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The case for critical thinking in schools

September 8, 2015 by Guest author

Samuel Fawcett argues for instilling a healthy degree of scepticism in our young people.

Society is made in the classroom. Teaching young people how to think critically is essential to an open, progressive society. Photo: Ilmicrofono Oggiono

Society is made in the classroom. Teaching young people how to think critically is essential to an open, progressive society. Photo: Ilmicrofono Oggiono.

The United Kingdom is a credulous nation. Polling carried out by Ipsos Mori in 2013 showed that the general public are wrong about almost everything. From welfare, to crime, to immigration, public perceptions are a long way from the actual facts. It would seem that people are similarly susceptible to pseudoscience. YouGov polling shows that 39% of Britons believe that homeopathy is an effective treatment for illness and 20% that star signs ‘can tell you something about yourself or another person’.

So why are we so wrong about stuff? The reasons are manifold, and there is no simple remedy. Obviously the media plays a large role in shaping our perceptions about popular issues. It is no coincidence that the levels of immigration are believed to be higher than they are and the migrants themselves perceived to be morally degenerate when two out of three of the nation’s most-read papers push vehemently anti-immigrant rhetoric. However, to a certain extent these publications are simply catering to pre-existing prejudices, knowing that by doing so they will increase sales. When it comes to pseudoscience, many people are distrustful of large organisations, seeing them as removed, malicious and esoteric. Hence people are more likely to trust a friend offering them homeopathic pills than they are ‘big pharma’.

This disjunction between perception and reality is a key area in which Humanism can play a big role. At the heart of our movement is the desire for humans to live rational and harmonious lives. Obviously we do not seek to force everyone into a life of rigid, sceptical thinking – ‘we cannot live by reason alone’ as Sam Harris said. It is of no particular consequence to us if someone gets comfort from believing their deceased partner is watching over them or their horoscope will improve their sex life. But there is quite clearly an issue when lack of inquiry leads to the bigotry and spite which saw 50% of people agree with Nigel Farage’s view that immigrants suffering from AIDS should be denied NHS treatment for five years.

So what can we do about it? Obviously no one is going to shut down the Sun or the Daily Mail, and, much as it would save me a considerable number of blood vessels, it would be wrong to do so. Likewise, we cannot simply change fundamentals of human psychology. However, I believe that we can change people’s views without doing the impossible or betraying Enlightenment values of freedom of expression. To do so, we need to give people the tools to analyse, dissect and discuss from a young age.

Earlier this year I was talking with one of my French lecturers about what he thought of teaching in the UK. Instantly he replied that he hated it, and that he felt as though he were an activity leader rather than a tutor. He complained that we are not taught to think, but simply to regurgitate. A strong criticism, but one which I believe is grounded. In my own academic experience, I was never encouraged to question until university. Indeed, questioning was in effect discouraged at secondary school.  Even in A-Level Law, my class was told to learn the essay answer to the question on Law and Morality ‘almost off by heart’ and repeat it in the exam in our own words. I do not think it is obtuse to ask that Law students be asked to seriously consider the moral implications of law-making rather than what the AQA exam board believe will score you the most marks.

This lack of inquiry needs to be remedied by schools and colleges internalising critical thinking skills as a key part of their teaching. Some would say that this would be too dull and complex for students to take on, but I do not believe that is true at all. The ‘naïve young idealist’ stereotype exists for a reason, being that younger people tend to be far more sceptical than their elders, and are more than happy to question authority. Why don’t we utilise their healthy scepticism?

An obvious first step is replacing Religious Education with the broader ‘Philosophy and Ethics’ specification which OCR have been trialling. This subject would still teach about the world’s religions, but would also include the basics of philosophy. It would be a perfect course to bring in the ideas of bias, argument and evidence. But we must not be content with simply adding a topic to the curriculum. All academic subjects should be taught with an eye on why we know the facts that we do or how we can analyse the ideas put forward; from looking at the power of language used by politicians and the media in English lessons, to how science must be its own fiercest critic if it is to be useful.

Correctly done, such an approach does have the potential to change how people think. Studies in France have shown that there is no correlation between people’s belief in pseudoscience and their level of scientific education. However, they did find that when people were taught the method behind science rather than just the facts, their acceptance of pseudoscientific beliefs fell sharply.

It is pivotal that our students come out of education with a critical mind that can take things at more than face value. Humanists desire a society where people treat each other respecting their worth as individuals rather than seeing them as hate groups that have been homogenised by misconceptions and unfair portrayals. Likewise, we do not wish to see people beholden to superstitious or fundamentalist ideas that can be damaging both physically and psychologically. Making our education system one that teaches scepticism rather than credence would not make this society a reality, but it would go some way to creating it.


Samuel Fawcett is the Deputy Editor of Anticipations, the magazine of the Young Fabians. He tweets at @SamFawcett92.

Filed Under: Education, Humanism, Politics Tagged With: scepticism, young people

The state of cyberbullying in 2015

May 27, 2015 by Guest author

At HumanistLife, our guest authors explore contemporary issues from a humanist perspective. In this piece, writer Daniel Faris asks: what can be done about the epidemic of cyberbullying? 

Cyberbullying is impacting more and more young people. Photo: Fixers via Flickr

Cyberbullying is impacting more and more young people. Photo: Fixers via Flickr

Earlier this year, Monica Lewinsky – yes; that Monica Lewinsky – gave a TED talk in Vancouver in which she explored cyberbullying – that is, bullying that takes place on the Internet.

When the news of her affair with US President Bill Clinton broke in 1998 – right when the Internet was growing into what it has become today – Lewinsky became the first person, she says, to become a victim of cyberbullying. She went to bed one night completely unknown, and then there she was the next day, the subject of headlines and tabloid fodder all around the globe for the next few months.

As time passed, Lewinsky faded from the national spotlight. But she still had a life to live and now, at 41, she’s reclaiming her narrative by speaking about how cyberbullying is a serious problem in the developed world. During her TED talk, Lewinsky said she decided to get involved in the movement to end cyberbullying after hearing about the death of Tyler Climenti, a student at Rutgers University, who killed himself after being cyberbullied about his homosexuality.

‘Public humiliation as bloodsport has got to stop,’ Lewinsky said. ‘Just imagine walking a mile in someone else’s headline.’

Why cyberbullies do it

If we agree with Lewinsky, cyberbullying has been around for about 17 years. Bullying, however, has almost certainly been around as long as human beings. Still, there’s a difference between cyberbullying and the more ‘traditional’ methods.

When a kid says something mean to another kid’s face, the bully gets to see the victim’s reaction with his or her own eyes. Assuming the child isn’t sociopathic, he or she is bound to feel at least a morsel of regret about hurting someone’s feelings.

Now migrate that bullying over to the digital world, and aggressors no longer have to deal with witnessing the negative consequences of their behaviors. With nothing discouraging them from cyberbullying, many bullies’ digital tactics can be even more ferocious.

How prevalent is cyberbullying?

Some groups purport that more than 40 percent of teenagers in the United States have been victims of cyberbullying. But slice that cross-section even further and you’ll find a particularly grotesque statistic: Eight out of every 10 students in the LGBT community are victims of cyberbullying.

On the other hand, those who employ more traditional research methods have concluded that roughly 25 percent of US students have been the victim of cyberbullying, with 16 percent of them admitting that they have been the aggressors.

It doesn’t matter which numbers you choose to agree with; they’re both higher than we’d like them to be. And make no mistake: this issue is hardly exclusive to the United States; a poll of 10,000 youths, conducted by nobullying.com, indicated that 7 in 10 young people worldwide have experienced cyberbullying. They went on to discover that Facebook is home to more online bullying than any other social network; 54% of poll respondents indicated that they had experienced cyberbullying on the site.

Managing the problem

While it’s certainly awful to hear any story that involves a young kid taking his or her own life because of bullying, rather than going on the offensive and trying to eliminate what is a very innate characteristic in children, it’s important for parents to educate their kids and remind them that they’re loved and that words are just words. Yes, people say mean things online. But isn’t that just the nature of the world?

Instead of trying to prevent our children from experiencing life – the ups and the downs, the sadness and the happiness – there’s an emerging tendency to go overboard when it comes to ensuring their safety and well-being. While these parents are certainly well-intentioned, it’s more important to be able to deal with criticisms, failure, and meanness than to act as though such things simply do not exist in the world.

Since we will never completely stop bullying, no matter how hard we try, it doesn’t really make much sense to brand cyberbullying as an ‘epidemic’ simply because the Internet wasn’t ubiquitous 20 years ago. It’s a problem, yes; but the solutions aren’t as simple as we’d like to pretend.

Lessons learned

While many in the media might want everyone to believe that today’s kids can’t walk five feet without getting cyberbullied, kidnapped, or assaulted, the truth of the matter is that kids have learned to deal with the adverse realities of life for millennia. It’s unfortunate that some kids have to be made fun of and picked on, but so long as kids are kids, there are going to be some bad apples in the bunch who are going to push their luck.

But here’s an underreported factoid: young people are increasingly coming to their parents when they’re cyberbullied. Word has gotten out, and people are talking. Bullies have fewer and fewer opportunities to hide behind their devices as they poke fun at their peers, and some who are caught are even facing serious legal troubles.

Cyberbullying is a problem, but so is virtually everything else. Kids watch too much TV. They don’t eat the right foods. They stay up too late. They are too busy. They don’t have enough to do. They have too much homework. The curriculum is not challenging enough. And so it goes.

The remedies for cyberbullying reveal that this is a human issue – not a partisan, religious, or sectarian one. Religion, for example, while purporting to teach us to ‘treat others as we would be treated,’ continues to fail us in real-world issue pertaining to social justice. Humanism, in existing solely in the material world, and concerning itself with objective values, can better speak to the ‘value and agency‘ of human beings – that is, the founding tenets of the humanist movement. In other words: a Christian may tell us that cyberbullying is wrong because God would frown on it. A humanist, meanwhile, will maintain that cyberbullying is wrong because it’s wrong. Objective truths.

Only one of these worldviews is capable of instilling the value of personal responsibility. The other defers to the supernatural as a deterrent.

But here’s another truth: As long as kids are allowed to communicate amongst themselves, they are going to pick on each other. To make sure their children don’t become victims of cyberbullying, parents need to maintain an ongoing and open dialogue with their kids, consistently reminding them to not take things said on the Internet too seriously. Parents should also let them know the kinds of trouble they’ll find themselves in should they decide to harass one of their peers. The more active parents are in their kids’ lives, the less likely we are to hear stories about cyberbullying. It’s as simple as that.

Filed Under: Comment, Ethics, Humanism, Parenting Tagged With: cyberbullying, online abuse, social media, trolling, Twitter, young people

Are younger people apathetic?

March 13, 2015 by Alice Fuller

Top half YH

Are young people really becoming more apathetic? The rapid growth of Young Humanists shows they aren’t, says Alice Fuller.

At an excellent event run by Sheffield University students I was recently asked what we could do to conquer apathy amongst younger people. They don’t even care about the issues directly affecting their lives, the attendee said. So why would they care about Humanism?

A look at voter turnout might seem to validate this statement: three quarters of 18-34s voted in the 1964 general election (at roughly the same rate as other age groups), compared to just 55% in 2010. So fewer younger people are voting, which is a problem in its own right, but is this because they’re apathetic about issues or about politicians?

Polls show that while younger people are more bored with politics and politicians than older people, 18-24s have an average of 49 political discussions per year, rising to 75 per year amongst 25-34s. There’s a big difference between having a dim view of the political establishment and not caring about the big issues. From how should my local community be run to how do we address climate change, younger people have vibrant views on a range of questions.

That over 50 volunteers have come forward to build our fledgling section of the British Humanist Association, Young Humanists, should tell us the problem is not apathy, but creating spaces where younger people feel able to play a part in thrashing out the issues and finding the solutions. Young Humanists aims to to do just this.

I would like to extend an invitation to all young humanists to come along to our launch party in London on 27 March for a night of drinks and comedy. As our poster says, Young Humanists might not have all the answers…. but we’ll give it a bloody good go.

Lower half YH

Filed Under: Culture, Politics Tagged With: apathy, Young Humanists, young people

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