Teaching Children Critical Thinking Skills

"Look at our cool new toy! All the kids love it. See how much fun they're having? YOU could be having this much fun, too, if only you had this toy! Check out this kid... He was playing all by himself until he got this toy. Now, he's got a ton of friends who brought their cool toys over so they could all play together - and they're having a pool party, too! Just beg your parents for the toy and they'll get it for you... if they love you! Only $19.95. Get it NOW!!!"

That's how it starts. When we're young. Commercials have power. Did you ever beg for the toy in the commercial, only to have someone actually buy it for you? If you got the toy, was it nearly as cool as it was made out to be? Did it do all of the cool things the commercial promised? Did it break five minutes after you got it out of the package?

Advertising is amazing, isn't it? I remember when I started to realize that everything I saw or heard on TV wasn't exactly true. It made me feel smart that advertisers couldn't use the power of words and pictures to make me believe everything they said. I learned to read the fine print at the bottom of the screen. I figured out that the statistics that get flashed in front of me may have come from studies of 10 people. Like, "9 out of 10 physicians we asked prefer our brand!"

But, I didn't get the full jist of critical thinking until I took a college course on it. I learned about red herrings and hyperbole. I learned how it's not only advertisers who use this stuff. You need critical thinking skills for everything - politicians, drug companies, and the government are great at getting people to believe them. We're supposed to trust them, right? Why would they lie to us?

I have thought that schools should be required to offer critical thinking classes to all high school students. The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that we cannot trust such a big job to them. They are part of the government! I believe that, if schools were to include critical thinking skill in their curricula, they would do a great job of teaching children to be wary of advertisements. Period. The government relies heavily on our trust in it, so why would it go out of its way to teach entire generations to question authorities of any kind? It could be disastrous to politics.

***Now, before we go any farther: The examples I am going to be using are MY personal beliefs. It doesn't really matter what I believe or what you believe. These are examples. It's the lesson that are important, not the personal political and health topics of the examples. So, if you don't agree with my point-of-view, that's cool. That's not what I'm writing about... OK? Still with me? Good.***

1) Do Your Own Research

Remember a couple of years ago, when governmental health departments were threatening us with possible death from the flu if we didn't go out and get an immunization against it? There was a huge advertising campaign that probably cost billions of dollars that tried every angle known to man to get every man, woman, and child immunized against this killer. I remember one letter I received in the mail from our county health department, after we all should have received our shots. It was pretty creepy and gave me a "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!" kind of feeling. The letter stated that they knew my children had not been immunized with the flu vaccine and gave me a date and time of when a health department social worker would be at my home to talk with me about why I chose not to give the shot. Or, I could have the kids immunized, get a doctor's note, and mail it to them within two weeks. I was scared to death that they might have the power to take my kids into custody just because I didn't agree to have them immunized. Once the fear ebbed, I came to my senses and did some research, asked questions, and finally called them and told them a visit wasn't necessary. (Thank you, NVIC!) My state allows parents to refuse vaccines based on their philosophical standpoint. The letter was their way of scaring parents into getting the shot. I didn't know it at the time, but my friend received the same letter. She had her kids to the doctor the next day - she was sure her kids were headed to foster homes if she didn't do what she was told.

Now, I'm not writing about anyone's personal decision of whether to immunize or not - I just wanted to show you an example of how the government can cause panic by not giving you all of the facts. Nowhere did my letter tell me my rights. I now know that I could have thrown the thing out, let the worker show up at my door, and refuse him or her entry. There's nothing they could have done.

2) Question Authority

As parents, we need to step up and teach our children to question authority. They have a right to ask questions. Even the basic laws we have, in our homes or in our government, should be questioned. Laws are basically a way to keep peace in society. (Yes, I know. Nowadays, laws are more than that, but let's go into that another time.) There are laws about how to act when you drive a car. These are laws that keep us safe: Stop at red lights, drive at or below the speed limit, the car on the right has the right-of-way. A child might question one of these laws: Well, why do we have to stop just because the light turned red? If we didn't stop at red lights, people would go whenever they want and two cars going in different directions could crash. You can also teach kids that laws are a kind of set of rules for manners: You stop at red lights to give drivers going in the opposite direction a turn. I don't want my children to act like blindfolded sheep, just following along with the herd. The more questions they get answers to, the more they learn.

I know that I was safe from being charged with any kind of neglect for not having my kids immunized because I didn't just believe what they told me. I looked for my own answers. It's great to answer any questions that young children have, but it's even better to show them how to find the answers on their own! When my oldest was still being homeschooled, I used to carry a pen and a pad of paper with me. Whenever he had an authority-questioning inquiry, I wrote it down. This was back before the days of using the Internet to find all of your answers, so we visited the library once a week. I showed him how to look for books using the card catalog (yes, before computerized library systems, too!) Many times, we found ourselves in the law section of the library. But we also visited biology, physics, sociology, and reference. He learned how to find answers to his questions.

At the beginning of the school year this year, he came home pretty upset. One of his instructors was teaching the class that our Congress-persons were in Washington D.C. as representatives of the people who elected them. These representatives made decisions based on the needs of those people. My son's says he shook his head (now, my thinking is he probably made a snide comment to a classmate...) The teacher asked him to stand up and say what his problem with the lesson was. Now, he thought this was really cool - high school is a meeting of the minds! He told the teacher his basic understanding was that big companies usually told the representative what to think. (Now, whatever your opinion on this subject is is fine with me. This is my belief and I have explained my belief to my son who then adopted it as his own. For the purposes of the story, the table could have been turned and the teacher was telling the students about lobbyists and my son was on the other end of the argument. It really doesn't matter to the outcome.) The teacher asked him to gather his things leave the classroom. No explanation. Didn't send him to the office. Nothing. He stood in the hallway until class was over. He was confused, afraid, and angry. He had questioned authority and even gave his reason for questioning and was tossed out of class for it. He didn't think he'd done anything wrong and neither did I.

Now, I'll leave the rest of the story for another time because it really has nothing to do with my post. What it does show is that, when we begin to question authority, we're bound to run into those who are afraid of our questions. We need to prepare our children for this - something I neglected to to for my son. I'm remedying the situation right now. He needs to know that questions are OK to ask, whether the response is appropriate or not is another thing entirely. When he questioned the teacher's lesson, she didn't know how to cope with the challenge, so she reacted inappropriately. He now knows that he has the right to ask - no one can take that from him just because he's a kid! An improper response is just that - improper. He's not responsible for that part of it. And, if he should end up in trouble for asking a question, I'll stand behind him. Incidentally, I've also taught him the difference between questioning authority for a legitimate reason and doing it just to make trouble.

3) See For Yourself

Back to that cool toy. I think the only way to convince kids that commercials are not telling them the whole truth is to show them. Buy your kid the "must have it" toy once in a while, if you can afford it. Here's how I did it with my oldest (still working on this with Little Guy.) He saw the commercial and just had to have it. And the darn commercial was on every single time we turned on the TV. The toy was in every ad insert in our Sunday newspaper. He saw it in the stores when we went out. He constantly begged for it. I got sick of hearing about it, so I decided that I'd try something other than ignoring the pleas. Whenever the commercial came on, I'd sit with him and watch it. I'd ask him questions: Do you really think that thing can fly that high? Does it really walk all on it's own? Wow - I wonder if that kid's friends are playing with him because they like him or the toy more. Do you think that mom would love her kid any less if she didn't buy that for him? Do you know that I have go away to work for three hours just to make enough money to buy that one toy? On and on. I asked one, maybe two, questions each time the stupid commercial came on. We talked about the answers. He still wanted the toy. So, I bought it for him for his birthday. He was so excited... then heartbroken. It was not nearly how he thought it would be. It broke the next day while he was trying to make it do something he saw it doing in the commercial. We talked about it. I asked all the questions again, this time he had the answers down. He knew.

The one experience didn't teach him to be wary of commercials. Soon there was another must-have toy and we went through the same things. I think we had about a year, between the ages of four and five, where the cycle repeated about four times. After that, he started asking himself the questions. To this day, there are still times when he comes across something he really wants. But, usually, it's because he's done his research and still wants it. And, usually, the thing ends up being true-to-life. He doesn't get caught up in all of the promises that ads make. In fact, I'd have to say that he's onto them even faster than me! Now, when a commercial comes on TV and we're watching together, we play a game of pointing out all of the crazy claims that they make. He loves being smarter than the advertising pros!



Do you have any advice on how to teach children critical thinking? Please share them. I think that Little Guy is going to be harder than my oldest was to teach these skills...

Learned Some New Facts About America! {Smart Summer CHallenge - Week 2 Wrap-Up}

Tweet

Well, I'm finally getting around to typing up this post! We had a really good time with this week's theme of 'government'. I know that most of the people who took part in this week's challenge are parents to younger children, I wanted to make sure to involve my 13 year-old son in the Smart Summer Challenge, too. And, really, teaching a two-year-old about government is kind of pointless. I could have done some red, white, and blue crafts and even tried to explain democracy to him, but he's just not ready to really learn this stuff yet. So, I took advantage of having an older child who, at this point, is very interested in his rights and laws anyway. Hypocrisy is a big one to him, too, and (as we know) there is a lot of that floating around our governmental establishments!

In my first post for this week, I outlined my plan: to create a kind of scavenger hunt of questions about the formation of the US government for my oldest to look up at the library.I made a little fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, and question and answer page for him. I learned a lot of new and interesting things when I created this page!

When he first saw it, without reading it, he balked! "Mom! You said this would be fun! It looks like a test and it's JULY - I'm not in school!!!" Then he read it. He told me it would be so easy to do - he'd have it filled out after just one afternoon at the library. LOL - He came home the first day with just two questions answered. It wasn't because he couldn't find the answers, he explained. He just found it so amazing that, for instance, Thomas Jefferson was quite an interesting character and had a pretty great sense of humor. He was interested in growing things and had a ton of tomato plants, way back when people still thought they were poisonous. To freak people out, he once pulled out a tomato in the middle of a formal dinner party and ate it - it cause quite a stir! My son and I had a lot of laughs about how people may have reacted - women fainting and servants being called to summon a doctor, bring leeches to purify his blood, etc.

My son has a new hero on Benjamin Franklin now. It seems that the more he learned about the man, the greater respect he gained for him. One of the questions I asked on that paper was to write down some of the sayings that Franklin invented that my son didn't know were his. He came home with an entire paper filled with them! One of his favorites was, "A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one."

In addition to the paper I created, we learned about the laws in our area and how they pertain to teens. You can read about this HERE. I am not one of those anti-government people, but I am also not a sheep who believes every word that is uttered from a governmental agency. I'm a critical thinker and am wary of anything anyone tells me is a "fact" without first checking some sources (yes, more than one source.) I want my children to grow up doing the right thing because it is right, not because someone wrote down a rule that became a law.

Some laws are just plain stupid, but we need to understand that they were written down for one reason or another. Maybe there were just so many idiots doing something stupid that the government had to create a law that would stop the idiocy. We have many dams crossing the river near our home. On the shore, on both sides of every dam, there is a sign posted that basically says it's against the law to walk on the dam. I asked my son and his friends why they thought the sign was there. "Well, duh! The river runs fast and if you fell, you could drown in the current!" As we were discussing whether the expense of the sign was worth it or not, we watched a guy in his 20's walk out onto the dam! And, guess what? He fell in, he struggled against the current, and finally made it to shore with the help of a fisherman who was standing nearby. Then, a police officer, who had seen the incident from a nearby bridge, showed up and wrote the man an big, fat ticket. How's that for proving that some laws really do need to be written out and posted, AND that breaking the law has consequences - from near-drowning to hefty fines!

On the other hand, some laws were written just to please or protect one particular sector of society. These are the laws that make absolutely no sense and make you question how they even came to pass. The kids told me they thought that these were the kind of laws that were just asking to be broken. That's when I got to "teach" them about democracy and freedom. About how, if you don't like something in the government, you have the freedom to try to change it. We talked about petitions, writing to congress, voting, etc. We talked about how long it takes to make changes and why it's important that time pass. Making rash decisions - especially the kind that affects the entire country - can be a bad thing (You may not agree with me, but I brought up the USA P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act here.)

An Unexpected Lesson on the Rights of Minors {Smart Summer Challenge - Week 2}

Tweet

If you missed my first Smart Summer Challenge post for this week, here's a little run down: This week's theme is Government. I decided to have my 13 year-old son look up the answers to some questions about American history that they just don't teach you in school. Well, we're still doing this and I'll post about it tomorrow.

Tonight's post is about an unexpected lesson my son learned earlier today about civil servants. I think it pertains to this week's theme very well.

The lesson: 

"Know the Law and Your Rights"

I'm going to have to go back to September 2009 to explain. (Hopefully, I can do it without writing a novel this time!) That's when a friend of my son's, I'll call him "S", was arrested for breaking & entering and vandalism. He was 12 years old at the time, almost 13, and hanging out with a couple of kids who were 15. One of these kids had the bright idea to break into one of the abandoned factories around here (there are LOTS - I live in Michigan, where they used to make a lot of cars.) They got in through a broken window and spent nearly three hours running around breaking stuff, burning stuff, painting nasty little phrases on walls... I'm sure you can just imagine the things three boys found to do in a place like that.

Well, these idiot kids didn't know it, but the entire place was outfitted with security cameras. Every second of their little adventure was caught on tape. S and the other two boys were questioned, taken to court, and punished. S got it the worst. The older boys had gotten together before getting caught and corroborated their stories, placing most of the blame on 12 year-old S. He was lucky enough to not had a run-in with the law beforehand and escaped any kind of kiddie jail. Instead, he was sentenced to a year and a half of community service. Every single weekend and day off of school (including all of last summer), he went to work for the city. He was "paid" minimum wage, which went to the building's owner or his insurance company. In addition, the kid was grounded until the community service was done with.

S and I have had many conversations about this incident. He was sorry for doing it the second he walked out of the factory. He knew it was wrong, he didn't think that an abandoned factory might actually have an owner or be worth anything. I'm not standing up for the kid and saying the punishment was too harsh or anything - he did something wrong and really did learn his lesson. Every time the subject comes up I can see it in his eyes - he's so very sorry for doing it.

At the end of the school year, S went to Texas to visit relatives and returned today. His parents had given him some of those firecrackers that just about every kid around here has from June 27th until they run out. I can't remember what their called - Black Cat? - they look like little birthday candles and emit a loud POP! There's a drought in Texas and he missed seeing fireworks, so they figured what the heck. (I know, some of you are thinking "What the hell would they give a kid fireworks for?!" but this really is common around here. Kids learn about fireworks at a very early age and, like it or not, 8-year-olds are walking around with firecrackers and lighters in their pockets. I'm leaving my opinion out of it, but just so you know, I just started letting my oldest shoot off bottle rockets - under adult supervision - this year.)

So, my son, S, and another of their friends went into the empty lot of dirt (it's about 1/2 acre) and my kid watched (I know because I watched him!) while his friends put firecrackers into pop cans, under tin cans, into plastic bags - just trying out every possible piece of trash they found. [Hey, don't knock it - it's experimentation! They were learning something. I'm serious!] Now, at this time, I could hear the same type of firecrackers sporadically going off all around the neighborhood. A few minutes into their fun, TWO police cars roll up. OK, now I'm heading out the door!

As I'm walking to the scene of the "crime" and still hearing fireworks going off all around me, my son and his one friend are walking toward me. S, on the other hand, is pushed over the hood of the car (the kid is 14 and a skinny little thing, like my son.) All I can think is This is bullshit! There's no reason for two grown men to have a kid who is doing the same thing that most boys his age are doing bent over a police car (with lights and sirens going), handcuffed, the contents of his backpack dumped onto the ground, and one officer literally yelling into his ear, "We know who you are! We have you on video from a couple of years ago! You're going downtown, boy!" Uh, WHAT?!

I tell my son and his friend to follow me - we're going to go see what the problem is and I want them around to tell me what happened. Being the mom that I am (actually all my son's friends except S are afraid of me because I'll do something like what you're about to read!), I stomp right up to the cops.
"Ma'am, you need to leave the scene, we're arresting a threat to the community."  
Oh, really? Your "threat" is bawling.
"Ma'am, this is really none of your business. We're going to have to ask you to return to your home before things get out of hand."  
Looks like things are very out of hand right now. How about telling me why this child is handcuffed and being held on your hood by his hair? (OK, not so eloquent, huh? But I'm so pissed I'm shaking.) You had better have a damn good reason for searching him, too. I don't see his parents anywhere.
"Lady, you're going to have to leave right now, or we'll arrest you for obstructing justice."
Hmm... I think you need to re-read the laws that you are supposed to be upholding. First, you're searching a minor without his or his parents' consent and he hasn't threatened anyone. Next, I saw how rough you were with this child and I believe that, since he did not threaten you, that is considered child abuse. Finally, he's allowed to have those fireworks - he's 14 and that the legal age for them.What 'justice' are you speaking of? (Yeah, not word-for-word. This sounds much better than what came out of my mouth - there were a bunch of "um's" and "errrr's". I just got really nervous because I've NEVER been arrested or even given a ticket before! My husband would have the kids eating ice cream for breakfast, lunch, & dinner!)

<Insert Lots of Hemming and Hawing HERE (the cops, not me!)>

To make a very long story just a teensy bit shorter:
They put S into my custody. Ha! Sounds all official and everything, but they can't do that! They don't know me - didn't even ask my name. Why not pick up some kid walking down the street and put him into the custody of some guy walking down the street? Would you feel comfortable with that if S were your kid? They did this official-sounding thing because they realized that just acting authoritative and sounding official doesn't always work when a citizen knows the law. I've taken more classes on students' and minors' rights in the past year for a degree in education that I know what's what (most of the time!)

So, after a long talk with all three of the boys about:
1) How I think it's wrong that they repeatedly pick on S due to one incident (they've done this to him about 6-7 times since the "incident" and he says he's not been doing anything wrong - I believe him and I'm a pretty good lie detector), and that this is the best way to teach someone to hate the authorities rather than respect them. In fact, there will sadly probably come a time when S decides that he may as well do all of the things that he's suspected of doing.
2) It is important to know your rights - inside and out.

3) Even if you're under 18, it doesn't mean that you do not have rights. In fact, many times, you have more rights!


We decided to go downtown yesterday to visit City Hall, where the public law library is housed. The librarian wouldn't let us in! She said that it was only for lawyers and kids weren't allowed anyway. Yeah, used my mom look and voice and told her the definition of "public library" then threatened to find her boss. We were in like flint, ya know?! Now, I know nothing about looking up laws, so we just browsed. Each of the kids found something of interest to them over and over. I kept hearing, "Hey, guess what - Mr. Brown was wrong when he said it was against the law to..." And, "Come here and look at this one! You can't marry your ex-step-mom in Michigan! ... Ew! Who'd want to do THAT?!" They re-shelved the books properly and kept their talking to a whisper. They had fun and learned some stuff. They found out that they can reserve books from any public library in our state, written just for kids their age about how the law pertains to them, and have them delivered to our local library. And, I think that, with a little guidance, these guys will learn how to stand up for their rights without being cocky about it (which can cause more trouble than it's worth!)

I want my kids to grow up respecting the law and those who uphold it and try to ensure that justice is served. It makes me angry that there are still people out there, in uniform, that feel that their badge and gun means that they can make up the law as they go along. I've heard more than one story about similar incidents occurring, where an authoritative tone of voice and self-assurance has meant more than the actual law around here. I haven't seen it close up until a couple of days ago. Hopefully, I can keep my son and his friends out of trouble by teaching them right from wrong and how to endure they understand their own rights. I worry about S and whether he's already decided against being "good".

What's the Smart Summer Challenge? Check it out!
Check it out on Facebook,  teachmama.com , we teach,  PinkAndGreenMama, 

and NaturallyEducational.com

Or, read my introductory post about it HERE.