Being educated has many components: a broad base of factual knowledge, the ability to extract and use pertinent information from written or verbal content, well-developed computational skills, and the demonstrable ability to form and support a line of reasoning. We also hope students will find a passionate life or career interest—and perhaps some creative outlet—that contributes to their overall life satisfaction, sense of purpose, and ability to connect with others.
All of this is, ideally, supposed to lead to what we loosely refer to as “the ability to think” so that young people are able to navigate the challenges that life will inevitably throw their ways.
Of course, deciding what thinking is—or should be—is the pesky little detail that bedevils educators who are tasked with teaching this elusive life essential, and trying to measure the success of many years of schooling at imparting thinking skills is an even more frustrating endeavor.
Simple problem solving seems a reasonable first measure of thinking ability.
Whether it is working through an equation or making a decision about how to present information to an audience, we expect a well educated person to be able to access specific knowledge and experience to complete an assigned task. This may or may not demonstrate thinking—we may instead be seeing the outcome of practice and determination—but this seems a good foundation upon which to ladder higher order skills.
On a more elevated plane of thinking, we hope that an educated individual is able to anticipate the problems that might arise from a course of action or the pursuit of a specific idea or belief.
Unpleasant surprises are sometimes a part of life, but we expect that knowledge and experience will combine to allow for imaginative and logical thought that can foresee the consequences that lie ahead when a certain decision is made. If we presume to call this ability to realize one is stumbling into self-created disaster the hallmark of a thoughtful person, we can readily recognize that impulsive teenagers and far too many of our elected leaders are unable to anticipate difficulties before they happen and avoid life’s most avoidable problems. One look at the gigantic dent in the family car or the many catastrophically expensive failures of so many government programs and policies is all we need to see to understand that this facet of the ability to think is sadly lacking across a broad swathe of America today.
If foresight can be considered a reasonable indicator of the ability to think, we seem to be suffering a societal epidemic of stupidity at the present time, and the the sheer number of “unforeseen” problems that now bankrupt us, divide us, and endanger us is staggering. Sadly, we seem to have now somehow fallen, much to the detriment of ourselves and our nation, under the control of a self-perpetuating and self-interested caste of supposed experts in finance, foreign policy, natural resource management, law, education, healthcare, child rearing, and basic human relations who, taken as a whole, lack the good sense God gave a goose. Just take a look at the insanity engulfing our nation today for proof positive of this problem.
However, there is a problem concerning our inability to think that is an even worse threat to our health, safety, and prosperity than the first two: I would argue that the ability to demonstrate flexibility in the face of new information or experiences is the top tier of critical thinking skills—and the most egregiously lacking—in our country today.
We like to believe that we are teaching this open-mindedness in our schools and colleges, but the mounting evidence is that we are graduating a great many bat-blind ideologues who have no interest in thinking—except when thinking of new ways of enforcing unquestioning obedience to their preferred beliefs. We see this demonstrated daily in the campus speech codes, mandated diversity pledges, stilted classroom discussions, and intrusive armies of DEI bureaucrats that are all enforcing a hive mind conformity which is antithetical to the thoughtful and unfettered conversations we must have regarding the many pressing problems facing America today.
Schools and colleges that suppress a diversity of ideas in the name of promoting a fuzzy “tolerance” that brooks no dissent from the party line are weakening minds, promoting hatreds, and encouraging sloganeering—not helping our youngest citizens learn how to think for themselves. To continue rewarding the proponents of indoctrination—who disdain actual education—is utter madness.