A Conversation with Richard Paul: “Critical Thinking: Fundamental Questions and Answers”

In this interview, published in the Journal of Thinking (April 1992 issue), Richard Paul briefly explains critical thinking and the topics surrounding it. The definition of critical thinking, common mistakes in evaluating it, its relationship with communication skills, self-confidence, collaborative learning, motivation, curiosity, job skills for the future, and more...

Question: Critical thinking is essential for effective learning and a productive life. Could you please provide your definition of critical thinking?

Paul: Firstly, since critical thinking can be defined in various, yet compatible, ways, one should not place too much weight and authority on any single definition. Definitions, at best, serve as scaffolding for the mind. With that in mind, this definition can give us a rough mental framework: Critical thinking is thinking about your thinking (while you are thinking) with the aim of improving your thinking and enhancing its quality. Two points are crucial here:

1) Critical thinking is not merely thinking, but thinking that leads to the improvement and development of one's thought process.

2) This improvement and development is the product of skill in using criteria by which one appropriately assesses and evaluates various beliefs and opinions. In short, critical thinking is the refinement and development of thinking through the application of principles and rules for assessing beliefs.

Thinking well is applying principles and rules in our thinking to elevate it to a high level, or at least beyond the commonplace thinking that lacks rational rules and standards. The scope of critical thinking, according to a minimal conception, is "rational standards."

Most teachers have not learned how to evaluate thoughts and ideas using criteria; in fact, the teachers' own way of thinking is often undisciplined and unreflective, indicating that rational standards have not yet become ingrained in their minds.

Question: Could you give an example of this?

Paul: Certainly. One of the most important things teachers should routinely do—and this is also a requirement of disciplined thinking—is to distinguish between reasoning and personal reaction. If we are trying to teach others how to think well, we do not ask students to simply pass judgment on things; we ask them to try to discover the facts (truths) based on good evidence and reasons. The difference between these two is often not clear to teachers. Many of them consider a student's writing or speech that is eloquent, fluent, witty, and entertaining as a sign of good thinking. The components of good reasoning are unknown to most of them. Therefore, even when a student is merely passing judgment on things and not at all seeking to discover truths and the nature of things, they equate the student's enthusiasm, showmanship, and wordplay with good reasoning.

This issue came to light following an assessment in the state of California. In this assessment, teachers and examiners evaluated a student's essay as an "exceptional achievement" in terms of reasoning, even though no reasoning was evident in it; the essay was, in fact, nothing more than a series of unsupported claims and emotional, personal reactions against opposing views.

The evaluating teachers and examiners did not notice that the student author did not support their judgment with reasons and evidence, did not analyze the subject in light of criteria, and did not gather evidence that clearly supported their judgment. Instead of doing these things, the student:

- Presented emotional and sentimental material.

- Made a number of dubious claims without any evidence.

- has dragged in all sorts of personal preferences.

Apparently, the meaning of critical thinking, or some basic concepts such as criteria, evidence, reason, and judgment based on good reasons, was not clear to the evaluating teachers, so that they could not discern the difference between them.

The result was that a very weak and worthless student essay was showcased in a reputable national publication, thereby misleading over one hundred and fifty thousand teachers who read that publication.

Question: Could this be a mistake that rarely happens, and not necessarily indicative of the teachers' knowledge?

Paul: I don't think so. Let me suggest a way you can test my claim. If you are familiar with thinking skills programs, pose the "Where's the beef?" question to a knowledgeable person; that is, "What rational standards and criteria does the program in question put forward?" I think you will first find that the person does not understand what you mean and becomes confused, and then, when you explain your meaning, I suspect you will find that the person cannot speak clearly and accurately about these criteria and standards. Thinking skills programs without rational principles lead to miseducation. For example, one major program asks teachers to encourage students to make inferences and use analogies, but it does not say how to teach students to evaluate their conclusions and assess the strengths and weaknesses of the analogies they have used. This is a mistake. The goal is not to help the student make as many inferences as possible; rather, correct inference must be taught to them. The student is not supposed to use as many analogies as possible, but should put forward useful and judicious analogies.

Question: What is the solution to this problem? How can it be solved – as a scientific problem?

Paul: Well, this problem cannot be solved with slogans and gimmicks, or with hurried methods. The problem can only be solved through the long-term, qualitative development of the teaching force and by helping teachers – over a long period – to work on their own ways of thinking.

Teachers must learn what rational rules and standards are, why knowing and applying them is essential, and how to teach them to students. Recently, the Department of Education in Hawaii established such a long-term program for teaching critical thinking. This is one of the models that can be followed. Moreover, the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking is focused precisely on teaching the standards of thinking. I hope that ultimately, through efforts of this kind, we can make progress in qualitatively improving and deepening students' thinking. The quality and level of critical thinking instruction is currently very low.

Question: But in the field of education, there are numerous considerations, not just one, and not only in critical thinking, but also communication skills, problem-solving, creative thinking, cooperative learning, self-confidence, and the like. How are the various educational domains supposed to address a complete set of these needs? How can they take all of them, and not just one – regardless of its importance – into account?

Paul: This is precisely the point. Every essential in education supports the other essentials in education. Only when we view the good things in education in a superficial and incorrect way do they appear unrelated to us and seem like a collection of separate goals and disparate issues. In reality, any well-designed program in critical thinking requires the integration of all the skills and abilities you mentioned above. Therefore, critical thinking is not merely a set of skills separate from communication skills, problem-solving, creative thinking, and collaborative learning, and even self-reliance plays an important role in it.

Question: Could you please explain the reason for that?

Paul: First, consider critical thinking. We think critically when we have at least one problem to solve, so if a person is not seeking to solve a problem, they are not thinking critically as they should. If there is no problem, thinking critically has no relevance or use. The reverse is also true. Problem-solving in a non-critical way is also incomprehensible. There is no way to solve problems effectively and efficiently unless one thinks critically about the nature of problems and how to solve them. So our path to finding a solution to a problem is critical thinking, not something else. Furthermore, because critical thinking is aimed at problem-solving, it reconstructs and renews our thinking about the subject, and since our thinking is always the unique product of our own reasoning, opinions, and experiences, it will naturally result in a new "creation." Thinking, in short, is a kind of mental creation, and if it is present in our experience in a methodical way, it is a genuinely new creation. And when it helps us solve problems we could not solve before, the description "creative" is undoubtedly fitting for it.

The generation of thought and its testing are deeply interconnected. In critical thinking, we generate and shape ideas and experiences so that we can use them for solving problems, making decisions, and, when necessary, communicating effectively with others. Generation, shaping, testing, structuring, problem-solving, and establishing communication are not disparate, unrelated activities of a confused mind but are interconnected matters from different perspectives.

Question: What is the place of communication skills here?

Paul: Some communications are superficial and trivial; such communications really do not require education. We can all participate in a short conversation and utter incoherent words, and we need no complex skills to do this relatively well. It is in reading, writing, speaking, and listening that learning communication skills becomes an essential part of educational goals. These are four forms of communication whose instruction is essential in an educational program, because each of them is considered a mode of reasoning and argumentation. Each of these four forms of communication involves problems. Each is fully realized with the requirements of critical thinking. Consider the seemingly simple subject of reading a valuable book, for example. The author has presented their thoughts and ideas in the book, adopted some opinions, and elaborated on them in some way. Our job as readers is to translate the author's intent and meaning into other terms that we can understand. This is a complex process, every step of which requires critical thinking.

- What is the purpose of the book?

- What does the author want to prove?

- Which subjects or problems are raised?

- What information, experiences, and evidence are presented?

- What concepts are used to organize this information and these experiences?

- How does the author think about the universe?

- Is his or her thinking justified, as far as we can see from our perspective?

- How does the author himself justify his viewpoint?

- How can we see from his perspective to understand what he has said?

All of these are types of questions that a critical reader poses, and a critical reader in this sense is someone who tries to come to terms with the text.

Therefore, if someone is not a critical reader, writer, speaker, or listener, they are in fact not a good reader, writer, speaker, or listener at all. Doing any of these well means thinking critically, and at the same time, solving specific communication problems, and consequently, establishing useful and effective communication.

Communicating, in short, is always a transaction between at least two ways of thinking. In reading, as I said, the thinking of the author and the reader is involved. The critical reader translates (or reconstructs) the author's thinking into their own thinking and experience. This requires disciplined and methodical intellectual effort. The final result is a new creation; the author's thinking now exists for the first time in the reader's mind, and this is no easy task.

Question: What about self-confidence?

Paul: Reasonable self-confidence stems from a kind of justified self-reliance, just as self-reliance stems from real competence, ability, and success. If someone feels good about themselves without any good reason, such a person is either arrogant and conceited (which is certainly not desirable), or has a dangerous sense of misplaced self-confidence. Teenagers, for example, are sometimes so optimistic about themselves that they become deluded and think they can drive drunk without any risk or can use drugs but be immune to their dangers. They are often overly optimistic about their competencies and abilities and very unaware of their limitations and flaws. Drawing a precise distinction between reasonable self-reliance and a false sense of self-confidence requires critical thinking.

Question: And finally, how do you evaluate group learning? What place does this type of education have?

Paul: Group learning is only desirable when it is based on disciplined critical thinking. Without critical thinking, collective learning will most likely lead to collective mis-learning. This is bad group thinking, where bad thinking is shared and gains credibility. Do not forget, gossip (and rumor) is also a form of group learning. Group brainwashing is a form of group learning, and collective nervous laughter is a form of rapid group learning. We learn prejudice in groups, and we learn social hatreds and fears, stereotypes, and narrow-mindedness in the same way. If we do not introduce disciplined critical thinking into the heart of this group learning, we become conformists, and this is the exact opposite of education, knowledge, and insight.

So there are many important educational goals that are tied to critical thinking, just as critical thinking is deeply tied to them. Basically, the problem in schools is that we separate things, treat them in isolation, and as a result, our approach to issues goes wrong, and we ultimately end up with a superficial view of matters whose correct and deep understanding is essential for education.

Question: One of the important goals of education should be to create an atmosphere that stimulates the child's sense of curiosity and enhances their power of imagination. What can teachers do to ignite this spark in the child's mind and keep it alive throughout their schooling?

Paul: First of all, we destroy a child's curiosity and interest in questioning through superficial, artificial, teacher-centered instruction. Young children constantly ask: Why? Why this and why that? But we very quickly suppress this curiosity with hollow, simplistic answers, and by trying to silence the questioner (instead of providing an appropriate response to the logic of the question). In every domain of knowledge, every answer gives rise to new questions, so that the more we learn, the more we understand that we do not know. Only people with little knowledge consider their knowledge complete and comprehensive. If we thought deeply about almost any of the casual, simplistic answers we give children, we would realize that we have not actually given a proper, convincing answer to most of their questions. Many of our answers are nothing but a repetition of what we ourselves heard from adults in childhood. We transmit the false teachings and misunderstandings of our parents to them. We say what we have heard, not what we know. We rarely empathize and engage with our children's questioning. We rarely admit our ignorance, even to ourselves. Why does rain fall from the sky (to the ground)? Why is snow cold? What is electricity and how does it pass through a wire? Why are some people bad? Why does evil exist? Why does war happen? Why did my dog have to die? Why do flowers bloom? Do we really have correct answers to these questions?

Question: How does curiosity flourish in a child and what role does it play in critical thinking?

Paul: If curiosity is to flourish, it must be nurtured in an atmosphere of inquiry and thoughtfulness. If left to itself, curiosity soars like a kite without a tail, which means it actually plummets straight down! Intellectual curiosity is an important trait of the mind, but it requires other traits to reach its perfection. Curiosity needs courage, honesty, perseverance, intellectual (scientific) humility, and trust in reason.

And finally, intellectual curiosity is not valuable in itself and is not the goal. Curiosity is valuable because it leads to knowledge, understanding, and insight; because it can help make our minds more open, deeper, and sharper, making us better and more fulfilled human beings. To achieve these goals, the mind must go beyond merely being curious; the mind must be interested in work and effort, taste confusion and frustration, face limitations, overcome obstacles, be open to the views of others, and be ready to accept opinions that many people consider threatening. In other words, if we do not create an environment in which our students' minds can learn the value of hard intellectual work, trying to mold and encourage children toward curiosity is useless. We harm our students if we say that all we need is unbridled curiosity and imagine that knowledge will come to us easily through curiosity alone.

What good is curiosity if we do not know what to do with it afterward or how to satisfy it? We can create the environment necessary for the discipline, power, pleasure, and work of critical thinking only by modeling it for students. They must see that our minds, as teachers, are also engaged in work. Our minds must stimulate students' minds with questions; questions that challenge information and experiences; questions that demand reasons and evidence; questions that draw students into examining interpretations and conclusions and pursuing their foundations; questions that help students discover their assumptions; questions that provoke students to follow the implications of their thoughts and ideas as far as possible, to test their beliefs, to dissect (analyze) their opinions, to challenge them, and to think seriously about them. It is in this serious, rigorous intellectual atmosphere that natural curiosity flourishes.

Question: Is it important for our students to be productive and active members of the workforce? How can schools prepare students to meet this challenge?

Paul: The fundamental characteristic of the world students now enter is constant, accelerating change; a world in which information proliferates and rapidly becomes obsolete and outdated; a world in which theories are continually reconstructed and rethought; a place where one cannot get by with only one way of thinking; a place where one must constantly adapt one's ideas and opinions to the ideas and opinions of others; a place where one must grasp the need for intellectual precision and meticulousness; a world in which job skills must be constantly updated and perfected. We have never before had to face such a world. Education has never before had to prepare students for such constant, unpredictable, and complex change. We teachers and educators are now on the front lines of this front.

- Are we willing to fundamentally rethink and revise our teaching methods?

- Are we ready to face the challenges of the 21st century?

- Do we have an interest in learning new concepts and ideas?

- Are we willing to learn a new meaning of discipline – the kind we teach our students?

- Are we willing to apply rigor and scrutiny to our own views and opinions, so that we can teach students to apply that same rigor and scrutiny to their own opinions and views?

- And in short, are we interested in becoming critical thinkers, so that we might perhaps become a model of the very thing our students must become?

These are the fundamental challenges facing our profession as teachers. They demand something of us that was not demanded of the previous generation of teachers; moreover, those of us who are willing to pay this price are forced to teach side-by-side with teachers who are not willing to pay it. This makes our work more difficult, but it does not diminish its excitement, importance, or reward. Critical thinking is at the heart of the reconstruction and reform of education in its true sense. Let us hope that many of us will have the endurance and insight to grasp this reality and to change our lives and our schools accordingly.

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Critical Thinking

Fundamental Questions and Answers

Author: Richard Paul

Translator: Khadijeh Hosseini

Source: The text of this interview is taken from the following book by Richard Paul:

How to prepare students for a rapidly changing world?

PDF file of the English text of the interview

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