How to foster critical thinking for teens in online world

It’s unrealistic to expect kids to suddenly be thinking critically, says Maree Davies, an academic researcher on critical thinking and dialogic.

“Learning is emotional, and in particular learning is emotional for teenagers. And so, the first part for teenagers in critical thinking is to have the opportunity to just think, well, how do I feel about this? What has been my experience of this?” Davies says.

Davies, from the Auckland University, has written Teaching Critical Thinking to Teenagers as a guide for parents, caregivers and teachers.

Like any other skill, critical thinking requires practice, Davies told RNZ’s Nine to Noon.

“The opportunities to practice those high-level skills, done in groups so that you’re talking to your friends, you’re talking to your mates – teenagers respond very well to that talk between each other.”

She believes teenagers are perfectly capable of grappling with broader more complex issues.

“I think teenagers are old enough to think, well, ‘who are these people who’ve developed these algorithms? Who’s that morally disengaged? Who are scammers? Why do people scam? Why do people pay scammers?’ So that deeper kind of societal thinking about critical thinking I think is key.”

She believes this type of deeper discussion also keeps teens engaged.

“You want to be exposing them to truly things that are provocative, like things that have ambiguity, that they’re going to argue.

“I think if you give them kind of some lame topics to think about, they’re not excited or interested enough to find out the different multiple perspectives and to find out the reliability of that source.”

She rejects the idea that kids now have poor attention spans.

“I work a lot in schools. I’ve had teenagers myself. When kids are motivated, they will spend considerable time going deeper and delving deeper and arguing and looking up and looking at other ideas around a topic if it’s provocative enough.”

Teenagers value respect, Davies says.

“They don’t want to be your friend. They absolutely value that you respect your opinion and that you’re giving them opportunity to give their opinion.”