Presuppositions of the Teaching of Thinking

Abstract

Introduction:  The question of "thinking skills" has been put on the table for discussion.  It has not been put there without profound misgivings.  Rather, it has been put on the table because it could no longer be kept off.  The past 25 years have made it lucidly clear that the traditional repertoire of education has been squeezed dry and exhausted.  There is no way of yet more powerfully squeezing it (through longer school days or through paying teachers more or through heavier homework assignments) to make it yield the kind of education we have begun to realize a democracy demands, which is to say a reflective education.