Critical thinking in elementary school

 Many of times I hear teachers that think the teaching of critical thinking can not be done for younger students. However, I would argue that teaching critical thinking skills is especially important for the youngest learners.  Elementary school sets the tone for how many students view school. From an early age, it should be a top priority for students to learn the foundational skills for critical thinking, as they learn the foundational skills for other aspects of knowledge and education.  Additionally, many teachers already use strategies that are effective to teach critical thinking skills, but may not recognize it.

Each teacher, school and district has their own strategies, but what I found impressive was that the Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia has their own critical and creative thinking strategies on their website.  Their strategies align with what researchers, such as Ennis have found to be productive ways to teach 21st century skills. What amazes me is the commitment by this district to ensure that the students learn how to be creative and critical thinkers, and involve parents in how they teach these 21st century skills, which can be a model to many other schools in the country.  Even as a teacher, I found the strategies and videos helpful in thinking of how to implement 21st Century thinking skills in the classroom for younger students. 

One idea I loved from the website was the decisions and outcome tool. This can be used in many ways in an elementary school classroom.  This can be used as a social-emotional tools, a reading comprehension tool, or even implemented in math (if I decide to add, what is my outcome?), history (when the historical figure decided on this decision, what is the outcome?), and science (if I decide to mix these two things, what is the outcome?).  I also think that this could be structured in many ways. Students can collaborate as a class, in pairs, groups, or individually.  The ability for students to brainstorm their own decisions and outcomes consistently and across subjects can help them improve their critical and creative thinking. 

One practice that I had not heard of is the plus, minus, interesting strategy, but I really like the idea of implementing this in my own teaching. What I love[ about this strategy is that it goes beyond the decision and outcome strategy to help students critical evaluate whether the outcomes are good or bad, and it encourages discussions for students to listen to their peers’ point of views. As mentioned in the video, not all students will agree on what decisions are good and bad, but this gives them an opportunity to listen and view different view points. It also gives the a change to ask their own questions.  In the video, they also showed examples of how important it is to follow up with students and have them explain why they classified things in the way they did. They also had students generalize this strategy with them naming how else this strategy can be used.  When implementing these strategies, it is very important that students are explaining their reasoning and can see how they can use their critical thinking skills outside of the classroom.

A final strategy that I enjoyed on their webpage that I had not heard of was mind mapping.  What I like about this strategy is that students can collaboratively or independently make sense of the material and connections in a way that makes the most sense to them.  It is essential that students make their own connections because it helps them vocalize their thinking, which gives other students a new understanding and helps teachers see what connections the students are making. I also like that this strategy can be scaffolded for students, such as using pictures for younger students, students that are ELL, or students that can not read. 

The web page on Fairfax County School’s webpage is not a common sight on school webpages.  However, it really should be. Critical thinking is something that is essential for elementary school students. Teaching critical thinking is a great path way to produce innovative thinkers, which is needed in the 21st century. I would argue that this webpage could be an amazing example for other districts to create a consistent framework to teach 21st century skills, and provide examples for parents to help guide that learning.