ve made on that basis.

My book for parents, Raising Critical Thinkers, and workbook for teens, Becoming a Critical Thinker, were written for these exact reasons. Thinking well is risky, emotionally volatile, and deeply important.