🧠 Critical Thinking: Learning to Question What We Think We Know
Some beliefs feel so obvious that we rarely stop to question them.
“Good marks mean you are intelligent.”
“Money can buy happiness.”
“Boys are more emotional than girls.”
“I saw it online, so it must be true.”
“Everyone thinks this way.”
But what happens when we pause and ask:
“How do I know?”
That simple question is at the heart of Critical Thinking.
In our Life Class sessions at FS, Critical Thinking is not about teaching students what to think. It is about helping them understand how they think, recognise what influences their thinking, and develop the courage to question even their own assumptions.
Our sessions explore five interconnected ideas:
1. 🔎 Facts vs Opinions vs Beliefs
One of the first steps towards better thinking is recognising that not everything we say is a fact.
A FACT → Something that can be verified with evidence.
An OPINION → A personal judgement or interpretation.
A BELIEF → Something we accept as true, often influenced by our experiences, values or surroundings.
The interesting part is that we often present our opinions and beliefs as facts.
For example:
- “This is the best school.”
- “Hard work always guarantees success.”
- “Children today are less disciplined.”
But is it a fact? An opinion? A belief?
Learning to separate the three makes us pause before accepting — or rejecting — an idea.
2. 🧪 Evidence & the Scientific Method
Once we question a claim, the next question becomes:
“What is the evidence?”
Critical thinking teaches us not to look only for information that supports what we already believe.
Instead, we can ask:
- What evidence supports this claim?
- Where did the information come from?
- Is the source reliable?
- Can the claim be tested?
- Is there evidence that contradicts it?
- What would change my mind?
This is where the scientific method becomes a powerful way of thinking:
Question → Hypothesis → Evidence → Test → Analyse → Revise
The goal isn’t to prove that I’m right.
The goal is to get closer to what is actually true.
And sometimes, the most intellectually honest conclusion is:
“I don’t know yet.”
3. 🪞 Mundane Truths — Are They Really True?
Some of the most interesting things to question are the things we don’t normally question.
These are our Mundane Truths — statements that sound like common sense because we have heard them repeatedly.
For example:
“Boys are more emotional than girls.”
At first, it might sound like something we can easily agree or disagree with.
But instead of taking sides, we investigate.
Do boys and girls actually experience different amounts of emotion?
Or do they simply express emotions differently?
Research suggests that the picture is much more nuanced. Boys and girls experience emotions in broadly similar ways, while differences can appear in the types of emotions expressed and how emotions are regulated.
So perhaps the better question isn’t:
“Who is more emotional?”
but:
“What do we mean by being emotional — feeling, expressing or regulating emotions?”
That’s the beauty of a Mundane Truth.
It takes something that feels obvious and turns it into something worth thinking about.
4. 📱 Filtered Information — Are We Seeing the Whole Picture?
We live in a world where information is everywhere.
But information is not the same as reality.
Every day, we encounter:
- 📱 Social media posts
- 📰 News headlines
- 🎬 Edited videos
- 📸 Carefully selected photographs
- 📊 Statistics
- 🤖 AI-generated content
- 📢 Advertisements
And almost all of it has been filtered in some way.
Someone decides:
- What to include
- What to leave out
- What headline to use
- Which photograph to show
- Which statistics to highlight
- What order to present the information in
Two people can therefore look at the same event and walk away with completely different understandings.
Critical thinking encourages us to ask:
“What am I seeing?”
But also:
“What am I NOT seeing?”
That second question can be even more powerful.
5. 🧠 Cognitive Biases — Our Brain Can Trick Us
Perhaps the most uncomfortable part of Critical Thinking is discovering that we ourselves are not perfectly rational thinkers.
Our brains use shortcuts to make decisions quickly.
These shortcuts are useful — but sometimes they lead us astray.
🔵 Confirmation Bias
We look for information that supports what we already believe.
⚓ Anchoring Bias
The first piece of information we receive can influence our subsequent judgement.
👑 Halo Effect
One positive characteristic can influence how we perceive everything else about a person.
🔥 Availability Bias
We may assume something is more common or likely simply because examples come easily to mind.
🪞 Self-Serving Bias
We interpret situations in ways that protect our own self-image.
The challenge is not necessarily to become bias-free — that’s probably unrealistic.
The challenge is to become bias-aware.
💭 And Then Comes the Hardest Question…
Critical thinking is easy when we are questioning someone else’s beliefs.
It’s much harder when the belief being questioned is our own.
We may be confident in an opinion because:
- our parents taught us that way,
- our friends believe it,
- our culture reinforces it,
- we’ve experienced it personally,
- we’ve seen it repeatedly,
- or simply because we’ve always believed it.
So the real practice is:
“Could I be wrong?”
And even better:
“What evidence would convince me that I am wrong?”
That is where critical thinking moves beyond an academic skill and becomes a life skill.
🌱 From “I Know” to “Let Me Investigate”
The goal of these Life Class conversations isn’t to make students doubt everything.
It is to help them become curious before being certain.
To distinguish:
Fact → Opinion → Belief
To ask:
Claim → Evidence → Counter-evidence
To recognise:
Information → Filtering → Interpretation
To understand:
Thought → Bias → Decision
And ultimately to develop a mindset of:
Question. Investigate. Reflect. Reconsider.
Because being a critical thinker doesn’t mean always having the right answer.
It means being willing to change your answer when the evidence changes.
✨ The Bigger Idea
Just like the belief expressed in the accompanying reflection — work hard, stay sincere, be consistent and give your best — Critical Thinking asks us to apply the same sincerity to our own thinking.
We can be sincere and still be wrong.
We can be confident and still be biased.
We can have information and still not have the whole picture.
And we can strongly believe something while still being willing to ask:
“What if there’s another way of looking at this?”
That isn’t weakness.
That’s intellectual humility.
And perhaps that is one of the most important things we can learn — not just in a Life Class, but in life itself. 🧠🌱
– JC