Teaching for Thinking Principles
An independent high school that teaches for thinking will help students learn:
- How to assess the validity of an argument
- How to identify and question assumptions
- How to engage honestly with one’s own prejudgments and correct them when they are wrong
- How to build an argument that is true
- How to recognize and avoid the false choice of an either/or proposition
- How to take well-chosen risks
- How to appreciate and analyze the design behind artistic works
- How to observe the world and to turn observation into data
- How to understand and utilize the concept of probability
- How to see oneself as both an individual and as a product of a culture, a history, a family, a set of institutions, etc.
- How to be comfortable with not knowing while one seeks knowing
- How to sacrifice some individual wants for the sake of one’s commitment to a group
- How to summon the courage to challenge the assumptions of the group when they seem misguided
- How to turn knowledge of the past into an assessment of the present
- How to engage critically with media and narrative
- How to practice resilience and self-accountability
- How to self-assess and revise accordingly
- How to empathize
- How to develop a conscious and evolving sense of how one learns