THE QUESTIONING GAME

This is an attempt to introduce the ideas of Critical Thinking or CT to the faculty and to provide some materials with which to pursue these ideas in class.

It is common to hear it said of students that they have many received ideas, and no original ones, and this is blamed on the educational culture in which they have grown up.
Rote learning, the overvaluation of authority, the passivity of learning facts to be examined and forgotten as soon as the exams are passed, these are all the sort of ingrained habits that we see in our students, and which we wish to overcome.

I have taken some ideas from a very active movement in Europe and the States which encourages the teaching of critical thinking from an early age. One of their slogans is the witty "I am four, therefore I think!"

In the UK, Critical Thinking is a curriculum subject in Sixth Form, and one report has a philosopher asking 7-year old schoolchildren about Heraclitus’ famous dictum that “ You can’t step in the same river twice” : one girl takes a literal approach:

"Well - I think you can step in twice because if you step in once with one leg you can step in a second time with the other leg," she says.

Another says: "You could step in the river one day and then go home. Then the next day you could come back to the same river - as long as you know the way - and do it again."

Neither of them question whether the river is still the same, or if it has changed, or if indeed they themselves have changed, but one bright spark says:

"If you step in the river on Saturday and then you went to step in the river on the next day - where you stepped on Saturday would be gone because the river keeps on moving."

How little Johnny saw this possibility while his peers did not is a mystery, but perhaps by continuing with the questioning game, we can encourage insights like his.

It might be also fun to ask 7 year olds whether they themselves are in fact characters in some cosmic video game, and how they could show that they are not, but that might be tantamount to child abuse.


.

A Call to Reasoned Judgement

A judge making a decision in court is not expected to base his judgements on his subjective preferences or on his personal opinions.

Judgement based on sound reasoning go beyond facts alone or mere opinion alone.

Facts are typically used in reasoning, but good reasoning does more than state facts so a judgement that is well-reasoned

is not described as simply "opinion"; we demand that it be based on relevant and sound reasoning.



Here's a somewhat different way to put this same point. There are three different kinds of question.

1. Those with one right answer (factual questions fall into this category).

eg What is the boiling point of water?

eg. How far is it from Doha to Dubai?

2 Those with as many answers as there are different human preferences.
eg. Which would you prefer, a vacation in the mountains or one at the seashore.
eg. Who was the best football player of all time?

These kinds of question are mostly a matter of personal opinion, though some facts and data may be used as support.


3. Questions with answers that should be well-reasoned, with factual support.
eg How can we solve the problem of poverty in the world today?

eg. Do animals have the same rights as humans?


This is a matter of reasoned judgement - so we can rationally evaluate answers to the question
using universal intellectual standards such as clarity, depth, consistency and so forth.


When questions that require reasoned answers are treated as matters of opinion, then bad thinking happens.


If students come to assume that everyone's "opinion" is of equal value, we can expect to hear views such as these:


That's just your point of view. We do things differently where I come from!

That was then. Things are different now...

I know what's right, and I don't have to justify it!

Whose standards? Why shouldn't we have our own standards?

Don't I have a right to my own opinion?

What if I don't believe in being "rational?"


Sloppy thinkers fail to see the difference between simply asserting a view as true, and offering solid reasons and evidence in support of it.

We want to teach students to recognize good reasoning, to value it and respect it.

Critical Thinking Appraisal

The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, a commonly-used assessment instrument, defines five key skills: drawing inferences, recognizing assumptions, drawing conclusions, interpreting data, and evaluating arguments.

Drawing inferences: The ability to infer unstated facts from a series of statements.

Recognising assumptions: The ability to identify unstated assumptions or presuppositions in a series of assertive statements

Argument evalutation: The ability to determine whether conclusions necessarily follow from the information given in statements or premises

Deductive reasoning: The ability to weigh evidence and decide if generalisations or conclusions based on the given data are warranted

Logical interpretation: The ability to distinguish between arguments that are strong and relevant from those that are weak or irrelevant.