Here’s an important basic truth to bear in mind: You can’t be a critical thinker without developing a foundation of confidence. “Most people think confidence is a feeling, but it’s really an action,” says Professor Maja Jovanovic, PhD in sociology and author of Hey Ladies, Stop Apologizing. “You take action first, pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, little by little, and you feel confident later. By taking action (answering a question in class, even if you’re unsure of the answer, giving an oral presentation, disagreeing with someone, defending a position you’ve taken, making a mistake and not internalizing it, etc.,), all of these things take action, and each action builds upon the last, thereby building confidence.”
So how can we encourage children to become critical thinkers? Professor Jovanovic outlines her tips below.
Asking better questions
“I love what Teacher Evaluator Brian Oshiro says in his TEDx talk about asking our children better questions, in particular ‘What, How and Why questions.’ For instance, if we take the Titanic as an example, we begin by asking ‘What were the main causes of the Titanic sinking?’ After searching for their answers, we get students to explain what they’ve found by asking ‘Why is this important to know? Why should we be concerned about this?’ This leads to the final important question of ‘How do you know this? How does your perspective or opinion differ from others?’ And lastly, ‘How can you solve this problem?’ These ‘what, how and why’ questions move beyond basic memorization and helps students take the knowledge they’re learning at home and school and relate it to their everyday lives.It helps to encourage children to explain and synthesize the information they’ve gathered in order to defend their positions in an articulate manner.”
Building empathy
“Part of becoming a critical thinker is the ability to see an issue from different perspectives and that stems from empathy and open-mindedness. Empathy among teens is 40% lower than 30 years ago while narcissism has increased by 58%. In our hyper connected selfie-world where most of us are constantly plugged in socially while also multitasking our ability to read other’s emotions are declining. Empathic children can understand the needs of others while also being better at regulating their own emotions, but before perspective taking can occur, kids have to recognize the emotions of others. To do that, Dr. Borba recommends face-to-face contact as much as possible. Kids are using their phones at least 7-8 hours a day and each hour spent online deprives them of the ability to read emotions and develop empathy. Another tip is to help children build a bigger emotion vocabulary beyond the basics of happy, angry or sad. Helping children recognize, understand and name a wide variety of emotions such as: cooperative, gloomy, thrilled, sensitive, embarrassed and frustrated, will help them accurately decipher the emotions of others under a variety of circumstances. To learn more on why empathy is such an important life skill for children to develop see Dr. Michelle Borba’s book Unselfied.”
Developing a growth mindset
“Fixed mindset kids believe their intelligence is a fixed trait. You’re born with a set amount and that’s it. Students in this mindset might say ‘I’m not good at math or I can’t write essays.’ Whereas, growth mindset kids believe that intelligence, talents and abilities can be developed. They would say ‘math was really difficult at first, but I’ve worked so hard on it, that I’ve improved a lot.’
For kids with a growth mindset, they see success as linked to effort and persistence because they believe they can grow their skill sets and talents; they see the possibility for success everywhere Because they know the importance of dedication and persistence and the value of mistakes, they’re more likely to love learning and be more resilient when dealing with setbacks. A growth mindset helps students see the value on working through difficult problems; they take on new challenges and they persist when it gets tough and, in the end, they increase both their abilities and their achievements. Can you imagine how many innovations, new designs or brilliant ideas would never have been developed if people had fixed mindsets?
Caregivers can help develop the growth mindset by praising their child’s process, focus, strategy, and perseverance rather than praising their intelligence or talent. So instead of saying “you’re so smart, you’re such a natural at this” we can say “I love the strategy that you used; your effort and hard work paid off”. See more examples here.”
Destigmatizing our relationship with failure
“Related to the growth mindset is dealing with failure and it merits its own discussion here. We must destigmatize our relationship with failure and teach our children that failure is simply information. Children with a fixed mindset believe that when they make a mistake, they are the mistake. When in actuality, failures teach us to manage the disappointment that comes with making a mistake and this is a learned skill. You cannot be a critical thinker without fundamentally changing your relationship to failure. Children who have a fixed mindset are fearful of trying new things because they could fail so they’re more likely to give up when dealing with difficulties. This fear of failure prevents our kids from thinking outside the book and developing new ideas because they’re preoccupied with ‘looking smart’ or avoiding the embarrassment that comes with making a mistake. Therefore, they’re not processing or learning from their mistakes. BUT the good news is that children can be taught how to fail and handle mistakes. We can teach our children this by modeling how we fail and how we talk about failures in the home. The #1 tip I can give caregivers is to ask your children every day: ‘What did you struggle on today? Tell me about your mistakes? What did you learn from your mistakes?’ Parents should participate in this exercise themselves, go around the table and have everyone lay their mistakes out so that we de-stigmatize failure and discuss what we learned instead.”
Stop apologizing
“Girls in particular are asked to conform to impossible standards of perfection and niceness, resulting in the use of minimizing language and over apologizing in order to avoid negative feedback. Minimizing language would be giving statements that sound like questions, prefacing their opinions or ideas with ‘this might sound stupid, but.’ Girls frequently over-apologize for mundane issues in order to fit in and be ‘nice.’ We need to encourage our girls to not apologize for making mistakes or for giving the wrong answer. This apology habit worsens when girls hit puberty and begin apologizing for their periods or period symptoms leading to period stigma and shame. As a researcher that studies women’s confidence and communication styles, I was so pleased to work with Midol’s No Apologies, Period campaign to bring awareness to this apologetic communication style and empower girls and women to stop apologizing, period. Midol’s research showed 90% of Gen Z say their gut reaction is to apologize while 47% of menstruators have given a period apology. Our bodies and our periods should no longer be viewed as apology-worthy.
Lastly, the learning doesn’t stop when school does, we should all be lifelong learners, reading, listening and watching different formats of information, learning from different perspectives as often as we can so that we model critical independent thinking and communication for our children.”
