New blog post: Critical Thinking

The first week of teaching, and the kids are alright.

Teaching began last week, and I used the face-to-face time with my students to encourage some critical discussion of a fashion brand whose story focused on sustainability.

At the end of the session, I asked students what they would take away from the discussion to apply to their own work.

About 25% of them said: “To think more deeply about what I’m looking at“, “To dig into information to find out what’s really happening”, “To think more critically” – or some variation of this.

This was the first week of a new second year, so I was taken aback. One of my teaching aims is always to encourage critical thought, but it’s rare that it ‘lands’ so early on in the year.

What encouraged these students (albeit a small percent of them) to recognise the importance of critical thinking?

What had we done that had got them thinking that way?

How can we learn from this brief experience to improve our own critical thinking, and that of those around us?

Answers to these questions are unpacked in my latest blog post.

Read on: Critical Thinking

Photo by David Iskander via Unsplash