Chapter 8: Critical Thinking With Nowhere to Go

Critical thinking is often a goal of educators at all levels. From Bloom’s revised taxonomy, to surface vs. deep learning, and expertise models, the hierarchy of learning objectives often places a cognitive, rationalist critical thinking at the top of the pyramid. The idea that critical thinking is rare and elite, that it is the height of human mental activity, perhaps inspires the bumper sticker: “Critical Thinking: The Other National Deficit.”

Critical thinking, apparently, is different than non-critical thinking (whatever that may be). And it must be quite a different thing indeed from feeling. We (Brian Sohn & Sultana Shabazz) acknowledge that critical thinking is typically constructed as anthropocentric, Eurocentric, masculine, and individualist. But that does not prevent us from a pursuit of the ways in which critical thinking can be coupled with agency, freedom, and power.