---

There's something missing from our education.

One result of what's missing is that it's easy for Bermudians to hear or read some news item and treat it as though it was the gospel. We are just as likely to misunderstand or misinterpret what was heard or read, and become agents of mis- or incomplete information. Another result is the number of our youth - and adults, unfortunately - who are led astray by superficial images or ambitions. (Of course this occurs elsewhere too, but with our claim to be the "gold standard", we could do better.)

Whatever the core reason, it seems that reliable information is more

difficult to come by, and the one of the more essential skills we need to be teaching in homes and schools is that of "critical thinking" or "effective thinking".

Critical thinking may be defined as the practice of exercising our mental muscles in ways that support clear thinking, grounded in

fair-mindedness and intellectual integrity. Critical thinking skills develop the habit of seeking validation of information fed to us

before repeating it, accepting it or acting on it.

Without critical thinking, we have few benchmarks by which to verify the truth or untruth of information passed to us.

One of the most important ingredients of critical thinking is the asking of questions - good questions, and then follow-up questions.

Yet, we have a mode of teaching prevalent in many of our schools that treats questions as unwanted interruptions, as uppity, as

disruptions. In the 1950's for example, parents were asked to remove their children from one of our most esteemed high schools because they "asked too many questions".

One-way flow

This attitude toward questioning pervades our island, particularly in

the black community. The core belief that "children should be seen and not heard" helps stunt intellectual growth in our youngsters. The one-way flow of information from the television set further inhibits

development of habits of healthy query about presented information.

A definitive nail in the coffin of critical thinking is hammered in by some religious sects who seem in severe denial about the contradictions in their sourcebook, that make it unreliable as the ultimate fount of all information. Their insistence that a book is

the all and only truth is at the same time a barrier to critical thinking and a consequence of its absence.

The final straw is an

education system in which questioning and challenging are viewed as subversive rather than as indicators of healthy, inquiring minds.

I know of adults in my parents' generation who believed and espoused

that anything the government said or did must be right because, after

all, it was "the government". The same was held true of almost anyone

in a position of authority. We now know that even people in the most

elevated of positions can say and do things that are accidentally or deliberately misleading.

We need to develop a healthy skepticism for whatever flows from the

mouths or pens of speakers and scribes. And we need to develop, in our youth especially, and from as early an age as possible, the skills to question and verify the information put to us.

We want our youth to resist peer pressure, to resist enticements from the drug or"gangstah" cultures, to resist lures to wrongdoing from every quarter.

Adding the concept of critical thinking to our education systems would be a good step.[[In-content Ad]]

---