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Stop Asking "How Was Your Day?": 444 Better Questions to Help You Connect with Your Child Daniel J Crawford
“Dr. Nathan Lang-Raad clearly has the background, research, and experience to detail why our modern education system was never designed to create critical thinkers. Never Stop Asking is the book educators have been looking for, with insights and strategies that ensure students today will be the skilled thinkers of tomorrow.”
Barbara Bray, podcast host, speaker, author, story weaver
“Essential reading for any educator wishing to elevate their understanding of critical thinking in the classroom. Nathan Lang-Raad draws from years of experience, elegantly breaking down powerful learning concepts in a unique and clear-sighted way. His ideas and methods come together to form an accessible, rational, and important guide for 21stcentury teaching—a crucial companion piece for the spirited educator.”
Misbah Gedal, head of engagement, Wakelet
“Never Stop Asking performs the real service of giving teachers and administrators a positive and bold vision of what supporting students as critical thinkers really looks like, along with exciting and easy ways to implement it. What if your staff read this book and came together in critical thinking dialogue circles to process it and act on it in the classroom? Highly recommended!”
Laura
Gilchrist, vice president and teacher, ParentCamp; professional development consultant and coach, Kansas City, Missouri
“A thorough introductory treatment of how to teach critical thinking filled with fun, humility, and facts that create a grounding in what is often an elusive concept. What’s more, it properly grounds those facts in an acknowledgment of the importance of knowledge in learning to think critically—all of which makes this a valuable resource for educators.”
Michael Horn, author of From Reopen to Reinvent
“One of the greatest skills necessary for growth and achievement is to view the world through a critical thinking lens. Nathan Lang-Raad’s book Never Stop Asking inspires readers to reflect on thoughts and actions as they empower students to embrace curiosity, ask questions, and push boundaries of common understanding.”
Tamara Letter, instructional coach and author of A Passion for Kindness: Making the World a Better Place to Lead, Love, and Learn
“This book is a must-read for any teacher who cares about creating a critically thinking classroom and society! Nathan synthesizes research and suggests innovative ways to support critical thinking in a refreshing, captivating, and informative way.”
David Palank, author of Classhacker and principal
of San Miguel School
“In the world of disinformation and decentralization, the world needs students and citizens who can critically think and ask questions and find answers using decision-making mechanisms that are researchbased and not based on anecdotes, ad hominem, or opinions. Dr. Nathan Lang-Raad takes the research body of how we critically think and creates not only a philosophical argument, but provides strategies of how teachers, schools, and individuals can build and practice critical thinking skills. Dr. Lang-Raad allows us to rethink how we think about critical thinking and gives us all a call to action to bring forth strategies to implement it within the schools and institutions we serve in.”
Matthew Rhoads, EdD, tech integrationist, professor, and author
“It’s never been more important to consider what students need beyond the foundational skills and academics our schools prioritize. Never Stop Asking invites educators at all levels to contemplate why and how critical thinking should become a higher educational priority, then equips them with the ideas, scenarios, and frameworks to make it a reality in their classrooms or courses—all in one well-researched volume overflowing with actionable insights.”
Carri Schneider, EdD., head of editorial and publishing, XQ Institute
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lang-Raad, Nathan D., author
Title: Never stop asking : teaching students to be better critical thinkers / Nathan D. Lang-Raad.
Description: First Edition. | San Fancisco : Jossey-Bass, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022053749 (print) | LCCN 2022053750 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119887546 (Paperback) | ISBN 9781119887553 (Adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119887560 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Critical thinking—Study and teaching.
To every learner, be curious, relentlessly curious.
About the Author
Dr. Nathan D. Lang-Raad is an educator, speaker, and author. Throughout his career, he has served as a teacher, elementary administrator, high school administrator, and university adjunct professor. He was the Director of Elementary Curriculum and Instruction for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, as well as education supervisor at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. He was also the Chief Education Officer at WeVideo. He serves as a US State Ambassador for the Climate Action Project, a collaboration between the United Nations, World Wildlife Fund, NASA, and the Jane Goodall Institute, and an advisor for TAG (Take Action Global).
Nathan is also the author of Everyday Instructional Coaching, The New Art and Science of Teaching Mathematics (co-authored with Dr. Robert Marzano), WeVideo Every Day, Mathematics Unit Planning in a PLC at Work, The Teachers of Oz (co-authored with Herbie Raad), The Boundless Classroom (co-authored with James Witty), and Instructional Coaching Connection.
Nathan received a Bachelor of Arts in general sciencechemistry from Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas; a Master of Education in administration and supervision from the University of Houston-Victoria; and a Doctor of Education in learning organizations and strategic change from David Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Richard Dawkins, the late Carl Sagan, Daniel Dennett, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and the late Bertrand Russell. Your work has a tremendous impact on furthering inquiry and critical thinking for generations to come. Thank you to Ashante Thomas, my Wiley acquisitions editor; your commitment, smarts, and ambition have been beyond helpful. As usual, my greatest gratitude goes to my husband, Herbie, who reads and gives me feedback through the writing process, and who is wise, brilliant, supportive, and loving.
Introduction
Iwas sitting in the seat of the flight director at the Mission Control Center (the one used in the Apollo missions) at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. I was the only one in the room, and I looked up at the screens, imagining what life must have been like in the 1960s, the graphs and plots that were compiled and displayed as scientists and engineers were pioneering feats never before accomplished in space flight. I thought about Katherine Johnson’s curiosity and brilliance with mathematics that led to the successful space flights of Alan Shepherd and John Glenn. I thought about the tremendous amount of teamwork and critical thinking involved right here in this room as Apollo 13 went from lunar mission to rescue mission. The water conservation, the carbon dioxide syphoning, the navigational decisions, and the multistage burns all 200,000 miles from Earth.
The gravity of the moment (pun intended) sparked the pure awe and wonder of how much we’ve accomplished as humans, and all this possible through science. And while we’re on the topic of possibilities, I hadn’t known it was possible that a teacher could work at NASA. But I am here to tell you that they can, and I did. I was a high school chemistry and physics teacher when I was asked to lead student design challenges at the NASA Johnson Space Center during the summer. And then one day they asked me to work full time at NASA. I eventually led a team of
educators, called NASA’s Digital Learning Network. This role gave me opportunities to work alongside scientists, astronauts, and engineers with the purpose of inspiring students to pursue STEM-related fields, but most importantly, to develop critical thinking skills. I also had the honor of leading the protocol team that escorted VIPs through Mission Control, and so I spent many hours immersed in science history. Sitting in the flight director chair, thinking about the accomplishments of humankind that got us to this moment, I had an epiphany: my purpose as an educator is to help students think independently and critically, assess the evidence, and disagree with me. Not only will this endeavor help promote critical thinking that will lead to more innovations and better solutions, but I have confidence in my students, and I know that if they are given the proper encouragement to think for themselves about all of the information that is currently available, they will be in the best position to lead lives that are happy, satisfied, and free.
One of the most disheartening things to be learned from history is that if we are fed false information for a sufficiently long period of time, we have a tendency to disregard any evidence that points out the falsehood. We lose interest in learning the truth about the situation. The trickery has us in its grip to the point where we don’t want to admit that we’ve been taken advantage of in any way. Even as new methods and evidence emerge, people often continue to use the old ones, rooted in the comfort of their unchanging perspective. We are now living in the digital age, which has brought about an abundance of information. According to the findings of various studies, the brain enjoys taking shortcuts. This can, at times, make it difficult to differentiate between what we feel and what we know. Why engage in laborious thought when we can simply avoid effort and look something up on Google? Why bother reading a book when all we need to do is scan the headline of a post that’s been circulated on social media?
We live in an age where it is common to hear, “I researched it.” Most people do not “research” in the true definition of the word. How many people check the source of a social media post to find out who wrote it and whom they wrote it for? How often do we critique the article for inaccuracies and misinformation? Research entails compiling a full literature review, triangulating sources and data points. Research in universities involves testing your hypothesis, collecting a random sample of sources, and performing independent probability statistics on the reported results. How often do we scroll down to the bottom to look at footnotes and references and apply the same source of scrutiny to them? The answer to these questions is probably “rarely.” The process for most of us usually follows the same predictable course: we are exposed to something in our algorithmic, manipulated social media feed that resonates with our implicit biases; we then, subconsciously, apply the layers of our own experience and emotional filters, and call it evidence. We are flooded with information, and at the same time find ourselves in a thinking drought. With all of this information, we’ll have to do much more than seek to attain knowledge.
To be successful and flourish in this life, we’ll have to be better at synthesizing, recognizing patterns, and creatively piecing together the right information at the right time, thinking critically about it, and making important choices with more wisdom. It takes science to prove that observable patterns are linked. We look at factors and circumstances repeatedly and look for other factors to disprove the link between patterns. This is the foundation of science. We begin with observable data and measurements, analyze possible explanations, and systematically confront each explanation with the facts. When we do science, we engage in critical thinking. When a new idea arrives on the scene, we scrutinize it with science, with our brains via critical thinking. In the words of Carl Sagan, “Critical thinking is the means to
construct, and understand, a reasoned argument and recognize a fallacious or fraudulent argument. The question is not whether we like the conclusion that emerges out of a train of reasoning, but whether the conclusion follows from the premise or starting point and whether that premise is true” (Sagan, 2011).
If the thinking process must be capable of changing both the thinker and the context around the thinker, then critical thinking is vital. Thought calls into question our presuppositions about what is possible and creates the roadmap for reasoning, logic, and creativity. Critical thinking is a prerequisite for decision-making. Does it matter what realm of critical thinking one is engaged in? Does it always have to be a problem rooted in science or math? It doesn’t. What matters is that information, facts, surprises, and data are considered, and a decision is made to change the course of our direction or decide on a new approach. Critical thinking doesn’t limit us with rigid or prescriptive steps but instead paves the way for freedom and progress into the world of human decision-making. As an informed citizen or teacher, you know critical thinking is vital. But as our attention spans shorten and the need for immediate gratification increases, some of the skills necessary to elicit the most excellent quality and quantity of information are waning.
Since the early 1960s, educators and politicians, from local schools to Congress, have been emphasizing the significance of graduating students who are capable of engaging in critical thinking. The volume of knowledge that teachers once had to cram into their students’ heads can now be accessed with the swipe of a finger on a smartphone, but in order to make sense of the data, one must be able to think critically about it. To be fair, our modern education system was never designed to create critical thinkers. The current system is a slightly updated version of the postindustrial education system, built on scalability, efficiency, and productivity. It was built to train a large workforce, which
favors an education system centered around compliance, grades, and passing tests. Over the course of the past half-century, there has been undeniable advancement in the teaching of critical thinking. Courses specifically devoted to the topic can be found in the catalogs of a number of different colleges and universities, while the most recent generation of academic standards for grades K–12 places an emphasis not only on the subject matter but also on the skills necessary to think critically about the subject matter. Despite this progress, 75 percent of employers claim that the students they hire after 12, 16, or more years of formal education lack the ability to think critically and solve problems. This is the case despite the fact that nearly all educators claim that they place a priority on assisting students in the development of these very skills.
Is there a tool or framework we can employ to support students with critical thinking? The purpose of this book is to help you in this endeavor. We will begin with the heuristics our brains create to shortcut critical thinking. Then I’ll equip you with the strategies needed to support all learners in critical thinking effectively. How will you know that your students are successful?
• They will be able to identify their own biases.
• They will question their own belief systems.
• They will be able to evaluate their own ideas.
• They will be able to confidently ask open-ended questions.
• They can parse data and classify it as reliable and credible.
• They develop the intrinsic desire to research based on their own curiosity.
• They will employ the proper channels of research.
• They will be able to see a throughline in their problemsolving and reasoning ability.
• They will be able to clearly see cause-and-effect relationships.
• They will learn a sense of being present and content.
As you review the list above, you might ask yourself why these things are not already part of the educational experience. Why are these considered lofty goals? Because of the way classrooms are currently structured, there is a push for speed, consumption, productivity, standardization, and grades. These facets of education don’t inherently create conditions for critical thinking. There is a misalignment between what critical thinking demands and the current structure of our school systems. Given the increasing dangers, many of which are attributable to insufficient critical thinking about the topics that are most important, it is abundantly clear that we need to do more to ensure that the students of today will be the skilled thinkers of tomorrow. We are, fortunately, in a position to do so without having to completely overhaul the existing structure of education. It begins with you. It begins in your classroom, or with the principal leading the school building. I wrote this book for you, to support you in your journey of cultivating critical thinkers and problem solvers.
CHAPTER
1
Critical Thinking Defined
As an educator, you may have had a professional development session or graduate course on “critical thinking.” Or perhaps the most exposure to the term you’ve had is the inclusion of the term in the “4Cs”—Creativity, Collaboration, Communication, and, yes, Critical Thinking. The term “critical thinking” is commonly used interchangeably with other words, such as “student engagement,” “creativity,” or “higher-level learning.” And let’s not forget that active engagement alone is not a good qualifier—one could be actively engaged in misconceptions or irrationality. A jumbled reference to Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956) terms (analysis, synthesis, and assessment) is typically seen as evidence of critical thinking ability.
The perception that we still do not understand the concept well enough to determine how teaching critical thinking skills can be integrated into the curriculum is one obstacle that has kept us from making more progress in critical thinking education
over the past several decades. This paralysis can be traced back, at least in part, to debates that have taken place within the academic community of critical thinkers regarding how the term should be defined. However, even though these discussions are well-intentioned and helpful, they should not obscure the fact that there is widespread consensus regarding the skills that constitute critical thinking, as well as substantial research regarding how those skills can be taught effectively. For instance, critical thinking requires a more organized way of thinking than other types of thinking. “Logic” is the term that is most used to describe this type of productive and structured thinking; however, logic actually describes a number of different systems for reasoning systematically.
There are two kinds of logic: formal and informal. Formal logic comprises words and concepts, which are reduced to symbols that can be manipulated in the same way that numbers and symbols are manipulated in mathematics. Informal logic is a form of logic that allows us to consider the meaning of words rather than reducing them to symbols that fit into a structure. Formal logic is extraordinarily powerful; just ask any computer programmer about its capabilities. However, we can also systematize our reasoning by using informal logic. There are also a number of graphical systems that can be used to map out logical relationships. Some of these systems are simple enough to be picked up by young learners, and they can be utilized in any subject area. People who are skilled at critical thinking must also be adept at translating spoken and written language into precise statements that can be built into a logical structure. This is because the majority of the communication we need to think critically about involves everyday human language as opposed to machine code. With enough practice, students will be able to perform this type of translation on anything from historical or literary documents
to scientific ideas and mathematical proofs, although this translation process involves an element of art as well as science.
Systematic efforts to integrate critical thinking skills into our schools have come up short. Additionally, there is a lack of understanding regarding how to assess it, as well as whether schools wish to prioritize assessing critical thinking. If educators believe they already know how to teach critical thinking in their classrooms, a newly constructed assessment or evaluation will be viewed as a pointless exercise that should be carried out with extreme caution and consistency. Some educators conflate critical thinking with active participation, engagement, or “cooperative learning.” Others will claim that familiarity with Bloom’s Taxonomy or Howard Gardner’s notion of multiple intelligences equates to the ability to grasp critical thinking. Some educators will equate it with a focus on learning styles, concept maps, or any other tool, aspect, or dimension of learning. Still others will associate critical thinking on the whole with a subset of it. As a result, some will promote different points of view (and take that to be the whole of it). Some will emphasize the need of realizing one’s own assumptions. Certain individuals will emphasize the importance of verifying information sources. Some will place a premium on conceptual analysis. We really need a holistic view or at least a realistic understanding of how to build critical thinking while teaching the concepts of a particular discipline. I believe it is prudent to begin with a definition of critical thinking. In Peter Facione’s 1990 work, he was able to extract a handful of definitions. I’ll summarize them here, then we’ll settle on one concise definition. To begin, here is a lengthy excerpt of Facione from the California State Universities and Colleges website:
The link between language and logic . . . the capacity to evaluate, criticize, and advocate for ideas, to reason inductively and
deductively, and to reach factual or judgmental conclusions based on good inferences made from clear expressions of knowledge or opinion . . . (or develop) the ability to discern truth from judgment, belief from knowledge, and elementary inductive and deductive reasoning skills, including an awareness of language and thought’s formal and informal fallacies. (Facione, 1990)
In 1990, the American Philosophical Association sponsored a Delphi research study to determine key critical thinking skills based on the consensus of experts from the humanities, sciences, social sciences, and education in the United States and Canada. According to the APA Delphi Report, critical thinking is defined as “the act of deliberate, self-regulatory judgment. This procedure took evidence, context, conceptualizations, techniques, and criteria into account” (Facione, 1990). Facione recognized six critical thinking abilities as essential:
• Inference: To identify and secure the elements necessary to arrive at reasonable conclusions; to formulate conjectures and hypotheses; to consider pertinent information and to mitigate the consequences of data, statements, principles, evidence, judgments, beliefs, opinions, concepts, descriptions, questions, or other forms of representation
• Explanation: To articulate the conclusion of one’s reasoning; to justify that conclusion in terms of the evidentiary, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, and contextual considerations upon which the conclusion was based; and to offer one’s conclusion in the form of convincing arguments
• Evaluation: To determine the credibility of statements or other representations that are accounts or descriptions of an individual’s perception, experience, situation, judgment, belief, or opinion; and to determine the logical strength
of actual or intended inferential relationships between statements, descriptions, questions, or other forms of representation
• Self-regulation: The conscious monitoring of one’s cognitive activities, the elements used in those activities, and the results generated, most notably by applying analytical and evaluation skills to one’s own inferential judgments with the goal of challenging, confirming, validating, or correcting either one’s reasoning or one’s results
• Interpretation: The capacity to perceive and communicate the meaning or significance of a diverse range of experiences, circumstances, data, events, judgments, norms, beliefs, rules, procedures, or standards
• Analysis: To ascertain the intended and actual inferential links between statements, questions, concepts, descriptions, or other forms of expression intended to reflect belief, judgment, experiences, justifications, information, or views
Concise Definition of Critical Thinking
Most scholars agree that critical thinking comprises an interpretation or analysis, typically followed by evaluation or judgment. It implies that learners must have mastered some subject matter before engaging in critical thinking, implying that critical thinking cannot occur in a vacuum. This type of thinking is challenging and unnatural, and it requires time and effort to master (Nilson, 2011). Teaching can be structured without focusing on mechanization of education. We must disentangle these two conceptions. We can improve education’s quality by avoiding an obsession with knowledge and skills. More on this later.
This is our concise and abbreviated definition: interpretation or analysis, followed by evaluation or judgment.
Critical Thinking Is Not All Procedural
At this point you might be already thinking that critical thinking is very rote and methodical, and that we might minimize and damage creativity by imposing too many constraints on thinking and inferences. I admit that if we are urged to investigate all relevant hypotheses, the influx of options may make judging what is going on more difficult. We may not have enough bandwidth to gain insights if we spend our time tracking assumptions and uncertainties, reviewing the lineage of sources, and checking for logical contradictions.
When people are required to justify their judgments, they are more prone to focus on signs that they can verbalize than the tacit knowledge that is at the heart of expertise. Following the requirements for double-checking assumptions, preserving internal consistency, and so on may foster a passive mindset of avoiding mistakes rather than an active mindset of seeking out new information. With an active mindset, we can do more to make sense of events than we can by blindly accepting others’ views and passively following directions. We can be on the lookout for weak signals that others aren’t picking up on. Coincidences and probable links can pique our interest. We can be sensitive to things that should have happened but didn’t. We could be more mindful.
Curiosity appears to be a common denominator in all these components of critical thinking. A shift in attitude from a procedural to an investigative mindset is one part of critical thinking. All we must do is follow the protocols, according to the procedural mindset. Certainly, we must learn the procedures in most
jobs. However, there are situations when the rules and processes do not apply or would result in flawed outcomes. Procedures are important, but they aren’t enough. We must learn the procedures but must not get engrossed in them. We must also look around, not blinding ourselves to common sense and glaring observations.
This transition in thinking from procedural to investigative might be difficult. Procedures provide the foundation or framing for critical thinking. After an event or a report of potential danger, we are accountable to the facts. When there is a tornado heading your way, you act by getting to a safe location. We receive training and even checklists on how to deal with these circumstances. We must think beyond the routines to anticipate what can go wrong and what dangers might arise. Critical thinking drives us to examine the objectives that have been set for us. It’s all too easy to get caught up in the stated aims and objectives set forth by an authority. In complex and shifting contexts, however, events may overtake these objectives. Alternatively, we may be confronted with difficult situations that lack clear objectives, forcing us to revise our objectives as we go. We must adapt and improvise not just the strategies for accomplishing the goals, but the goals themselves.
Thus, it is unhelpful and possibly incorrect to speak about critical thinking “abilities.” Critical thinking is an integral aspect of most disciplines and subject areas, and if you ask subject matter experts to define critical thinking, you will likely discover much overlap between the responses from mathematicians and historians, and likewise for creativity. Creativity is not a single process, but rather a collection of related but distinct ones. Mathematics creativity is distinct from visual arts creativity. If a student decides to be creative in mathematics by determining that 2 + 2 = 3, this is not creativity; it is just inaccurate, as the learner is
no longer performing mathematics (unless we’re talking about quantum physics, and 2 +2 = 5, but that’s for a different book). Creativity entails operating on the outskirts of a field while remaining within it.
Similar arguments might be made for other future skills for success, including problem-solving, communication, critical thinking, creativity, and metacognition. There is some indication that students who learn to collaborate effectively in one setting may be more effective in another; thus some transfer of skills is almost certain. Some argue that if we want students to be creative in mathematics, we must explicitly teach creativity in the mathematics context. Or if you want students to think critically about history, you must educate them how to think critically about history. Rather than viewing critical thinking as a generic talent that can be taught in any discipline or subject, schools should utilize it as a “tool for auditing the breadth of the curriculum supplied in any discipline or subject.” This entails ensuring that all disciplines are taught in an epistemically broad manner, as Guy Claxton defines it (Claxton, 2014). Thus, rather than teaching history “as if it were about facts and dates,” it should be taught as an epistemic apprenticeship into the discipline of history, which includes facts and dates, as well as an awareness of bias in historical sources, chronology, and cause and effect. Education is an apprenticeship in thinking, learning, and knowing. It is “epistemic” because it is mostly about these things. We could say that it has to do with developing an epistemic mentality, which is a set of ways to deal with complexity, uncertainty, and difficulty. It also helps people develop an epistemic identity, which is a set of beliefs and attitudes about their own rights and abilities as thinkers, learners, and knowers.
Given the various strategies and opinions surrounding pedagogy, it’s surprising how much agreement exists on the necessity of teaching disciplines as single subjects, each with its own
