Guest: Don't want kids to be 'mindless drones?' Teaching critical thinking, empathy is key

If you look at the organizations that were able to thrive through the pandemic, you will see that the reason those organizations survived was because they were able to adapt to unforeseen circumstances and respond in agile ways. Or more to the point, these organizations had people who were agile and adaptable and able to see creative and innovative ways to solve problems and meet challenges.

It is no doubt that our children will have their own set of unforeseen challenges and circumstances as they enter into adult society, parenting, the workforce, etc. Even more, the challenges they will face or the innovative solutions they will use to solve those challenges may not even exist yet. For the sake of our future and our children, we need to teach them to be adaptable and agile.

I teach leadership to adult students — which means I am responsible for educating future and current leaders in Oklahoma to be able to address the most pressing issues in their workplaces and in the state. To help them become more agile and adaptable leaders, some of the most important skills we teach our students are critical thinking, perspective taking and empathy.

Critical thinking means we are able to think for ourselves, see root causes of problems, innovate and be creative. We dive deeply into issues, and we get lots of perspectives because we are aware that we all have limited perspectives and biases so we can never see something fully.

Which leads to perspective taking. To help us be more adaptable we have to be able to take the perspectives of others. We seek out differing opinions and get thoughts that we cannot have on our own. The more perspectives we have on a problem, the better we are able to understand it and address it in different ways. We can also see how the problem or the solution might affect people who are different from us.

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Which leads to empathy. When we seek differing perspectives, we have to feel some compassion for those perspectives. We need to be able to put ourselves in their shoes. We need to believe their experiences even if they differ from ours. We need to know the world does not begin and end with our own perspective and experience. And we need to solve problems in ways that work for everyone, not just ourselves.

Critical thinking, perspective taking and empathy are critical skills for creativity, innovation, agility and adaptability to address those problems, challenges and even innovations that are yet unseen.

Denying historical facts or even fiction because it does not align with our beliefs, political stance, biases or values means you are teaching kids not to learn from others, have empathy or think for themselves. By limiting what versions of history can be taught, banning books and limiting the perspectives of the fiction our children can read, and creating fear of punishment in our teachers for what they teach, we actually are limiting these very skills our children need to develop for their future world.

Critical thinking means we cannot deny history or listen to one perspective on history. We need to know a full history of something in order to understand it. We need to take differing perspectives and narratives in fiction and nonfiction to expand our ability to see the world around us. And hearing those experiences and narratives, whether they align with our own experiences or not, builds empathy to want to build a better world.

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The big push for what is being legislated in public schools has been “indoctrination.”

Indoctrination is when we tell people what to think rather than teaching them to think for themselves. If we leave out pieces of history, limit what can be talked about or read, create fear for violating these boundaries, and don’t listen and learn from real experiences of people who are not like us, we are telling people what to think rather than teaching them to think for themselves. We are legislating that only certain perspectives are legitimate and worth of empathy. Which sounds a lot like indoctrination.

Fear of punishment also affects the way our teachers develop our students. Neuroscience shows that fear limits our ability to learn, innovate and create. By instilling fear of repercussion in our teachers, we limit their ability to do their jobs at great cost to our children.

Actually, when we teach our children to think critically, take perspectives and show empathy, those are the very skills that will teach them to recognize when they are being indoctrinated.

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None of the capacities are partisan, “woke” or driving a particular ideology. They are just necessary skills to lead and work in a 21st-century environment and develop children who are adaptable, innovative and creative adults. Not teaching our children these skills through avoiding actual history or banning books runs the risk of creating mindless drones susceptible to indoctrination or creating power-hungry narcissists. Either way, they will not be able to handle the unforeseen challenges of the future.

I, for one, want better for our children.

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Trevor Cox, Ph.D. is an educator, a leadership developer and a proud public school parent.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Guest column: Critical thinking, empathy are key life lessons