Delivering Critical Thinking as an Educational Goal: Some Considerations

Randy Hollister, Ph.D., headmaster

Loudoun Country Day School

Critical thinking ought to be among the most important cognitive objectives of every educational program in every school. While there are many special programs designed specifically to promote critical thinking, the goal to make students think critically can—and should—be achieved through any subject, so long as it is approached in a manner that challenges students to think. A key step in the process of promoting critical thinking in the classroom, therefore, is the talents and capacities of the classroom teacher. But promoting critical thinking among students, however, requires more than a desire to do so and more than a basic idea of how to do it.

What is too rarely mentioned in discussions of critical thinking in education are the essential aspects of the teaching environment that impact a teacher’s ability to develop his or her students’ potential to think critically. Assuming the teacher has the requisite skills for and commitment to teaching her students to think critically, that teacher must also have a teaching environment conducive to supporting that goal. Teaching students to think critically involves more than simply stating it as a goal. Achieving it requires a commitment to a Socratic approach that is not possible in all environments.

One of the chief obstacles to the goal of critical thinking and the overall quality of instruction is the number of students per classroom. While there is no absolute, magical number of students beyond which it becomes harder and harder to maintain quality and achieve goals such as critical thinking, there is no doubt that as the numbers of students in elementary school classes exceed 18, the quality is affected. Teachers of classrooms in which the numbers of students exceed 20 acknowledge the significant impact of each additional student beyond that number. In situations in which the numbers rise to the low or mid 20s or higher, teachers often admit struggling merely to maintain order, let alone achieving the worthy goal of critical thinking.

In addition to the number of students per class, another factor that significantly affects a teacher’s ability to promote critical thinking is the amount of additional professional, instructional and administrative support that is provided in the classroom. Having full-time, professional assistants in classrooms contributes significantly to the teacher’s ability to deliver the educational program in a manner that challenges students to think critically. The simple reality is that the additional professional support makes it possible for each child to receive that much more individual attention and intellectual stimulation and challenge. The absence of that additional support, particularly when the number of students per class exceeds 20, significantly limits the teacher’s ability to reach and challenge each child in a meaningful way.

Related to the issue of the number of students in the classroom is the range of the students’ abilities and readiness to learn. Generally, the greater the number of students in a classroom, the wider range of abilities and needs; and the wider the range of abilities, the greater is the challenge to meet individual needs and engage the classroom in activities that promote critical thinking. Simply stated, a narrower range of readiness to learn lends itself to greater focus, concentration, and motivation, and contributes enormously to goal of developing critical thinking. This is simply a truism regarding the realities of pedagogy.

Promoting critical thinking in the classroom is made possible through not only a commitment to that worthy ideal, but to creating a teaching environment that limits the number of students per classroom to an acceptable number and provides the instructional support required to engage each student in a meaningful way. In the absence of such key elements, espousing the goal of promoting critical thinking among students is little more than rhetoric.

Given the myriad complex and significant challenges facing our nation and world today and for years to come, our educational system, more than ever before, needs an approach that is universally and deeply committed to developing our students as conscientious, caring critical thinkers. The time has come that we address these important issues on local, state, and national levels, and dedicate our valuable resources to a renewed commitment on critical thinking as a key educational objective, as opposed to the current practice of attempting to assess individual and school progress through an undue emphasis on standardized testing process that denies our children the opportunity to a more meaningful education.