A “thinking” environment should be at the core of any true democracy

by Richard L. Weaver II

Several times during my life I have been asked, “If you could change anything in this world, what would it be?” And, at various times I have given different answers to this question: poverty, the environment, or honesty. But, I have an answer that could really make a difference in our world — not that solving the problem of poverty, saving our environment, or creating an atmosphere of honesty would not make substantial contributions. If everyone — parents, teachers, religious leaders, politicians, and individuals themselves — focused on developing and maintaining a “thinking” environment, perhaps many of the other problems of this world would and could be solved.

The first place where developing a “thinking” environment must occur is in the home. The question is, “How do you encourage children to think on their own?” Thinking as I use it in this essay means using the mind or intellect in exercising judgment, forming ideas, and engaging in rational thought. It is parents’ duty to feed and clothe their children, but parental responsibility must not stop at supplying these needs. Another basic need is to feed the minds of children with facts, information, ideas, and knowledge. Children need a foundation from which they can exercise judgment, form their own ideas, and engage in rational thought.

Important to establishing a structure upon which children can build a life is providing them stimuli — anything that rouses the mind or spirit. This may mean having books, magazines, and newspapers available, but it is important that parents read to their children from infancy (or before!) until they can comfortably and pleasurefully read for themselves. They must always be supplied with books at their level, so that when they are looking for things to do, interesting and enjoyable literature is at their fingertips. They need to see their parents reading not just sitting passively watching television, surfing the Internet, or playing movies.

In addition to reading material, children need to be taken to the library, to museums and zoos, and other trips away from home. For example, camping is a great way to discover, explore, and enjoy nature. Such excursions help them form opinions, develop feelings, and invent and imagine related ideas. Also, they need to be challenged. In our house, dinnertime was an opportunity to ask questions, present ideas, discuss positions, laugh, love, and express ourselves and our true nature.

School is the second place where developing a “thinking” environment should take place. Perhaps this looks too obvious; after all what else is school supposed to do? Students not only need to cover the basics, but those “basics” need to be reinforced at every opportunity with no excuses and no “watering down” the curriculum. Students need to be challenged from the very beginning—in preschool—where they can be asked intelligent questions, challenged to come up with their own interpretations, and even encouraged to take actions based on their facts and opinions. By beginning the “thinking” environment early, it is established as a benchmark for all other classes, grades, and levels that follow. Thinking becomes inherent, instinctive, accepted, and deeply rooted.

This does not mean that learning cannot be fun. But fun does not need to be unorganized socializing, unstructured playing, and unregulated talk. These activities can be focused, ordered, and well run so that students are actively engaged in academic work that is enriching, edifying, illuminating, productive, and gratifying. When academic activities are satisfying, students will seek to be involved on their own — without being told, encouraged, or rewarded to take part.

The school-home connection for encouraging a “thinking” environment should be established through homework. Homework promotes self-discipline and bonds between parents and children. It extends lessons introduced in school, helps students toward deeper understandings, keeps ideas and thoughts at the forefront of students’ minds, provides additional insights and understanding, prepares students for life, keeps parents informed of what is going on in school and, most important of all, establishes a pattern of learning and information acquisition beyond the classroom — outside of the school’s formal, well-defined walls.

The third place where a “thinking” environment can be established is in churches and synagogues. Although it is essential that basic concepts and understandings are established, once they are established, congregations should be attracted because churches and synagogues make what they offer inviting, even irresistible. Church patrons should then be offered alternatives and encouraged to attend other churches — to investigate, scrutinize, inspect, study, and research other religions. At no point should church-goers be reprimanded, admonished, or publicly punished because of their interest in, attendance at, or membership with another church or synagogue — even if it is a different denomination, group, sect, persuasion, or order. The main point is that people must be able to freely choose how they want to express their religious beliefs, and any church or synagogue supporting a “thinking” environment must, indeed, promote and encourage freedom for individuals within their purview.

The fourth place where a “thinking” environment can be promoted is at work. “Subscribers to the Harvard Business Review,” writes Ronald B. Adler and Jeanne Marquardt Elmhorst in their textbook Communicating at Work (McGraw-Hill), “rated ‘the ability to communicate’ the most important factor in making an executive ‘promotable,’ more important than ambition, education, and capacity for hard work.” Those most successful at work share personality traits that distinguish good communicators: a desire to persuade, an interest in talking and working with other people, and an outgoing, ascendant personality. These are the people who connect with others, discover important information, and generate creative new ideas. Given the freedom to and the rewards for “thinking,” they seek problems that demand attention, depend upon the considerable data they have stored up, ameliorate ideas, and begin thinking of well-thought-out and realistic solutions.

When a “thinking” environment begins at home, continues at school, bridges the school-home fracture with homework, is reinforced at churches and synagogues, and extends into the workplace, the result is a world full of thinkers who use the mind or intellect in exercising judgment, forming ideas, and engaging in rational thought. They analyze, criticize, take nothing for granted, weigh opinions and evidence, and devise options, alternatives, and various courses of action that are the result of organized, systematic, and rigorous reflection and deliberation. Isn’t that precisely what a true democracy should have at its core?
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At the website http://www.freeinquiry.com/critical-thinking.html “An Introduction to Critical Thinking,” Steven D. Schafersman has written an excellent essay on the need to teach critical thinking skills to students. Although the essay is 17 years old, it is no less relevant today than when it was written.

In this lengthy but informative and valuable essay entitled, “Critical thinking: What is it good for? (In fact, what is it?)” at the website http://www.csicop.org/si/2006-02/thinking.html sponsored by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, Howard Gabennesch offers readers a thorough analysis (along with 23 supporting references) of why the term needs a clearer definition and why the stakes are so high in obtaining such a perspective. This is a very effective, well-written essay.
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Contact Richard L. Weaver II