excerpted from Easy Homeschooling Techniques - General Edition

 We've all heard about the difference between "knowing what to think" and "knowing how to think." The point is not to just passively receive pre-edited information, but to know how to go out and get what you need. Critical thinking can be taught formally or by example and discussion, and there are varieties and shades within the discipline. For myself, I was taught unschooled-guerrilla-world-changer critical thinking. It could be summed up in two words: Question Everything.

  Though I'm not a fan of The Simpsons, one of my all-time favorite T-shirts featured Homer with the caption, "Facts are meaningless. They can be used to prove anything." Not too surprisingly, it was gracing the chest of a media employee. Assumptions are the things we assume to be true in order to help us sort out the value or comparable "truth" of information we encounter. Facts themselves don't help us know what to think.

The question why is the most important one out there, not just in your young child's vocabulary, but in your own. As adults, particularly after spending a number of years in institutional settings such as school and workplace, we lose the why reflex. Do you stop to question what people intend to convey, or do you simply take the words as you understand them? Do you think about why you make those conclusions?

What's a basis? It's a solid reason for holding a position. But what makes a good basis? What's the difference between a fact and an opinion? A fact is something that can be confirmed or denied by the direct observation of other people. But then, what about the facts of history? All we can do is evaluate the observations of those who were there, when they haven't been destroyed by time, in the best way we know how. Does every witness see the same factual events? The court system will tell you no. Different people observe different things about the same event. This brings us back to evaluating not just what's said, but what's meant by it.

A worldview is just that - it's how you view the world. Another word is bias, though that doesn't cover all the aspects of it. Worldview isn't just what you feel is true, but what qualities you believe truth has. Everyone has a sense of truth, but it's not often we stop to think about where it came from.

Critical thinking helps you refine your worldview into a tool of personal power.

Assumptions are driven by underlying values. We use the terms "values" and "beliefs" interchangeably at times, but in fact they're separate things. Beliefs refer to what we hold to be true guiding principles, while values refer to the moral weight we give to things. Moral values are defined by a person's belief system.  In our culture, choosing beliefs is about what you want to choose. Arguments can be found to debunk any belief system, though very rarely are they reasoned out using principles of logic. Because our culture lacks a standardized system of reasoning, wisdom asks that we question motivations. Not just what they are, but how they are created.We need to be able to recognize the difference between thinking that feeds its own assumptions and thinking that honestly questions them.

Believing something simply because it sounds good to us makes us gullible. As advertisers know, all that remains is for someone to convince us of what we want. Then, with a little helpful editing of our values, it's time to head down the garden path to the Brand New Assumptions Store. This will be followed closely by a trip to My Little Shoppe of Pre-Fabricated Conclusions. It's very easy to do an end run around our "intellectually free" society when it becomes free of intellect.

How are you crafting your kids' ability to evaluate information? Learn more about this in Cat's chapter of Homeschooling the Easy Way General Edition. Stay tuned to these pages for more about how to weave independent thinking skills into daily life.