The Core Knowledge Blog

There are two types of people in education: those who know the work of University of Virginia psychology professor Daniel T. Willingham, and those who should. A piece by Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post examines education’s fixation on teaching critical thinking skills. Willingham has a different view:

“There is no such thing,” he tells the Post.

Willingham and other cognitive psychologists say critical thinking skills are developed in relation to the content area in which they are acquired. They are not skills that can be acquired—or taught—in the abstract.

“You may have these fabulous critical-thinking skills, but you don’t know when they are appropriate,” Willingham says. “If you think of thought as having two components, you have factual knowledge that you know and the processes that manipulate those facts,” he added. “Everyone understands that half is no good when that half is knowledge. People don’t seem to understand that it works the other way. Having processes alone doesn’t work, either. You can’t acquire these processes in the absence of facts.”

Willingham questions the value of educational programs that offer a way to teach critical thinking — sometimes through exercises and brainteasers — that are not rooted in any particular subject. “To understand the structure and the nature of poetry, you need to read a lot of poems,” he tells the Post. “It’s the same thing with mathematics and science.”

Willingham, who is Core Knowledge board member, stole the show at EdTrust last November with his presentation “Teaching Content Is Teaching Reading” (If there’s a better rallying cry for curriculum reform, I haven’t heard it). And his regular columns in the AFT’s American Educator are required reading for the kinds of teachers who prefer research to the pedagogy du jour.

He is also the subject of a “myth busters” piece in the Post on teaching to kids “learning styles” — visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc. According to Willingham, “There is no evidence that the idea holds water.”