That’s why critical thinking is crucial in a child’s education. It doesn’t come easily. It comes quite late (maybe not as late as 30 which that link I gave suggested) so it should be taught as early as possible. Hence the excellent material to which Peter linked.
Incidentally, Peter. You are yet again misrepresenting what I have said.
I am not clear that it is so much a case of me misrepresenting what you said or more one of demonstrating that what you said is wide open to all kinds of interpretation.
You said…
In regard to children’s cognitive abilities, it is common knowledge that these do not develop until quite late. In fact, there is a lot of readily available information that says that we do not fully develop those abilities until late in our twenties:
That would appear to mean children are not capable of critical thinking at all until “quite late,” which is what you imply by stating they do not develop “cognitive abilities” until “quite late.” Which means what exactly? Quite late in childhood? As teenagers? Not fully until late twenties, apparently.
Furthermore, you make the startling claim (below) that “…children do accept what you tell them…” without question because, apparently they “…are not capable of working out what is dangerous and what isn’t.” This would seem to imply that all children - of
whatever ages are included in the stage of development commonly called “childhood” - are incapable of “working out what is dangerous” BECAUSE they, minimally, lack relevant experiences, but also because they are incapable of critical thinking, no?
Yet, contrary to your own point, you seem to imply that children - being acutely aware of their own lack of experiences - are, in fact, making a critical assessment that adult experiences are - on the whole - a more reliable gauge for “what is dangerous” than their own limited breadth of experiences. THAT would be demonstrating profound insight and a highly astute critical judgement into the idea of “what is dangerous” than you are giving them credit for. You’ve just undermined your own argument by using that example.
There is no doubt that children do accept what you tell them as soon as they are able to understand what you are telling them. Anyone who has had children knows this. And there’s a very good reason for it. They are not capable of working out what is dangerous and what isn’t. You have to tell them, don’t touch that, don’t go there or you will get hurt.
Well this is not clearly true. I have thirty years of experience working with children as young as 5-6 years and have raised three of my own. They are quite capable of working out what is dangerous.
As an example, I remember presenting fire safety to a grade two class and they clearly understood what is required for fire to burn (oxygen, fuel, heat) and they (95% of them) could, just as clearly, explicate the danger of fire when it comes upon a generous supply of wood, furniture, and assorted other materials in a typical house to fuel it. They also understood that human bodies aren’t very much different than trees or wood when exposed to intense heat.
Now you may have a different definition of “children” than I do, but my definition is ‘human beings spanning the ages of 3 to 12 years.’ “Quite late,” would mean at 10+ years, which simply isn’t a tenable claim given that the education curricula from most jurisdictions presuppose that the capacity for critical thinking is quite functional from early childhood, which is why early childhood education from kindergarten on includes “critical thinking” skill development and the site I referenced promotes critical thinking activities from that age on.
On the most generous reading of your post, what you seem to imply is that children do not have the experience necessary to populate their critical thinking with factually correct premises from which to draw appropriate conclusions. Perhaps this is true, but that is far from claiming they are incapable of critical thinking, just that they lack the necessary experience to come up with realistic conclusions. And, in fact, demonstrates that children aware of their own dearth of experiences are quite reasonably relying upon adults to provide a more complete data set from which to make better critical judgements.
Hint: You claimed that “children’s cognitive abilities” … “do not develop until quite late” and "not fully …until late in our twenties.” Your own example refutes this claim.
I suggest you be more concise and exacting on making claims and we won’t have the problems we do with susceptibility to the wide range of interpretations which you call misrepresentation.
Foucault’s point on the “terrorism of obscurantism” should be heeded:
With Derrida, you can hardly misread him, because he’s so obscure. Every time you say, “He says so and so,” he always says, “You misunderstood me.” But if you try to figure out the correct interpretation, then that’s not so easy. I once said this to Michel Foucault, who was more hostile to Derrida even than I am, and Foucault said that Derrida practiced the method of obscurantisme terroriste (terrorism of obscurantism). We were speaking French. And I said, “What the hell do you mean by that?” And he said, “He writes so obscurely you can’t tell what he’s saying, that’s the obscurantism part, and then when you criticize him, he can always say, ‘You didn’t understand me; you’re an idiot.’ That’s the terrorism part.”
edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2015/05/d-b-hart-and-terrorism-of-obscurantism.html
Anyone who has taught children knows they’re often inclined to reject the voice of authority - and are also more perceptive than we realise…