Episode 2: If you teach one subject in your homeschool, make it critical thinking

In this episode of "Secular Homeschooling with Blair and Amy," we discuss the importance of critical thinking in homeschooling and everyday life, including the role of biases, assumptions, and evaluating information. Through personal anecdotes and examples, we talk about the need for diverse perspectives and questioning traditional narratives, as well as practical strategies for homeschooling critical thinking.

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TRANSCRIPT: EPISODE 2

We use an automatic transcription app for our podcast, which makes it possible for us to include transcripts for our podcast episodes — but it does sometimes make weird errors! We do edit it, but I’m sure we miss things sometimes.

Amy: Hello and welcome to Secular Homeschooling with Blair and Amy, brought to you by SEA Homeschoolers and home/school/life. Blair and I are back today for our second episode, where we're going to talk about critical thinking. And I think I just have to give a special shout out to Blair because she is camping in the middle of the desert right now, right?

You won a lottery. 

Blair: We are in Kanab, Utah, they've got a formation called the Wave, and to hike into it you have to win a lottery, it's really an amazing formation. It's interesting, we're talking about critical thinking, and right now I'm in Escalante because it was a really great place to view the Eclipse.

I was thinking about today's topic as I was watching the eclipse. And one of the things that I was thinking about , Amy, was, you know, if you didn't have the tools of critical thinking and really understand the importance of evaluating information and biases , and assumptions, how eclipses could lead to conspiracy theories.

Amy: Well, I mean, we know that for centuries, they kind of did. Sometimes I think we think about critical thinking as a subject that we're going to teach, but in fact, critical thinking is a way of looking at the world that permeates every subject that you study, right?

Blair: Right. So let me just define it for everyone. I pulled this from the internet before going live. It's a really simple full definition. Critical thinking refers to the ability to evaluate information and be aware of biases or assumptions, including your own. And so critical thinkers recognize when they are wading into opinions or beliefs that might not be facts.

And in the last episode, we talked about cognitive dissonance and the really proliferation — maybe it's just more evident with the rise of social media, the level of cognitive dissonance going on. But that is really a counterpoint to critical thinking. I mean, if someone has cognitive dissonance, they are not thinking critically. What do you think, Amy? You agree? 

Amy: Yeah, absolutely. I mean. You cannot really hold two contradictory ideas at the same time. Two ideas that contradict each other. That's very different from a paradox, right? Where it's two ideas that appear to contradict each other but don't actually. Cognitive dissonance is like a failure of critical thinking, and it's a failure that we see a lot of, because I think, again, people are taught that critical thinking is, like, fits in a box, and when you need critical thinking, you take the box out and you do your critical thinking.

But we know that critical thinking is something that we need to be doing all the time with everything that we do. In fact, I think, I know we agree about this. I know we've talked about this before. I would argue that the foundation of a secular homeschool is critical. If you can only teach your kid one thing, it should be critical thinking.

Blair: I agree on that. When it's taught in isolation, isn't it called the Critical Thinking Company? You go and buy something of theirs and you teach critical thinking and you feel like it's done. And so teaching critical thinking and raising critical thinkers obviously has a lot of overlap, but I don't think that one necessarily leads to the other.

I think you want to raise critical thinkers that you do need to teach the process of critical thinking. Homeschooling is a perfect place to teach this because you actually know what your kids are learning. I think it's really important for parents to make connections to the critical thinking skills that kids are learning.

Amy: Yes, because otherwise, if you're just teaching critical thinking, you're giving your kid a toolkit, but you're not teaching your kid how to use the tools in the kit. 

Blair: One of the ways that I love to teach critical thinking is to teach things like gaslighting and cognitive dissonance and then watch a presidential debate.

Amy: Well, I teach a lot of history classes at the little hybrid school that we run in Atlanta. And I start every single history class by reminding students that I am also completely biased. There's bias in just picking the topics that you're going to cover because what you leave out is a kind of bias. What you include is a kind of bias.

I'm really interested in women's history and so like I'm totally biased towards that story sometimes. And so I think the idea that critical thinking is recognizing biases, and it's learning to kind of steer into your own biases, and to say, like, I am also a biased person, and the media that I consume is biased, and it's my job to look for other voices, and to be able to evaluate biases in those other voices.

Blair: We Lakota reservation on Pine Ridge with a program called Remember, and most of the nights that you're there, they have indigenous members of the Lakota Sioux who are living on Pine Ridge come in and speak about different issues. And one of the speakers, Keith Janus, was asking all of us, he said, Michelle Obama, this is when Obama was president, that the first lady had, , spoken about some of the issues that the Reservation were facing.

Had we heard that in our news? Nobody had . And Keith said, that's evidence of racism toward the indigenous people. And I sat with that, as you can tell, this was years ago. Obama was president. I really sat with that for a long time because it is a bias, what we leave out. We do need to be careful with critical thinking, and when we look at the facts how we evaluate what's not present. Because that's actually really hard. It's easy to look at the stated fact. It's actually really hard to evaluate what's missing.

Amy: Yeah, we have to kind of go in, I think, to history, acknowledging, teaching our kids to acknowledge that history and the past are not the same thing, right? The past is everything that happened, everybody who experienced anything. And history is the story that we choose to tell about some of those people and some of those experiences.

And so it's always going to be biased, and I sometimes get really frustrated talking to the best intentioned homeschoolers who are so committed to finding an unbiased curriculum, because they're never going to find, like, that balancing of bias is something that you have to do yourself, and it's like a work in progress. I have a doctorate in history, and I am still learning ways to balance stories of history. That is just part of the work. 

Blair: I don't even know if Amy fully agrees with me, but I actually think that because of the Inherent and unavoidable biases in history, science is where you should go to teach critical thinking.

What we teach in science at every grade level are the accepted facts and theories. And it is much easier to look at the process of critical thinking and the steps you want to go through in the context of science. What do you think, Amy? 

Amy: I actually think that you're really right about that. I think that science is a great foundation, to use the tools of critical thinking right to start using the tools of critical thinking. And if you want to teach, if you want to raise kids who, who care about unbiasing as a verb, not as not as something that's done something that you're doing. Unbiasing history, then I think that what you want to do is tell them lots of stories from lots of different people that they don't only have one narrative when they start applying critical thinking skills to it.

So they have already heard a whole bunch of voices, a whole bunch of stories from a whole bunch of places. And they don't assume that there's one central, I mean, mostly white European male narrative that is the story of history. But I absolutely agree, science is the place to start with critical thinking.

Blair: Yeah, and it really bothers me that there are some scientists and some science organizations out there saying that the scientific method is no longer important to teach at a time when we are having a real issue with things like conspiracy theories and people's ability to think critically. I'm like, wait a minute, the scientific method is a fantastic place to begin teaching critical thinking. It's easy to teach critical thinking in the context of science. You actually sort of naturally do it. Any good science course that has labs built into it has step by step processes for critical thinking. 

Amy: You're, you're literally doing critical thinking when you use the scientific process.

You're actually like physically engaging in it. Which is such a great way to learn. Of course, for a huge swath of human history, the number of people who could write and had access to writing materials was incredibly limited. And so, when we read history, we're like, Oh, yay, primary source. And, oh, yay, primary source.

But also, almost every primary source that you read from before, like, 1600, It's going to be from an upper class white European man. And that is, a very specific voice. And that's the voice that we've kind of used to tell history. Recently, in like the last, what, 50 years, I would say, we've kind of figured out that it's worth trying to find ways to bring those other voices out.

To let, to look at the artifacts, to look at writing, to look at events, to look, you know, just history and to see the stories of other people. And I think this is true in literature too, right? Like we kind of assumed, I mean, growing up, I kind of assumed. The best books were the books by the white European men.

Like those were the books that you wanted to read. Those were the ones that won awards. Oh, there are books from all over the world by all kinds of people. They're pretty amazing. 

Blair: You actually brought something up that's interesting. It has to be people can write and the skills of reading, writing. It is a modern skill.

Over human history, reading, writing wasn't a really important skill. I think about this all the time because it's evolutionarily, when I think about the four primary modalities where people learn reading, writing, kinesthetic, auditory, and visual. Reading, writing wasn't really important until you have the printing press.

When you look across different countries and different cultures, most of the stories were missing. And I think it's why one of the things when you're at a program, like Remember on Pine Ridge, where the Indigenous people feel it's really important to tell their stories orally. And cultures that rely on that, we aren't as aware of their stories.

Now, it's more commonly known, but the first time I went to Pine Ridge, I was shocked to hear how recently the boarding school system had still been in place and you got to realize who's telling that history. When you've got Indigenous communities that feel that the oral tradition is a really important part of their culture, then it's harder for those stories to get out, but those are incredibly important stories.

I don't think you can trust any story coming out from those communities around things like boarding schools, except from the Indigenous people who were forced to go through it and their family. 

Amy: Thank goodness for technology, right, that lets them record the stories and preserve them. I mean, that is a huge change in the last hundred years. 

Blair: Both of you and I do teach critical thinking. You've got your own microschool. Let's tell people with how they can teach critical thinking in their own homeschool. 

Amy: Well, anyone who ever listened to me talk about anything critical thinking related knows that the first thing I'm going to talk about is my favorite critical thinking tool, which is the Good Thinkers Toolkit, which was developed by the Philosophy for Kids Program at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

It's basically a list of letters and you use these letters to ask questions about anything that you're reading. I use that for history, for literature, for science, for philosophy, I've even used it for Latin. It's just such a great tool, because it encourages kids to ask questions and I think that like the point that you are making, we didn't know these stories about the boarding schools were still around. There are always going to be stories that we don't, always going to be these stories that we don't know. And the way that we can get to know them is by asking questions. We need to always be asking questions about what we're learning. For me, that is like the foundation of critical thinking in our own school.

Blair: I want you to clarify. So one of the things I see in the nonsecular science community, especially with intelligent design, is that the resources that people are creating encourage young people to ask questions and then they explore the answers.

Amy: Yeah. So, like, the theory of gravity is a fact. The theory of evolution is a fact. It's interesting to ask questions about how gravity works and like are there situations where gravity is different, but you're always assuming the fact of gravity. It's interesting to ask questions about evolution. That's how Darwin came up with the theory was by asking questions.

But again, you've got to assume that evolution is a fact. You don't get to make up facts in science or anything else, right? The facts are what they are. And then you can ask questions that give you a deeper understanding of the facts. 

Blair: The other thing that I want to be really clear is asking questions is important, but not all questions are created equal, I guess, is teaching kids to ask questions.

I think that for a lot of parents, what do you do with those? And so how do you come up with the answers to those? 

Amy: The toolkit is actually great for that. I think the toolkit is a very structured way of asking questions. For instance, you might take an idea and look at how true it is. Is it always true? Is it sometimes true? Is it never true? And usually things are sometimes true, right? Usually things are sometimes true, and there are exceptions. The exceptions, I mean, I think especially in science, are really interesting. You know, what if something is like really, really big, and it doesn't behave like, like things that are smaller with gravity? That's kind of cool and interesting. You can look at one of the, one of the big ones is like, what assumption underlies this idea? And in history and in literature and in philosophy, this is really important. And I would argue that in sort of theological biology, or creationism, what are some of the assumptions that underlie that? Well Christianity is an assumption that underlies that. And that's kind of a problematic assumption. It doesn't mean you can't personally believe it, but scientifically, that doesn't prove anything. It doesn't give you anything that you need. you might look at what are the implications of it, like especially in philosophy.

If this idea is true, if everybody did what Kant said, what would happen? What would be the result of that? There's defining terms, you know, well, when Aristotle says friendship, what exactly does he mean? What's the kind of friendship that he's talking about? Like, what does he mean by friendship? Or what does, you know, somebody like Rousseau mean by freedom?

So I think it's really helpful because it gives you like a way to break down whatever you're looking at in very specific ways. And then to talk about some possible answers, but kind of also to give you a jumping off point for understanding that sometimes the question Is where you're going, right?

Sometimes the question is the point in a lot of sense. I mean, more advanced science. That's where it starts, right? With someone like not being able to answer a question. And so they want to find out.

Blair: I'm thinking for a lot of parents, that's still complicated. I'm thinking that they try to do that and before they know it, they're not quite sure where the conversation went. So what strategy in class situation, what strategy do you use to help evaluate and create a situation where people are talking about their assumptions, the underlying assumptions? So what do you do, Amy? 

Amy: Well, I think you start by asking by kind of unpacking the language that people are using. And this sounds like a very fancy academic thing, but honestly, I do it with my toddlers. I do it with my teenagers, right? 

Blair: So everyone, we did this at the start of this. This is where, when a word is inserted, you say, how are you defining that? It's that. Simple. So, for example, when Amy and I decided to start with the definition of critical thinking, because we want you to know this is how we're defining it.

If you define it differently, then we aren't exactly speaking to what you're saying. Okay. So Amy's going to do definitions, even with toddlers, which I think is great. 

Amy: Well, I think with toddlers even more, right? Because they want to know everything. Why, why, why, why, why, why? And so I like to build on the why.

 I think that when your kid asks, why that is a great opportunity. And when they keep asking why, it gets you to a place where you don't know, and they don't know. And so you can find out. Finding out is a big part of critical thinking, not knowing and finding out, especially for younger kids, especially when you've got little homeschoolers.

Like that is, that's a great foundation for critical thinking. Because, and we always say that you can't ever teach your kid everything that they're going to know, but if you teach them how to learn. Then they can find out everything they need to know.

Blair: When raising a critical thinker, it's an important part of teaching kids that some situations lend themselves to a more black and white answer and to an answer that there's going to be a consensus on.

That is, as I said, where I love science as the starting point for teaching critical thinking It's because in science, there really, there's some things like, okay, how did the eukaryotic cell evolve? There's a lot of good theory that is coming out over the last few years. But it is very theoretical, but most science you're going to be able to come to an answer and you're going to be able to come to a consensus.

 In philosophy or history there's so much arguing. We're going to talk about critical race theory next episode. I think we should apply critical thinking to that, to help people, sort of as a mini lesson, see how you can teach around something that is controversial, shouldn't be.

But that people really don't even understand what it's saying. And that's why definitions are so important. And that's why critical race theory is actually important. Because it actually defines some things. 

Amy: You're right. Because, that's where asking questions totally comes in, right? Because someone is like, I don't want my kid to learn critical race theory. But turns out, most of the people don't actually know what critical race theory is, and couldn't define it for you. 

Blair: Right, anybody that's not a white supremacist, who doesn't want to keep every person who's not somehow part of their little coterie of people down, it's just so unbelievable that that has become as controversial as it is.

So, I start a little differently than you, but not too much. I like to start in critical thinking by teaching the step by step process. And defining every single thing in the process. Amy is thinking like a historian, and I think like a scientist. 

Amy: You need both of them in part, right? When you school your kids, you need both of those parts.

Blair: To teach critical thinking in a way that leads to critical thinkers, because you've got to be able to use those in a real context. I actually think that science courses that have labs in them, where kids are asked to write lab reports. I think that's a really great place for critical thinking

 I went to this really cool structure called the Hundred Hands, it's got all these different handprints and they think it's over a thousand years old and I'm saying, you know, what is your hypothesis? So bring in the word hypothesis. What is your best guess for what life was like based on where we are, what do you think those people are trying to say and start to have a conversation about that. You could use critical thinking in those situations where you're bringing the skills that you learn in a subject area where it is more easy to, to just see the process of applying critical thinking and then bring it in to some of these areas like, what do you think people cared about? What do you think, you know, if you're dealing with like 10 year olds, what do you think the life of a 10 year old was like a thousand years ago? Oh, are we assuming that the climate conditions are the same today that they were then, are we assuming that the number of bighorn sheep and antelope are the same, you know, start like talking about some assumptions, because most of us, when we are in a place, we assume similar conditions a thousand years ago. And there's absolutely no reason to assume that. That is us introducing a bias. 

Amy: Well, this is it, right? Critical thinking is constantly finding new biases that you didn't even know that you had. That you didn't even know were there. And I think that's kind of awesome. Because it's like whatever you learn, it's always new. For me, I mean. One of the great joys of homeschooling has always been that I actually get to learn with my kids. I'm always learning new stuff. I love that. And it's because getting the full picture is impossible.

We'll never have a 360 degree view of anything, but gosh, all the different new angles that you find are so fun. 

Blair: Amy, we need t-shirts, lifelong learners, love homeschooling, the extension of one of our passions in life.

Amy: I mean, when I was a little kid, that's what I wanted to do. When I grew up, I wanted to learn forever.

I wanted to be learning forever. I mean, kind of gotten to do that, I feel, really lucky. 

Blair: I love learning. I always have. I don't want to get off topic here, but that is how both of us, all the things that we do in the homeschool community, it's, that is, I know, a primary goal of both of us to help people home educate their children so that their children grow up to be lifelong learners. What is your working hypothesis for making that happen? But that's too individual. That's actually not a good question. 

Amy: No, but it is a good question for people who are listening to kind of ask yourself, like, what, what is it that you want to do in your homeschool? And what are some things that you think make that happen?

If you want to create a lifelong learning culture in your family, yay! And so, have a hypothesis. Try something. See if it works. Try something different. See if it works better. 

Blair: Please include critical thinking as an intentional part of your child's education. 

Amy: Absolutely. I think it's so important.

Well, I thought, I thought it would be fun to wrap up if we have something that we're reading that we recommend.

Blair: You know, I just picked up to read The Life and Fossils, it's the story of the Kaibab Formation. It's a story of the area where I am and I've read it before and I brought it with me to read it. And then the other reason I'm laughing is because the other night I was having a hard time sleeping and I read a book that was gifted to me, Assistant to the Villain, and It's funny. It's not an academic at all. 

Amy: Oh, fun to read things that aren't academic sometimes. I just read, Suzanne recommended this book to me, She is a Haunting, which is like sort of a spooky haunted house book, and I quite enjoyed it. Is this the greatest book I ever read? No, but it was a lot of fun. I am reading a book I bet you'd like though, it's called Black Utopias.

You know that 19th century commune movement, or people who are setting up like, Utopian communities in the United States, intentional communities. Well, it turns out that after the Civil War, a lot of Black people set up these intentional communities all around the United States. Sadly, many of them were targeted and exterminated by white supremacists.

But a lot of them were very successful for a very long time, and I had never heard of most of them. So it's really really fascinating to me. I bet you would like this book. 

Blair: I would love it. It makes me so angry. It's been happening a lot as I've been hiking in this area. You know, there's just no way to sugarcoat the negative impact of colonization globally You can't critical thinking that in a way that make the people who come from the ancestors of colonists, the best we can do is the best we can do, but there's no way to sugar coat the fact that it has had a negative impact act of colonization that happened historically.

Amy: Someone said to me, and I can't remember who said it, but it is stuck in my mind, it helps me a lot , which is. Stop being a good descendant, and start being a good, ancestor. Care more about what your kids think of what you're doing, how they'll look at what you're doing, than about what your grandparents would think about what you're doing.

Blair: Right, because one you have control over, and the other one you don't have control over, and that's actually important. That's a part of critical thinking, is to stay present, there's nothing you can do when you look at the past. Because you certainly can't go back and you're one person. You couldn't change it. And for most of us, we're women. So we wouldn't be able to change anything anyway.

Amy: But we can do better and we can teach our kids how to do better by teaching them how to think critically about things so that they They won’t make the same mistake over and over again, you know, so that they, they make, a little bit, over time, we make the world better, and critical thinking, I truly believe is a foundation. 

Blair: That sort of critical thinking I feel was really important in dealing with the climate change. Climate change is an existential crisis most of us don't have any control over, I've given some thought to that this week as well in this area.

We had a really weird winter in the western part of the United States. We want our children to not be clinically depressed and for kids who worry about things like climate change, they can't fix it. But every person could be a part of the solution if they want and you can critically think about that. And the impact Keep yourself grounded, like Amy just said, in the areas where you have can have some impact on where you can have control. 

Amy: Yes, because this is an unprecedentedly strange time. We are raising kids and at times it is incredibly difficult and you're so wise. Before we go, I wanted to say thank you, Blair.

We are recording today's October the 14th, and Israel and Palestine are at war. Really difficult, terrible time. And I just want to say thank you to Blair because I'm a Jew and we have family in Israel. And Blair is one of the people who reached out to me just to see how I was doing. And it meant a lot.

It just, you know, just like someone saying, how are you? It really meant a lot. I, it's not an easy, it's not an uncomplicated situation. I hate what's happening to Palestine and I hate what happened in Israel. I hate both of them things, but I just really appreciated you being, just being there, it was so nice to have somebody be there.

Thank you. 

Blair: You're welcome. My daughter in law is Ukrainian. I've been thinking a lot about both of those two situations. Those emotional situations and how you deal with that. Our heart goes out to you. 

Amy: Critical thinking is certainly a key to help, you know, being able to deal with, with the tragedies of the world, which are numerous.

Blair: And to help our children. If you've got a child who's worried about the situation in Israel and Palestine in, in, in Gaza, if you've, if you've got a child who's concerned about that think critically, about what you can do, how you can help. 

Amy: That is a side effect of critical thinking that, that I think we don't always talk about, which is increased empathy because critical thinking makes it really, really hard to see people who aren't you as the other.

And when you see people as you, then you really, really feel and care about what they're going through. I mean, that's certainly something that, even though it's hard, I want my kids to have that. I want my kids to have empathy. Yeah. No. Wow.

That's kind of an intense ender for this episode, but we will be back soon to talk more about homeschooling, about critical race theory, what it is and what it isn't, and how we apply it in our homeschools on the next episode, using the tools of critical thinking, this is Secular Homeschooling with Blair and Amy, brought to you by SEA Homeschoolers and home/school/life. We will talk to you soon.