why is critical thinking important in history

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Supplement to Critical Thinking

This supplement elaborates on the history of the articulation, promotion and adoption of critical thinking as an educational goal.

John Dewey (1910: 74, 82) introduced the term ‘critical thinking’ as the name of an educational goal, which he identified with a scientific attitude of mind. More commonly, he called the goal ‘reflective thought’, ‘reflective thinking’, ‘reflection’, or just ‘thought’ or ‘thinking’. He describes his book as written for two purposes. The first was to help people to appreciate the kinship of children’s native curiosity, fertile imagination and love of experimental inquiry to the scientific attitude. The second was to help people to consider how recognizing this kinship in educational practice “would make for individual happiness and the reduction of social waste” (iii). He notes that the ideas in the book obtained concreteness in the Laboratory School in Chicago.

Dewey’s ideas were put into practice by some of the schools that participated in the Eight-Year Study in the 1930s sponsored by the Progressive Education Association in the United States. For this study, 300 colleges agreed to consider for admission graduates of 30 selected secondary schools or school systems from around the country who experimented with the content and methods of teaching, even if the graduates had not completed the then-prescribed secondary school curriculum. One purpose of the study was to discover through exploration and experimentation how secondary schools in the United States could serve youth more effectively (Aikin 1942). Each experimental school was free to change the curriculum as it saw fit, but the schools agreed that teaching methods and the life of the school should conform to the idea (previously advocated by Dewey) that people develop through doing things that are meaningful to them, and that the main purpose of the secondary school was to lead young people to understand, appreciate and live the democratic way of life characteristic of the United States (Aikin 1942: 17–18). In particular, school officials believed that young people in a democracy should develop the habit of reflective thinking and skill in solving problems (Aikin 1942: 81). Students’ work in the classroom thus consisted more often of a problem to be solved than a lesson to be learned. Especially in mathematics and science, the schools made a point of giving students experience in clear, logical thinking as they solved problems. The report of one experimental school, the University School of Ohio State University, articulated this goal of improving students’ thinking:

Critical or reflective thinking originates with the sensing of a problem. It is a quality of thought operating in an effort to solve the problem and to reach a tentative conclusion which is supported by all available data. It is really a process of problem solving requiring the use of creative insight, intellectual honesty, and sound judgment. It is the basis of the method of scientific inquiry. The success of democracy depends to a large extent on the disposition and ability of citizens to think critically and reflectively about the problems which must of necessity confront them, and to improve the quality of their thinking is one of the major goals of education. (Commission on the Relation of School and College of the Progressive Education Association 1943: 745–746)

The Eight-Year Study had an evaluation staff, which developed, in consultation with the schools, tests to measure aspects of student progress that fell outside the focus of the traditional curriculum. The evaluation staff classified many of the schools’ stated objectives under the generic heading “clear thinking” or “critical thinking” (Smith, Tyler, & Evaluation Staff 1942: 35–36). To develop tests of achievement of this broad goal, they distinguished five overlapping aspects of it: ability to interpret data, abilities associated with an understanding of the nature of proof, and the abilities to apply principles of science, of social studies and of logical reasoning. The Eight-Year Study also had a college staff, directed by a committee of college administrators, whose task was to determine how well the experimental schools had prepared their graduates for college. The college staff compared the performance of 1,475 college students from the experimental schools with an equal number of graduates from conventional schools, matched in pairs by sex, age, race, scholastic aptitude scores, home and community background, interests, and probable future. They concluded that, on 18 measures of student success, the graduates of the experimental schools did a somewhat better job than the comparison group. The graduates from the six most traditional of the experimental schools showed no large or consistent differences. The graduates from the six most experimental schools, on the other hand, had much greater differences in their favour. The graduates of the two most experimental schools, the college staff reported:

… surpassed their comparison groups by wide margins in academic achievement, intellectual curiosity, scientific approach to problems, and interest in contemporary affairs. The differences in their favor were even greater in general resourcefulness, in enjoyment of reading, [in] participation in the arts, in winning non-academic honors, and in all aspects of college life except possibly participation in sports and social activities. (Aikin 1942: 114)

One of these schools was a private school with students from privileged families and the other the experimental section of a public school with students from non-privileged families. The college staff reported that the graduates of the two schools were indistinguishable from each other in terms of college success.

In 1933 Dewey issued an extensively rewritten edition of his How We Think (Dewey 1910), with the sub-title “A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process”. Although the restatement retains the basic structure and content of the original book, Dewey made a number of changes. He rewrote and simplified his logical analysis of the process of reflection, made his ideas clearer and more definite, replaced the terms ‘induction’ and ‘deduction’ by the phrases ‘control of data and evidence’ and ‘control of reasoning and concepts’, added more illustrations, rearranged chapters, and revised the parts on teaching to reflect changes in schools since 1910. In particular, he objected to one-sided practices of some “experimental” and “progressive” schools that allowed children freedom but gave them no guidance, citing as objectionable practices novelty and variety for their own sake, experiences and activities with real materials but of no educational significance, treating random and disconnected activity as if it were an experiment, failure to summarize net accomplishment at the end of an inquiry, non-educative projects, and treatment of the teacher as a negligible factor rather than as “the intellectual leader of a social group” (Dewey 1933: 273). Without explaining his reasons, Dewey eliminated the previous edition’s uses of the words ‘critical’ and ‘uncritical’, thus settling firmly on ‘reflection’ or ‘reflective thinking’ as the preferred term for his subject-matter. In the revised edition, the word ‘critical’ occurs only once, where Dewey writes that “a person may not be sufficiently critical about the ideas that occur to him” (1933: 16, italics in original); being critical is thus a component of reflection, not the whole of it. In contrast, the Eight-Year Study by the Progressive Education Association treated ‘critical thinking’ and ‘reflective thinking’ as synonyms.

In the same period, Dewey collaborated on a history of the Laboratory School in Chicago with two former teachers from the school (Mayhew & Edwards 1936). The history describes the school’s curriculum and organization, activities aimed at developing skills, parents’ involvement, and the habits of mind that the children acquired. A concluding chapter evaluates the school’s achievements, counting as a success its staging of the curriculum to correspond to the natural development of the growing child. In two appendices, the authors describe the evolution of Dewey’s principles of education and Dewey himself describes the theory of the Chicago experiment (Dewey 1936).

Glaser (1941) reports in his doctoral dissertation the method and results of an experiment in the development of critical thinking conducted in the fall of 1938. He defines critical thinking as Dewey defined reflective thinking:

Critical thinking calls for a persistent effort to examine any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the evidence that supports it and the further conclusions to which it tends. (Glaser 1941: 6; cf. Dewey 1910: 6; Dewey 1933: 9)

In the experiment, eight lesson units directed at improving critical thinking abilities were taught to four grade 12 high school classes, with pre-test and post-test of the students using the Otis Quick-Scoring Mental Ability Test and the Watson-Glaser Tests of Critical Thinking (developed in collaboration with Glaser’s dissertation sponsor, Goodwin Watson). The average gain in scores on these tests was greater to a statistically significant degree among the students who received the lessons in critical thinking than among the students in a control group of four grade 12 high school classes taking the usual curriculum in English. Glaser concludes:

The aspect of critical thinking which appears most susceptible to general improvement is the attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one’s experience. An attitude of wanting evidence for beliefs is more subject to general transfer. Development of skill in applying the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning, however, appears to be specifically related to, and in fact limited by, the acquisition of pertinent knowledge and facts concerning the problem or subject matter toward which the thinking is to be directed. (Glaser 1941: 175)

Retest scores and observable behaviour indicated that students in the intervention group retained their growth in ability to think critically for at least six months after the special instruction.

In 1948 a group of U.S. college examiners decided to develop taxonomies of educational objectives with a common vocabulary that they could use for communicating with each other about test items. The first of these taxonomies, for the cognitive domain, appeared in 1956 (Bloom et al. 1956), and included critical thinking objectives. It has become known as Bloom’s taxonomy. A second taxonomy, for the affective domain (Krathwohl, Bloom, & Masia 1964), and a third taxonomy, for the psychomotor domain (Simpson 1966–67), appeared later. Each of the taxonomies is hierarchical, with achievement of a higher educational objective alleged to require achievement of corresponding lower educational objectives.

Bloom’s taxonomy has six major categories. From lowest to highest, they are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Within each category, there are sub-categories, also arranged hierarchically from the educationally prior to the educationally posterior. The lowest category, though called ‘knowledge’, is confined to objectives of remembering information and being able to recall or recognize it, without much transformation beyond organizing it (Bloom et al. 1956: 28–29). The five higher categories are collectively termed “intellectual abilities and skills” (Bloom et al. 1956: 204). The term is simply another name for critical thinking abilities and skills:

Although information or knowledge is recognized as an important outcome of education, very few teachers would be satisfied to regard this as the primary or the sole outcome of instruction. What is needed is some evidence that the students can do something with their knowledge, that is, that they can apply the information to new situations and problems. It is also expected that students will acquire generalized techniques for dealing with new problems and new materials. Thus, it is expected that when the student encounters a new problem or situation, he will select an appropriate technique for attacking it and will bring to bear the necessary information, both facts and principles. This has been labeled “critical thinking” by some, “reflective thinking” by Dewey and others, and “problem solving” by still others. In the taxonomy, we have used the term “intellectual abilities and skills”. (Bloom et al. 1956: 38)

Comprehension and application objectives, as their names imply, involve understanding and applying information. Critical thinking abilities and skills show up in the three highest categories of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The condensed version of Bloom’s taxonomy (Bloom et al. 1956: 201–207) gives the following examples of objectives at these levels:

• analysis objectives : ability to recognize unstated assumptions, ability to check the consistency of hypotheses with given information and assumptions, ability to recognize the general techniques used in advertising, propaganda and other persuasive materials
• synthesis objectives : organizing ideas and statements in writing, ability to propose ways of testing a hypothesis, ability to formulate and modify hypotheses
• evaluation objectives : ability to indicate logical fallacies, comparison of major theories about particular cultures

The analysis, synthesis and evaluation objectives in Bloom’s taxonomy collectively came to be called the “higher-order thinking skills” (Tankersley 2005: chap. 5). Although the analysis-synthesis-evaluation sequence mimics phases in Dewey’s (1933) logical analysis of the reflective thinking process, it has not generally been adopted as a model of a critical thinking process. While commending the inspirational value of its ratio of five categories of thinking objectives to one category of recall objectives, Ennis (1981b) points out that the categories lack criteria applicable across topics and domains. For example, analysis in chemistry is so different from analysis in literature that there is not much point in teaching analysis as a general type of thinking. Further, the postulated hierarchy seems questionable at the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. For example, ability to indicate logical fallacies hardly seems more complex than the ability to organize statements and ideas in writing.

A revised version of Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson et al. 2001) distinguishes the intended cognitive process in an educational objective (such as being able to recall, to compare or to check) from the objective’s informational content (“knowledge”), which may be factual, conceptual, procedural, or metacognitive. The result is a so-called “Taxonomy Table” with four rows for the kinds of informational content and six columns for the six main types of cognitive process. The authors name the types of cognitive process by verbs, to indicate their status as mental activities. They change the name of the ‘comprehension’ category to ‘understand’ and of the ‘synthesis’ category to ’create’, and switch the order of synthesis and evaluation. The result is a list of six main types of cognitive process aimed at by teachers: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. The authors retain the idea of a hierarchy of increasing complexity, but acknowledge some overlap, for example between understanding and applying. And they retain the idea that critical thinking and problem solving cut across the more complex cognitive processes. The terms ‘critical thinking’ and ‘problem solving’, they write:

are widely used and tend to become touchstones of curriculum emphasis. Both generally include a variety of activities that might be classified in disparate cells of the Taxonomy Table. That is, in any given instance, objectives that involve problem solving and critical thinking most likely call for cognitive processes in several categories on the process dimension. For example, to think critically about an issue probably involves some Conceptual knowledge to Analyze the issue. Then, one can Evaluate different perspectives in terms of the criteria and, perhaps, Create a novel, yet defensible perspective on this issue. (Anderson et al. 2001: 269–270; italics in original)

In the revised taxonomy, only a few sub-categories, such as inferring, have enough commonality to be treated as a distinct critical thinking ability that could be taught and assessed as a general ability.

A landmark contribution to philosophical scholarship on the concept of critical thinking was a 1962 article in the Harvard Educational Review by Robert H. Ennis, with the title “A concept of critical thinking: A proposed basis for research in the teaching and evaluation of critical thinking ability” (Ennis 1962). Ennis took as his starting-point a conception of critical thinking put forward by B. Othanel Smith:

We shall consider thinking in terms of the operations involved in the examination of statements which we, or others, may believe. A speaker declares, for example, that “Freedom means that the decisions in America’s productive effort are made not in the minds of a bureaucracy but in the free market”. Now if we set about to find out what this statement means and to determine whether to accept or reject it, we would be engaged in thinking which, for lack of a better term, we shall call critical thinking. If one wishes to say that this is only a form of problem-solving in which the purpose is to decide whether or not what is said is dependable, we shall not object. But for our purposes we choose to call it critical thinking. (Smith 1953: 130)

Adding a normative component to this conception, Ennis defined critical thinking as “the correct assessing of statements” (Ennis 1962: 83). On the basis of this definition, he distinguished 12 “aspects” of critical thinking corresponding to types or aspects of statements, such as judging whether an observation statement is reliable and grasping the meaning of a statement. He noted that he did not include judging value statements. Cutting across the 12 aspects, he distinguished three dimensions of critical thinking: logical (judging relationships between meanings of words and statements), criterial (knowledge of the criteria for judging statements), and pragmatic (the impression of the background purpose). For each aspect, Ennis described the applicable dimensions, including criteria. He proposed the resulting construct as a basis for developing specifications for critical thinking tests and for research on instructional methods and levels.

In the 1970s and 1980s there was an upsurge of attention to the development of thinking skills. The annual International Conference on Critical Thinking and Educational Reform has attracted since its start in 1980 tens of thousands of educators from all levels. In 1983 the College Entrance Examination Board proclaimed reasoning as one of six basic academic competencies needed by college students (College Board 1983). Departments of education in the United States and around the world began to include thinking objectives in their curriculum guidelines for school subjects. For example, Ontario’s social sciences and humanities curriculum guideline for secondary schools requires “the use of critical and creative thinking skills and/or processes” as a goal of instruction and assessment in each subject and course (Ontario Ministry of Education 2013: 30). The document describes critical thinking as follows:

Critical thinking is the process of thinking about ideas or situations in order to understand them fully, identify their implications, make a judgement, and/or guide decision making. Critical thinking includes skills such as questioning, predicting, analysing, synthesizing, examining opinions, identifying values and issues, detecting bias, and distinguishing between alternatives. Students who are taught these skills become critical thinkers who can move beyond superficial conclusions to a deeper understanding of the issues they are examining. They are able to engage in an inquiry process in which they explore complex and multifaceted issues, and questions for which there may be no clear-cut answers (Ontario Ministry of Education 2013: 46).

Sweden makes schools responsible for ensuring that each pupil who completes compulsory school “can make use of critical thinking and independently formulate standpoints based on knowledge and ethical considerations” (Skolverket 2018: 12). Subject syllabi incorporate this requirement, and items testing critical thinking skills appear on national tests that are a required step toward university admission. For example, the core content of biology, physics and chemistry in years 7-9 includes critical examination of sources of information and arguments encountered by pupils in different sources and social discussions related to these sciences, in both digital and other media. (Skolverket 2018: 170, 181, 192). Correspondingly, in year 9 the national tests require using knowledge of biology, physics or chemistry “to investigate information, communicate and come to a decision on issues concerning health, energy, technology, the environment, use of natural resources and ecological sustainability” (see the message from the School Board ). Other jurisdictions similarly embed critical thinking objectives in curriculum guidelines.

At the college level, a new wave of introductory logic textbooks, pioneered by Kahane (1971), applied the tools of logic to contemporary social and political issues. Popular contemporary textbooks of this sort include those by Bailin and Battersby (2016b), Boardman, Cavender and Kahane (2018), Browne and Keeley (2018), Groarke and Tindale (2012), and Moore and Parker (2020). In their wake, colleges and universities in North America transformed their introductory logic course into a general education service course with a title like ‘critical thinking’ or ‘reasoning’. In 1980, the trustees of California’s state university and colleges approved as a general education requirement a course in critical thinking, described as follows:

Instruction in critical thinking is to be designed to achieve an understanding of the relationship of language to logic, which should lead to the ability to analyze, criticize, and advocate ideas, to reason inductively and deductively, and to reach factual or judgmental conclusions based on sound inferences drawn from unambiguous statements of knowledge or belief. The minimal competence to be expected at the successful conclusion of instruction in critical thinking should be the ability to distinguish fact from judgment, belief from knowledge, and skills in elementary inductive and deductive processes, including an understanding of the formal and informal fallacies of language and thought. (Dumke 1980)

Since December 1983, the Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking has sponsored sessions at the three annual divisional meetings of the American Philosophical Association. In December 1987, the Committee on Pre-College Philosophy of the American Philosophical Association invited Peter Facione to make a systematic inquiry into the current state of critical thinking and critical thinking assessment. Facione assembled a group of 46 other academic philosophers and psychologists to participate in a multi-round Delphi process, whose product was entitled Critical Thinking: A Statement of Expert Consensus for Purposes of Educational Assessment and Instruction (Facione 1990a). The statement listed abilities and dispositions that should be the goals of a lower-level undergraduate course in critical thinking. Researchers in nine European countries determined which of these skills and dispositions employers expect of university graduates (Dominguez 2018 a), compared those expectations to critical thinking educational practices in post-secondary educational institutions (Dominguez 2018b), developed a course on critical thinking education for university teachers (Dominguez 2018c) and proposed in response to identified gaps between expectations and practices an “educational protocol” that post-secondary educational institutions in Europe could use to develop critical thinking (Elen et al. 2019).

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A Brief History of the Idea of Critical Thinking

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Why Is Critical Thinking Important? A Survival Guide

Updated: December 7, 2023

Published: April 2, 2020

Why is critical thinking important? The decisions that you make affect your quality of life. And if you want to ensure that you live your best, most successful and happy life, you’re going to want to make conscious choices. That can be done with a simple thing known as critical thinking. Here’s how to improve your critical thinking skills and make decisions that you won’t regret.

What Is Critical Thinking?

You’ve surely heard of critical thinking, but you might not be entirely sure what it really means, and that’s because there are many definitions. For the most part, however, we think of critical thinking as the process of analyzing facts in order to form a judgment. Basically, it’s thinking about thinking.

How Has The Definition Evolved Over Time?

The first time critical thinking was documented is believed to be in the teachings of Socrates , recorded by Plato. But throughout history, the definition has changed.

Today it is best understood by philosophers and psychologists and it’s believed to be a highly complex concept. Some insightful modern-day critical thinking definitions include :

• “Reasonable, reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do.”
• “Deciding what’s true and what you should do.”

The Importance Of Critical Thinking

Why is critical thinking important? Good question! Here are a few undeniable reasons why it’s crucial to have these skills.

1. Critical Thinking Is Universal

Critical thinking is a domain-general thinking skill. What does this mean? It means that no matter what path or profession you pursue, these skills will always be relevant and will always be beneficial to your success. They are not specific to any field.

2. Crucial For The Economy

Our future depends on technology, information, and innovation. Critical thinking is needed for our fast-growing economies, to solve problems as quickly and as effectively as possible.

3. Improves Language & Presentation Skills

In order to best express ourselves, we need to know how to think clearly and systematically — meaning practice critical thinking! Critical thinking also means knowing how to break down texts, and in turn, improve our ability to comprehend.

4. Promotes Creativity

By practicing critical thinking, we are allowing ourselves not only to solve problems but also to come up with new and creative ideas to do so. Critical thinking allows us to analyze these ideas and adjust them accordingly.

5. Important For Self-Reflection

Without critical thinking, how can we really live a meaningful life? We need this skill to self-reflect and justify our ways of life and opinions. Critical thinking provides us with the tools to evaluate ourselves in the way that we need to.

6. The Basis Of Science & Democracy

In order to have a democracy and to prove scientific facts, we need critical thinking in the world. Theories must be backed up with knowledge. In order for a society to effectively function, its citizens need to establish opinions about what’s right and wrong (by using critical thinking!).

Benefits Of Critical Thinking

We know that critical thinking is good for society as a whole, but what are some benefits of critical thinking on an individual level? Why is critical thinking important for us?

1. Key For Career Success

Critical thinking is crucial for many career paths. Not just for scientists, but lawyers , doctors, reporters, engineers , accountants, and analysts (among many others) all have to use critical thinking in their positions. In fact, according to the World Economic Forum, critical thinking is one of the most desirable skills to have in the workforce, as it helps analyze information, think outside the box, solve problems with innovative solutions, and plan systematically.

2. Better Decision Making

There’s no doubt about it — critical thinkers make the best choices. Critical thinking helps us deal with everyday problems as they come our way, and very often this thought process is even done subconsciously. It helps us think independently and trust our gut feeling.

3. Can Make You Happier!

While this often goes unnoticed, being in touch with yourself and having a deep understanding of why you think the way you think can really make you happier. Critical thinking can help you better understand yourself, and in turn, help you avoid any kind of negative or limiting beliefs, and focus more on your strengths. Being able to share your thoughts can increase your quality of life.

4. Form Well-Informed Opinions

There is no shortage of information coming at us from all angles. And that’s exactly why we need to use our critical thinking skills and decide for ourselves what to believe. Critical thinking allows us to ensure that our opinions are based on the facts, and help us sort through all that extra noise.

5. Better Citizens

One of the most inspiring critical thinking quotes is by former US president Thomas Jefferson: “An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.” What Jefferson is stressing to us here is that critical thinkers make better citizens, as they are able to see the entire picture without getting sucked into biases and propaganda.

6. Improves Relationships

While you may be convinced that being a critical thinker is bound to cause you problems in relationships, this really couldn’t be less true! Being a critical thinker can allow you to better understand the perspective of others, and can help you become more open-minded towards different views.

7. Promotes Curiosity

Critical thinkers are constantly curious about all kinds of things in life, and tend to have a wide range of interests. Critical thinking means constantly asking questions and wanting to know more, about why, what, who, where, when, and everything else that can help them make sense of a situation or concept, never taking anything at face value.

8. Allows For Creativity

Critical thinkers are also highly creative thinkers, and see themselves as limitless when it comes to possibilities. They are constantly looking to take things further, which is crucial in the workforce.

9. Enhances Problem Solving Skills

Those with critical thinking skills tend to solve problems as part of their natural instinct. Critical thinkers are patient and committed to solving the problem, similar to Albert Einstein, one of the best critical thinking examples, who said “It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” Critical thinkers’ enhanced problem-solving skills makes them better at their jobs and better at solving the world’s biggest problems. Like Einstein, they have the potential to literally change the world.

10. An Activity For The Mind

Just like our muscles, in order for them to be strong, our mind also needs to be exercised and challenged. It’s safe to say that critical thinking is almost like an activity for the mind — and it needs to be practiced. Critical thinking encourages the development of many crucial skills such as logical thinking, decision making, and open-mindness.

11. Creates Independence

When we think critically, we think on our own as we trust ourselves more. Critical thinking is key to creating independence, and encouraging students to make their own decisions and form their own opinions.

12. Crucial Life Skill

Critical thinking is crucial not just for learning, but for life overall! Education isn’t just a way to prepare ourselves for life, but it’s pretty much life itself. Learning is a lifelong process that we go through each and every day.

How to Think Critically

Now that you know the benefits of thinking critically, how do you actually do it?

How To Improve Your Critical Thinking

• Define Your Question: When it comes to critical thinking, it’s important to always keep your goal in mind. Know what you’re trying to achieve, and then figure out how to best get there.
• Gather Reliable Information: Make sure that you’re using sources you can trust — biases aside. That’s how a real critical thinker operates!
• Ask The Right Questions: We all know the importance of questions, but be sure that you’re asking the right questions that are going to get you to your answer.
• Look Short & Long Term: When coming up with solutions, think about both the short- and long-term consequences. Both of them are significant in the equation.
• Explore All Sides: There is never just one simple answer, and nothing is black or white. Explore all options and think outside of the box before you come to any conclusions.

How Is Critical Thinking Developed At School?

Critical thinking is developed in nearly everything we do. However, much of this important skill is encouraged to be practiced at school, and rightfully so! Critical thinking goes beyond just thinking clearly — it’s also about thinking for yourself.

When a teacher asks a question in class, students are given the chance to answer for themselves and think critically about what they learned and what they believe to be accurate. When students work in groups and are forced to engage in discussion, this is also a great chance to expand their thinking and use their critical thinking skills.

How Does Critical Thinking Apply To Your Career?

Once you’ve finished school and entered the workforce, your critical thinking journey only expands and grows from here!

Impress Your Employer

Employers value employees who are critical thinkers, ask questions, offer creative ideas, and are always ready to offer innovation against the competition. No matter what your position or role in a company may be, critical thinking will always give you the power to stand out and make a difference.

Careers That Require Critical Thinking

Some of many examples of careers that require critical thinking include:

• Human resources specialist
• Marketing associate
• Business analyst

Truth be told however, it’s probably harder to come up with a professional field that doesn’t require any critical thinking!

Photo by  Oladimeji Ajegbile  from  Pexels

What is someone with critical thinking skills capable of doing.

Someone with critical thinking skills is able to think rationally and clearly about what they should or not believe. They are capable of engaging in their own thoughts, and doing some reflection in order to come to a well-informed conclusion.

A critical thinker understands the connections between ideas, and is able to construct arguments based on facts, as well as find mistakes in reasoning.

The Process Of Critical Thinking

The process of critical thinking is highly systematic.

What Are Your Goals?

Critical thinking starts by defining your goals, and knowing what you are ultimately trying to achieve.

Once you know what you are trying to conclude, you can foresee your solution to the problem and play it out in your head from all perspectives.

What Does The Future Of Critical Thinking Hold?

The future of critical thinking is the equivalent of the future of jobs. In 2020, critical thinking was ranked as the 2nd top skill (following complex problem solving) by the World Economic Forum .

We are dealing with constant unprecedented changes, and what success is today, might not be considered success tomorrow — making critical thinking a key skill for the future workforce.

Why Is Critical Thinking So Important?

Why is critical thinking important? Critical thinking is more than just important! It’s one of the most crucial cognitive skills one can develop.

By practicing well-thought-out thinking, both your thoughts and decisions can make a positive change in your life, on both a professional and personal level. You can hugely improve your life by working on your critical thinking skills as often as you can.

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Historical content matters: a response to the critical thinking skills agenda

Katie barclay | 06 november 2019.

Executive Summary

• Historical knowledge is a significant form of ‘common sense’ knowledge that shapes decision-making
• Academic histories play a key role in shaping this ‘common sense’ knowledge
• As a result, academic historical scholarship plays a significant and undervalued role in producing social, economic and political outcomes in all areas
• Universities, policymakers and society should take greater heed of historical research as vital to the healthy functioning of societies, economies and polities
• The value of history degrees is not just an important skillset in critical thinking, but the historical content that it provides students

Introduction

History is regularly deployed by people from all walks of life for all sorts of purposes. Pro-Brexit campaigners have variously called upon Britain’s imperial heritage or nostalgic imaginings of whiter British past to justify their retreat from the European Union. Remainers have responded with their own histories of Empire and migration. Both sides have wielded experts in universities to support their points, or posed with historical writings in piles behind them as they make political arguments. The Christchurch shooter carved the dates of Crusade battles into his weapon, locating his action – he claimed – in a long history of Christian-Muslim conflict. Recent debates around sex education in schools have deployed arguments about ‘traditional’ family structures , that LGBT families are meant to sit outside. More benignly, journalists and the public display surprise when they encounter academic scholarship that sheds light on contemporary issues, claiming these ‘hidden’ histories have been withheld from them. It is a degree of surprise, sometimes outrage, that is suggestive that the public recognise that history does important work in shaping how we feel about the world, and that gaps in knowledge are somehow unjust or designed to deceive the public.

For all these people, history matters. And it matters to historians that the public has access to the best and most cutting-edge histories to help inform these discussions. One of the key purposes of History & Policy is to direct the knowledge and findings produced by historians towards those addressing similar problems in the present. Historians, deeply appreciative of the importance of context, are loathe to suggest that ‘lessons from the past’ can be directly applied to a new set of circumstances. But equally we argue that understanding the past can help people make better decisions when encountering similar circumstances today. It can be particularly useful for highlighting how a specific problem has arisen, and for offering an appreciation of the scope of an impact of a choice and the variety of dimensions that need to be considered. Thus, for example, research on children and institutions illuminates why institutions have repeatedly failed many of the children that have been brought into them and why these same problems continue into the present. Historical knowledge, however, is also significant because it shapes our understanding of who we are, our identities, and our potential as people. It is important not just where it can be directly applied but as a source of general information that informs how we engage with the world. That it plays this role ensures that we should not only consider historical research and teaching critical when it has an instrumental and applied value but also because of its role in producing people, inclusive democracies, and nations.

Histories and the everyday

Historical knowledge is all around us. It is transmitted through families, fact and fiction books, television, museums and heritage sites, in language, and as ‘common sense’ information that we use to make decisions. Our first encounters with the past are often in the stories told about own ancestors – parents and grandparents – designed to help us understand what is valued in our family or how our childhood experience might have differed in a previous era. These stories offer a set of common sense information that help us locate our own experiences in relation to time and place, to significant events, and to other people. They can be incredibly varied, ranging across histories of childhood, school, workplaces and occupations, political parties and geopolitics, climate and environment, arts and culture, love and friendship, science, medicine and technology to name a few. As we age and encounter other histories, perhaps at school or in books, our knowledge of the world expands and we learn both about diversity and how historical events have differential impacts on groups.

As the histories that help us make sense of our experiences, these accounts become central to how we understand our personal identity, that of others, and our role in the nation. Given our investments in our identity and attachments to our pasts, these stories also ensure that history becomes politically significant in the public sphere. That the public intuitively recognises this can be seen in the debates, protests and highly emotive engagements with public statues associated with controversial figures, such as the imperialist Cecil Rhodes or US confederate leader Robert E. Lee , or in museum displays associated with local conflicts, such as The Troubles in Northern Ireland or Aboriginal-settler conflict in Australia. What is represented in public histories becomes central to debates about who we are, who is included and excluded, who holds power, and the production of contemporary values and rights.

These ‘everyday histories’ are related to academic scholarship in important ways. The popular histories that are taught at school and museums and appear on television, in children’s books, even fiction, typically draw on academic research. If they are sometimes less rigorous or flatten complex arguments, they nonetheless draw on a body of research conducted by professional historians. Increasingly academics also produce public-facing historical writing to aid with this process. The histories that shape identities grow from academic scholarship. Historians play a significant role in determining what is important to remember. A move from histories of monarchs and diplomacy to that of women and workers may have been encouraged by grassroots civil rights movements in the middle of the twentieth century, but it was historians who determined the key features of the new social histories that emerged.

Historical research is often considered an art because the historian plays such a key role in shaping their accounts of the past. It is the questions that they consider to be important that determine what they look for in the archive. It is their sifting and selection from often sizeable collections of material that determine what makes it into history books and what is forgotten. It is these choices, and that others might make different choices, that produce historical debate and argument, and which informs the evolution of the field as a new generation of scholars bring a different set of concerns to the material that survives from the past. Thus the knowledges that we grow up with and that shape our understanding of ourselves and identities reflect the trends and critical questions within the historical discipline in our formative years. It is perhaps natural then that new histories produced by a new generation of scholars can be challenging to those whose identities were shaped by older understandings of the past, just as those same histories have been liberating for many – such as women, the LGBT community, or ethnic minorities – who lacked stories of people like them when they were growing up. Yet this evolution is critical in producing history that remains relevant to our contemporary experience and identity-making, and to answering questions raised by new circumstances and contexts.

Research and teaching history

In recent years, the value of historical research, and indeed humanities research in general, has been questioned. Right-wing commentators have suggested that universities are increasingly driven by ‘identity politics’ . Critics fear that the history curriculum has fragmented into a wide range of modules driven by the politics of their teachers. Others have questioned the value of research that is not seen to hold a direct and measurable social, but especially economic, impact. This has become particularly significant for the student market where degrees are increasingly promoted with claims of a direct and obvious employment route. Both criticisms demand a straightforward account of what a history degree teaches, and a single type of job that those with history degrees take up. Without this, critics argue, history is useless knowledge. Universities have sought to counter such claims by locating the value of history not in historical knowledge – the content of what was learned – but in ‘critical thinking’, ‘writing and communication’ and similar important but generic skills . For such commentators, the historical content is of less significance than the opportunity to read widely, think deeply, research, and solve problems, a skillset that can be applied in any context.

No one would contest that a history degree offers these benefits, but it is an account that fails to recognise the importance of historical knowledge in the everyday. The histories we use are significant in interpreting everyday experiences and identity. Indeed, critical thinking requires historical knowledge. What we determine to be ‘common sense’, how we understand the world to operate, does not arise naturally but is based upon the everyday histories that we are taught in childhood and across our lives. This is the case when we, for example, make an assumption about normative family forms in the past, or when we draw on an interpretation of the causes of the First World War when producing foreign policy. Such ‘common sense’ histories are always partial, reflective of our experience and our encounters with the historical knowledge available to us. Access to a broader, more sophisticated body of historical research counters these ‘common sense’ accounts by offering a firmer grounding for decision-making and critical analysis. This can be seen in the now famous example of the US Supreme Court decision for marriage equality, that referenced the scholarship of key marriage and sexuality historians , and transformed the legal rights of LGBT individuals across the US.

New histories are therefore important for the work they do in shaping individuals and society. A democratic society – one where all members of the polity have a place – requires inclusive accounts that acknowledge and recognise all parts of the community. This is even more critical for groups who have been subject to disadvantage, harm or exploitation, where their histories act as an acknowledgement and first step in redress for past wrongs. It is vital for minorities who need histories of others like them to explain their experience and role in the world. New histories are also important in giving us accounts of art, culture, science, technology, business, economy and more that help us interpret the present, much as History & Policy promotes. Importantly, for a rich account of the past to emerge, a variety of topics and perspectives becomes critical.

In the present moment, a popular television show such as Downton Abbey, exploring changing social relations in early twentieth-century Britain, can draw on histories of war, economy, society, fashion, popular culture, material culture, accent and language use, technology, medicine and more, in its rich ‘world-building’. This is possible due to the work of dozens of scholars and years of effort, which itself builds upon generations of earlier work, though this work is usually unacknowledged within television credits. Such a history is richer, more interesting, perhaps a fuller capture of the past. Its strength lies in collaboration and the representation of a diversity of perspectives. With significant viewing figures both in the UK and internationally, Downton Abbey is an account of the past that will inform how many of us interpret our present experiences. Yet it is an account that is not usually acknowledged as either ‘history’ that people will use in making sense of themselves, nor as rooted in academic historical research – despite it being both. Remarkably, despite the fact that governments and increasingly university campaigns targeting students have sought to instrumentalise historical knowledge by emphasising its benefits for public policy , for productivity and growth, and for future employment, the important and everyday impacts of history – the ways that it is used by ordinary people in their own lives – is rarely considered as a domain shaped by historical research.

For an informed and productive society, the historical knowledge disseminated to the public must be broad, diverse and evolving to reflect new research. Universities are a key space where new accounts of the past can be taught and disseminated. That there is not a core history curriculum taught at every university, as some conservatives suggest there should be, is not a flaw, but a feature. It is not possible for every member of society, nor every historian, to know everything about the past. History courses thus specialise, and disseminate diverse accounts of the past. As history students from different institutions spread outwards, taking their specialist knowledges to an array of workplaces nationally and internationally, they share their educations with others, increasing the opportunity for knowledge to reach those that will find it most useful. Acknowledging the significance of the historical content of degrees may also offer opportunities for individuals to be targeted by employers or communities for historical learning that gives them expertise and critical thinking in specific areas.

Importantly, this is not an account of historical knowledge that attends only to the modern histories that explain the immediate experiences of those in the polity. Historical knowledges have long legacies in culture and society, requiring investment and dissemination in histories both deep and wide. This can be seen most recently in the use of crusading history both by the Christchurch shooter and by conservative political parties in Australia  (where Senator Cori Bernardi recently tabled a motion asking the Senate to note the anniversary of the breaking of the siege of Vienna in 1529), to promote a right-wing agenda. But it can also be seen in our contemporary understanding of love and sex that was first forged in conflicts within the medieval church. Knowing this – like our more well-known modern histories of sex and gender – may well open up new ways of thinking about something so central to our everyday lives. A successful and inclusive democratic state requires not just research skills, but historical knowledge.

Historical knowledge shapes how people interpret their experiences, and those of others. It aids critical thinking and decision-making. Providing people with richer, more sophisticated, and up to date historical content therefore contributes not only to a better educated public but one that can make better decisions in a vast array of areas of life. Acknowledging this requires a move from promoting history degrees for their generic critical thinking and communication skillset to celebrating historical knowledge as a key form of information required by productive members of society. This has implications for how universities promote their history research and teaching, but also for policymakers as they seek to produce the best outcomes in areas as diverse as education, health, industry, politics, economy, technology, arts, and society.

• Barclay, Katie
• History in practice

Further Reading

Anna Green, ‘Intergenerational Family Stories: Private, Parochial, Pathological?,’ Journal of Family History 38, no. 4 (2013): 387-402

Shurlee Swain and Nell Musgrove, ‘We are the Stories We Tell About Ourselves: Child Welfare Records and the Construction of Identity among Australians who, as Children, Experienced Out-of-Home “Care”,’ Archives and Manuscripts 40, no. 1 (2012): 4-14

Penny Summerfield, ‘Culture and Composure: Creating Narratives of the Gendered Self in Oral History Interviews,’ Cultural and Social History 1 (2004): 65-93

Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)

About the author

Katie Barclay is Deputy-Director of the ARC Centre for Excellence in the History of Emotions and Associate Professor in History, University of Adelaide. Her research explores the transmission of knowledge across generations within families and the implications for self, identity and nation.

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How history matters now, ludmilla jordanova | 27 november 2008, in defence of applied history: the history and policy website, john tosh | 10 february 2006, why history matters, john tosh | 20 november 2008, why history matters - and why medieval history also matters, john arnold | 28 november 2008, related opinion articles, back to the past for the school history curriculum, nicola sheldon | 20 february 2013, papers by author, papers by theme, digital download.

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Historical Thinking

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Constructing meaning ; Corroboration and contextualization ; Explicit instruction ; Source analysis ; Sourcing ; Thinking aloud

Historical thinking is associated with the craft of the historian. It involves the use of critical thinking skills to process information from the past. These skills include strategies that historians use to construct meaning of past events by comparing and contrasting sources of information. For instance, one may view visual materials such as art, maps, and political cartoons. One may also analyze various types of written material beyond a textbook, in addition to auditory and electronic items. Part of this process focuses on active learning and discussion, as well as metacognition, critical thinking, and literacy skills. Sorting evidence from multiple sources is one distinct feature of historical thinking. To actively engage with sources, historians rely on three heuristics: sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization (Wineburg 1991a ). For...

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How to think critically about history — and why it matters

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Why Study History? (1998)

In 2020, Peter N. Stearns revisited his “Why Study History? (1998)” essay with “ Why Study History? Revisited ” in Perspectives on History .

By Peter N. Stearns

People live in the present. They plan for and worry about the future. History, however, is the study of the past. Given all the demands that press in from living in the present and anticipating what is yet to come, why bother with what has been? Given all the desirable and available branches of knowledge, why insist—as most American educational programs do—on a good bit of history? And why urge many students to study even more history than they are required to?

Any subject of study needs justification: its advocates must explain why it is worth attention. Most widely accepted subjects—and history is certainly one of them—attract some people who simply like the information and modes of thought involved. But audiences less spontaneously drawn to the subject and more doubtful about why to bother need to know what the purpose is.

Historians do not perform heart transplants, improve highway design, or arrest criminals. In a society that quite correctly expects education to serve useful purposes, the functions of history can seem more difficult to define than those of engineering or medicine. History is in fact very useful, actually indispensable, but the products of historical study are less tangible, sometimes less immediate, than those that stem from some other disciplines.

In the past history has been justified for reasons we would no longer accept. For instance, one of the reasons history holds its place in current education is because earlier leaders believed that a knowledge of certain historical facts helped distinguish the educated from the uneducated; the person who could reel off the date of the Norman conquest of England (1066) or the name of the person who came up with the theory of evolution at about the same time that Darwin did (Wallace) was deemed superior—a better candidate for law school or even a business promotion. Knowledge of historical facts has been used as a screening device in many societies, from China to the United States, and the habit is still with us to some extent. Unfortunately, this use can encourage mindless memorization—a real but not very appealing aspect of the discipline. History should be studied because it is essential to individuals and to society, and because it harbors beauty. There are many ways to discuss the real functions of the subject—as there are many different historical talents and many different paths to historical meaning. All definitions of history's utility, however, rely on two fundamental facts.

History Helps Us Understand People and Societies

In the first place, history offers a storehouse of information about how people and societies behave. Understanding the operations of people and societies is difficult, though a number of disciplines make the attempt. An exclusive reliance on current data would needlessly handicap our efforts. How can we evaluate war if the nation is at peace—unless we use historical materials? How can we understand genius, the influence of technological innovation, or the role that beliefs play in shaping family life, if we don't use what we know about experiences in the past? Some social scientists attempt to formulate laws or theories about human behavior. But even these recourses depend on historical information, except for in limited, often artificial cases in which experiments can be devised to determine how people act. Major aspects of a society's operation, like mass elections, missionary activities, or military alliances, cannot be set up as precise experiments. Consequently, history must serve, however imperfectly, as our laboratory, and data from the past must serve as our most vital evidence in the unavoidable quest to figure out why our complex species behaves as it does in societal settings. This, fundamentally, is why we cannot stay away from history: it offers the only extensive evidential base for the contemplation and analysis of how societies function, and people need to have some sense of how societies function simply to run their own lives.

History Helps Us Understand Change and How the Society We Live in Came to Be

The second reason history is inescapable as a subject of serious study follows closely on the first. The past causes the present, and so the future. Any time we try to know why something happened—whether a shift in political party dominance in the American Congress, a major change in the teenage suicide rate, or a war in the Balkans or the Middle East—we have to look for factors that took shape earlier. Sometimes fairly recent history will suffice to explain a major development, but often we need to look further back to identify the causes of change. Only through studying history can we grasp how things change; only through history can we begin to comprehend the factors that cause change; and only through history can we understand what elements of an institution or a society persist despite change.

The Importance of History in Our Own Lives

These two fundamental reasons for studying history underlie more specific and quite diverse uses of history in our own lives. History well told is beautiful. Many of the historians who most appeal to the general reading public know the importance of dramatic and skillful writing—as well as of accuracy. Biography and military history appeal in part because of the tales they contain. History as art and entertainment serves a real purpose, on aesthetic grounds but also on the level of human understanding. Stories well done are stories that reveal how people and societies have actually functioned, and they prompt thoughts about the human experience in other times and places. The same aesthetic and humanistic goals inspire people to immerse themselves in efforts to reconstruct quite remote pasts, far removed from immediate, present-day utility. Exploring what historians sometimes call the "pastness of the past"—the ways people in distant ages constructed their lives—involves a sense of beauty and excitement, and ultimately another perspective on human life and society.

History Contributes to Moral Understanding

History also provides a terrain for moral contemplation. Studying the stories of individuals and situations in the past allows a student of history to test his or her own moral sense, to hone it against some of the real complexities individuals have faced in difficult settings. People who have weathered adversity not just in some work of fiction, but in real, historical circumstances can provide inspiration. "History teaching by example" is one phrase that describes this use of a study of the past—a study not only of certifiable heroes, the great men and women of history who successfully worked through moral dilemmas, but also of more ordinary people who provide lessons in courage, diligence, or constructive protest.

History Provides Identity

History also helps provide identity, and this is unquestionably one of the reasons all modern nations encourage its teaching in some form. Historical data include evidence about how families, groups, institutions and whole countries were formed and about how they have evolved while retaining cohesion. For many Americans, studying the history of one's own family is the most obvious use of history, for it provides facts about genealogy and (at a slightly more complex level) a basis for understanding how the family has interacted with larger historical change. Family identity is established and confirmed. Many institutions, businesses, communities, and social units, such as ethnic groups in the United States, use history for similar identity purposes. Merely defining the group in the present pales against the possibility of forming an identity based on a rich past. And of course nations use identity history as well—and sometimes abuse it. Histories that tell the national story, emphasizing distinctive features of the national experience, are meant to drive home an understanding of national values and a commitment to national loyalty.

Studying History Is Essential for Good Citizenship

A study of history is essential for good citizenship. This is the most common justification for the place of history in school curricula. Sometimes advocates of citizenship history hope merely to promote national identity and loyalty through a history spiced by vivid stories and lessons in individual success and morality. But the importance of history for citizenship goes beyond this narrow goal and can even challenge it at some points.

History that lays the foundation for genuine citizenship returns, in one sense, to the essential uses of the study of the past. History provides data about the emergence of national institutions, problems, and values—it's the only significant storehouse of such data available. It offers evidence also about how nations have interacted with other societies, providing international and comparative perspectives essential for responsible citizenship. Further, studying history helps us understand how recent, current, and prospective changes that affect the lives of citizens are emerging or may emerge and what causes are involved. More important, studying history encourages habits of mind that are vital for responsible public behavior, whether as a national or community leader, an informed voter, a petitioner, or a simple observer.

What Skills Does a Student of History Develop?

What does a well-trained student of history, schooled to work on past materials and on case studies in social change, learn how to do? The list is manageable, but it contains several overlapping categories.

The Ability to Assess Evidence . The study of history builds experience in dealing with and assessing various kinds of evidence—the sorts of evidence historians use in shaping the most accurate pictures of the past that they can. Learning how to interpret the statements of past political leaders—one kind of evidence—helps form the capacity to distinguish between the objective and the self-serving among statements made by present-day political leaders. Learning how to combine different kinds of evidence—public statements, private records, numerical data, visual materials—develops the ability to make coherent arguments based on a variety of data. This skill can also be applied to information encountered in everyday life.

The Ability to Assess Conflicting Interpretations . Learning history means gaining some skill in sorting through diverse, often conflicting interpretations. Understanding how societies work—the central goal of historical study—is inherently imprecise, and the same certainly holds true for understanding what is going on in the present day. Learning how to identify and evaluate conflicting interpretations is an essential citizenship skill for which history, as an often-contested laboratory of human experience, provides training. This is one area in which the full benefits of historical study sometimes clash with the narrower uses of the past to construct identity. Experience in examining past situations provides a constructively critical sense that can be applied to partisan claims about the glories of national or group identity. The study of history in no sense undermines loyalty or commitment, but it does teach the need for assessing arguments, and it provides opportunities to engage in debate and achieve perspective.

Experience in Assessing Past Examples of Change . Experience in assessing past examples of change is vital to understanding change in society today—it's an essential skill in what we are regularly told is our "ever-changing world." Analysis of change means developing some capacity for determining the magnitude and significance of change, for some changes are more fundamental than others. Comparing particular changes to relevant examples from the past helps students of history develop this capacity. The ability to identify the continuities that always accompany even the most dramatic changes also comes from studying history, as does the skill to determine probable causes of change. Learning history helps one figure out, for example, if one main factor—such as a technological innovation or some deliberate new policy—accounts for a change or whether, as is more commonly the case, a number of factors combine to generate the actual change that occurs.

Historical study, in sum, is crucial to the promotion of that elusive creature, the well-informed citizen. It provides basic factual information about the background of our political institutions and about the values and problems that affect our social well-being. It also contributes to our capacity to use evidence, assess interpretations, and analyze change and continuities. No one can ever quite deal with the present as the historian deals with the past—we lack the perspective for this feat; but we can move in this direction by applying historical habits of mind, and we will function as better citizens in the process.

History Is Useful in the World of Work

History is useful for work. Its study helps create good businesspeople, professionals, and political leaders. The number of explicit professional jobs for historians is considerable, but most people who study history do not become professional historians. Professional historians teach at various levels, work in museums and media centers, do historical research for businesses or public agencies, or participate in the growing number of historical consultancies. These categories are important—indeed vital—to keep the basic enterprise of history going, but most people who study history use their training for broader professional purposes. Students of history find their experience directly relevant to jobs in a variety of careers as well as to further study in fields like law and public administration. Employers often deliberately seek students with the kinds of capacities historical study promotes. The reasons are not hard to identify: students of history acquire, by studying different phases of the past and different societies in the past, a broad perspective that gives them the range and flexibility required in many work situations. They develop research skills, the ability to find and evaluate sources of information, and the means to identify and evaluate diverse interpretations. Work in history also improves basic writing and speaking skills and is directly relevant to many of the analytical requirements in the public and private sectors, where the capacity to identify, assess, and explain trends is essential. Historical study is unquestionably an asset for a variety of work and professional situations, even though it does not, for most students, lead as directly to a particular job slot, as do some technical fields. But history particularly prepares students for the long haul in their careers, its qualities helping adaptation and advancement beyond entry-level employment. There is no denying that in our society many people who are drawn to historical study worry about relevance. In our changing economy, there is concern about job futures in most fields. Historical training is not, however, an indulgence; it applies directly to many careers and can clearly help us in our working lives.

Why study history? The answer is because we virtually must, to gain access to the laboratory of human experience. When we study it reasonably well, and so acquire some usable habits of mind, as well as some basic data about the forces that affect our own lives, we emerge with relevant skills and an enhanced capacity for informed citizenship, critical thinking, and simple awareness. The uses of history are varied. Studying history can help us develop some literally "salable" skills, but its study must not be pinned down to the narrowest utilitarianism. Some history—that confined to personal recollections about changes and continuities in the immediate environment—is essential to function beyond childhood. Some history depends on personal taste, where one finds beauty, the joy of discovery, or intellectual challenge. Between the inescapable minimum and the pleasure of deep commitment comes the history that, through cumulative skill in interpreting the unfolding human record, provides a real grasp of how the world works.

Careers for History Majors

Through clear graphs and informal prose, readers will find hard data, practical advice, and answers to common questions about the study of history and the value it affords to individuals, their workplaces, and their communities in Careers for History Majors . You can purchase this pamphlet online at Oxford University Press. For questions about the pamphlet, please contact Karen Lou ( [email protected] ). For bulk orders contact OUP directly . 

What You'll Learn with a History Degree

What do history students learn? With the help of the AHA, faculty from around the United States have collaborated to create a list of skills students develop in their history coursework. This list, called the "History Discipline Core," is meant to help students understand the skills they are acquiring so that they can explain the value of their education to parents, friends, and employers, as well as take pride in their decision to study history. 

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Using History to Teach Critical Thinking Skills

Feb 26, 2019

One of the most important tools we can give our students is the ability to think critically.  In this age of unlimited social media sharing, fake news, and hidden agendas, it has never been more important to be able to look at information and its source and determine if the information is accurate and true.  Dictionary.com defines critical thinking as clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence.  In a good history class, one that moves beyond the textbook, thinking critically is part of the package.

Students of history look at an event from many different perspectives.  The use of both primary (first-hand accounts) and secondary (recounting with interpretation and analysis) sources helps students see an event from many different angles.  Imagine an event like the Boston Massacre.  The account of the British soldier involved would be very different from the patriot on the street. Likewise, Paul Revere, Thomas Jefferson, and King George III would all see the Boston Massacre from a different place.  A twenty-first century historian would add another view of the event. A British historian and an American historian would likely see the event in two different lights.  A student of history learns to read all the accounts and make judgments about the event.  Were the patriots justified in their actions?  Were the soldiers?  Why did Paul Revere refer to the event as a massacre?  How did the event contribute to the tensions between the colonies and the crown leading up to the American Revolution?

Looking at different sources, the perspective of the author, and the bias brought to the event help students learn to discern and think critically.  This important skill can be extrapolated to their non-academic life to determine if a news article, tweet, or report is valid or bait.

Becky Frank has been steeped in American History from her early days growing up on the family farm in Northeastern North Carolina. Although Barrow Creek Farm has been in her family since the 1680s, her parents were the first to live on it in three generations. On the farm she learned to milk cows, sheer sheep, and drive a tractor.

After an internship at Historic Edenton, she received a B.S. in Public History from Appalachian State University in 1992. Answering God’s call to teach in a classroom setting, she added teacher certification from East Carolina University to her degree in 1998. Becky then taught social studies in Gates County, North Carolina where her classes included U.S. History, World History, Economics, Government, and Humanities. In 2003 she married her husband John and left the classroom to start a family.

Becky has been teaching online for more than 10 years.  She also homeschools her three children and is an active leader in the Children’s and Youth’s ministry at her church. She also enjoys gardening, cooking, scrapbooking and long walks with her kids and the family dog. Sharing the heritage of our great country is one of her passions as well. Her lifelong dream is to return to the family farm and make a portion of the acreage a living history site.

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Why Study History?

For a great many people, history is a set of facts, a collection of events, a series of things that happened, one after another, in the past. In fact, history is far more than these things-- it is a way of thinking about and seeing the world.

T o genuinely make sense of the past, you need to learn how to see it on its own terms, how to make the strange and unfamiliar logical and comprehensible, and how to empathize with people who once thought so differently than we do today. If you learn how to do these things, you begin to cultivate a crucial set of skills that not only help navigate the past, but the present as well. Once you can see the things that history teaches you, once you know how to penetrate unfamiliar modes of thought and behavior and can understand their inner logic, it becomes easier to make sense of the modern world and the diverse peoples and ideas that you will confront within it.

It might seem counterintuitive that one of the best ways to illuminate the present is by studying the past, but that is precisely why history can be so important. When we appreciate that history is not, first and foremost, a body of knowledge, but rather a way of thinking, it becomes a particularly powerful tool.  Not everyone may choose to become a historian. Yet, whatever career you choose,  knowing how to think historically will help.  

By taking History courses at Stanford, you will develop

• critical, interpretive thinking skills through in-depth analysis of primary and secondary source materials.

the ability to identify different types of sources of historical knowledge.

analytical writing skills and close reading skills.

effective oral communication skills.

History coursework at Stanford is supported by mentorship from our world-class faculty and by unique research opportunities. These experiences enable undergraduate students to pursue successful careers in business, journalism, public service, law, education, government, medicine, and more.   Learn what Stanford History majors and minors are doing after graduation .

Undergraduate Program

We offer the following degree options to Stanford undergraduate students:

Undergraduate Major : Become a historian and chart your path through the B.A. in consultation with your major advisor. 

Honors in History :  Join a passionate group of History majors who conduct in-depth research with Stanford faculty.

Undergraduate Minor : Complete six eligible courses for a minor in History.

  Co-terminal Masters:   Join the selective group of Stanford undergraduates who explore their passion in History before entering graduate school or professional life.

How to Declare

The first step in becoming a History major is finding a Faculty Advisor.  The best way to find an advisor is simply to take a variety of History courses, drop in during faculty office hours, and introduce yourself as a prospective History major. Faculty are happy to suggest coursework and to offer counsel. You are also welcome to reach out to our undergraduate Peer Advisors about how to navigate Stanford History.  Learn more about how to declare .

Herodotus: An Undergraduate Journal

Herodotus is a student-run publication founded in 1986 by  the History Undergraduate Student Association (HUGSA). It bears the name of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, the 5th century BCE historian of the Greco-Persian Wars. Based on a rigorous, supportive peer-review process, the journal preserves and features the best undergraduate research conducted in the department. Browse Herodotus

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Thomas Mullaney

Director of Undergraduate Studies

Steven Press

Director of Honors and Research

Kai Dowding

Undergraduate Student Services Officer

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Why Critical Thinking Is Important (& How to Improve It)

Last updated May 1, 2023. Edited and medically reviewed by Patrick Alban, DC . Written by Deane Alban .

By improving the quality of your thoughts and your decisions, better critical thinking skills can bring about a big positive change in your life. Learn how.

The quality of your life largely depends on the quality of the decisions you make.

Amazingly, the average person makes roughly 35,000 conscious decisions every day! 

Imagine how much better your life would be if there were a way to make better decisions, day in and day out?

Well, there is and you do it by boosting a skill called critical thinking .

Learning to master critical thinking can have a profoundly positive impact on nearly every aspect of your life.

What Exactly Is Critical Thinking?

The first documented account of critical thinking is the teachings of Socrates as recorded by Plato. 

Over time, the definition of critical thinking has evolved.

Most definitions of critical thinking are fairly complex and best understood by philosophy majors or psychologists.

For example, the Foundation for Critical Thinking , a nonprofit think tank, offers this definition:

“Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.”

If that makes your head spin, here are some definitions that you may relate to more easily.

Critical thinking is “reasonable, reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do.”

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Or, a catchy way of defining critical thinking is “deciding what’s true and what you should do.”

But my favorite uber-simple definition is that critical thinking is simply “thinking about thinking.”

6 Major Benefits of Good Critical Thinking Skills

Whether or not you think critically can make the difference between success and failure in just about every area of your life.

Our human brains are imperfect and prone to irrationality, distortions, prejudices, and cognitive biases .

Cognitive biases are systematic patterns of irrational thinking.

While the number of cognitive biases varies depending on the source, Wikipedia, for example, lists nearly 200 of them ! 

Some of the most well-known cognitive biases include:

• catastrophic thinking
• confirmation bias
• fear of missing out (FOMO)

Critical thinking will help you move past the limitations of irrational thinking.

Here are some of the most important ways critical thinking can impact your life.

1. Critical Thinking Is a Key to Career Success

There are many professions where critical thinking is an absolute must.

Lawyers, analysts, accountants, doctors, engineers, reporters, and scientists of all kinds must apply critical thinking frequently.

But critical thinking is a skill set that is becoming increasingly valuable in a growing number of professions.

Critical thinking can help you in any profession where you must:

• analyze information
• systematically solve problems
• generate innovative solutions
• plan strategically
• think creatively
• present your work or ideas to others in a way that can be readily understood

And, as we enter the fourth industrial revolution , critical thinking has become one of the most sought-after skills.

According to the World Economic Forum , critical thinking and complex problem-solving are the two top in-demand skills that employers look for. 

Critical thinking is considered a soft or enterprise skill — a core attribute required to succeed in the workplace . 

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• Provides the building blocks to create new brain cells and brain chemicals
• Helps increase resilience to stress to avoid mental burnout
• Supplies the brain with the fuel it needs for mental energy

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According to The University of Arizona, other soft skills include : 

• interpersonal skills
• communication skills
• digital literacy

Critical thinking can help you develop the rest of these soft skills.

Developing your critical thinking can help you land a job since many employers will ask you interview questions or even give you a test to determine how well you can think critically.

It can also help you continually succeed in your career, since being a critical thinker is a powerful predictor of long-term success.

2. Critical Thinkers Make Better Decisions

Every day you make thousands of decisions.

Most of them are made by your subconscious , are not very important, and don’t require much thought, such as what to wear or what to have for lunch. 

But the most important decisions you make can be hard and require a lot of thought, such as when or if you should change jobs, relocate to a new city, buy a house, get married, or have kids.

At work, you may have to make decisions that can alter the course of your career or the lives of others.

Critical thinking helps you cope with everyday problems as they arise.

It promotes independent thinking and strengthens your inner “BS detector.”

It helps you make sense of the glut of data and information available, making you a smarter consumer who is less likely to fall for advertising hype, peer pressure, or scams.

3. Critical Thinking Can Make You Happier

Knowing and understanding yourself is an underappreciated path to happiness. 

We’ve already shown how your quality of life largely depends on the quality of your decisions, but equally as important is the quality of your thoughts.

Critical thinking is an excellent tool to help you better understand yourself and to learn to master your thoughts.

You can use critical thinking to free yourself from cognitive biases, negative thinking , and limiting beliefs that are holding you back in any area of your life.

Critical thinking can help you assess your strengths and weaknesses so that you know what you have to offer others and where you could use improvement.

Critical thinking will enable you to better express your thoughts, ideas, and beliefs.

Better communication helps others to understand you better, resulting in less frustration for both of you.

Critical thinking fosters creativity and out-of-the-box thinking that can be applied to any area of your life.

It gives you a process you can rely on, making decisions less stressful.

4. Critical Thinking Ensures That Your Opinions Are Well-Informed

We have access to more information than ever before .

Astoundingly, more data has been created in the past two years than in the entire previous history of mankind. 

Critical thinking can help you sort through the noise.

American politician, sociologist, and diplomat Daniel Patrick Moynihan once remarked , “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” 

Critical thinking ensures your opinions are well-informed and based on the best available facts.

You’ll get a boost in confidence when you see that those around you trust your well-considered opinions.

5. Critical Thinking Improves Relationships

You might be concerned that critical thinking will turn you into a Spock-like character who is not very good at relationships.

But, in fact, the opposite is true.

Employing critical thinking makes you more open-minded and better able to understand others’ points of view.

Critical thinkers are more empathetic and in a better position to get along with different kinds of people.

Critical thinking keeps you from jumping to conclusions.

You can be counted on to be the voice of reason when arguments get heated.

You’ll be better able to detect when others:

• are being disingenuous
• don’t have your best interests at heart
• try to take advantage of or manipulate you

6. Critical Thinking Makes You a Better, More Informed Citizen

“An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.”

This quote has been incorrectly attributed to Thomas Jefferson , but regardless of the source, these words of wisdom are more relevant than ever. 

Critical thinkers are able to see both sides of any issue and are more likely to generate bipartisan solutions.

They are less likely to be swayed by propaganda or get swept up in mass hysteria.

They are in a better position to spot fake news when they see it.

5 Steps to Improve Your Critical Thinking Skills

Some people already have well-developed critical thinking skills.

These people are analytical, inquisitive, and open to new ideas.

And, even though they are confident in their own opinions, they seek the truth, even if it proves their existing ideas to be wrong.

They are able to connect the dots between ideas and detect inconsistencies in others’ thinking.

But regardless of the state of your critical thinking skills today, it’s a skill set you can develop.

While there are many techniques for thinking rationally, here’s a classic 5-step critical thinking process . 

How to Improve Your Critical Thinking Skills

Clearly define your question or problem.

This step is so important that Albert Einstein famously quipped:

“If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”

Gather Information to Help You Weigh the Options

Consider only the most useful and reliable information from the most reputable sources.

Disregard the rest.

Apply the Information and Ask Critical Questions

Scrutinize all information carefully with a skeptic’s eye.

Not sure what questions to ask?

You can’t go wrong starting with the “5 Ws” that any good investigator asks: Who? What? Where? When? Why?

Then finish by asking “How?”

You’ll find more thought-provoking questions on this Critical Thinking Skills Cheatsheet .

Consider the Implications

Look for potential unintended consequences.

Do a thought experiment about how your solution could play out in both the short term and the long run.

Explore the Full Spectrum of Viewpoints

Examine why others are drawn to differing points of view.

This will help you objectively evaluate your own viewpoint.

You may find critical thinkers who take an opposing view and this can help you find gaps in your own logic.

Watch the Video

This TED-Ed video on YouTube elaborates on the five steps to improve your critical thinking.

Recommended: Upgrading brain health is key to making your brain work better.

• Improve your mental clarity and focus.
• Boost your memory and your ability to learn.
• Increase your capacity to think critically, solve problems, and make decisions.

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Why is critical thinking important?

What do lawyers, accountants, teachers, and doctors all have in common?

What is critical thinking?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines critical thinking as “The objective, systematic, and rational analysis and evaluation of factual evidence in order to form a judgment on a subject, issue, etc.” Critical thinking involves the use of logic and reasoning to evaluate available facts and/or evidence to come to a conclusion about a certain subject or topic. We use critical thinking every day, from decision-making to problem-solving, in addition to thinking critically in an academic context!

Why is critical thinking important for academic success?

You may be asking “why is critical thinking important for students?” Critical thinking appears in a diverse set of disciplines and impacts students’ learning every day, regardless of major.

Critical thinking skills are often associated with the value of studying the humanities. In majors such as English, students will be presented with a certain text—whether it’s a novel, short story, essay, or even film—and will have to use textual evidence to make an argument and then defend their argument about what they’ve read. However, the importance of critical thinking does not only apply to the humanities. In the social sciences, an economics major , for example, will use what they’ve learned to figure out solutions to issues as varied as land and other natural resource use, to how much people should work, to how to develop human capital through education. Problem-solving and critical thinking go hand in hand. Biology is a popular major within LAS, and graduates of the biology program often pursue careers in the medical sciences. Doctors use critical thinking every day, tapping into the knowledge they acquired from studying the biological sciences to diagnose and treat different diseases and ailments.

Students in the College of LAS take many courses that require critical thinking before they graduate. You may be asked in an Economics class to use statistical data analysis to evaluate the impact on home improvement spending when the Fed increases interest rates (read more about real-world experience with Datathon ). If you’ve ever been asked “How often do you think about the Roman Empire?”, you may find yourself thinking about the Roman Empire more than you thought—maybe in an English course, where you’ll use text from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra to make an argument about Roman imperial desire.  No matter what the context is, critical thinking will be involved in your academic life and can take form in many different ways.

The benefits of critical thinking in everyday life

Building better communication.

One of the most important life skills that students learn as early as elementary school is how to give a presentation. Many classes require students to give presentations, because being well-spoken is a key skill in effective communication. This is where critical thinking benefits come into play: using the skills you’ve learned, you’ll be able to gather the information needed for your presentation, narrow down what information is most relevant, and communicate it in an engaging way. 

Typically, the first step in creating a presentation is choosing a topic. For example, your professor might assign a presentation on the Gilded Age and provide a list of figures from the 1870s—1890s to choose from. You’ll use your critical thinking skills to narrow down your choices. You may ask yourself:

• What figure am I most familiar with?
• Who am I most interested in? 
• Will I have to do additional research? 

After choosing your topic, your professor will usually ask a guiding question to help you form a thesis: an argument that is backed up with evidence. Critical thinking benefits this process by allowing you to focus on the information that is most relevant in support of your argument. By focusing on the strongest evidence, you will communicate your thesis clearly.

Finally, once you’ve finished gathering information, you will begin putting your presentation together. Creating a presentation requires a balance of text and visuals. Graphs and tables are popular visuals in STEM-based projects, but digital images and graphics are effective as well. Critical thinking benefits this process because the right images and visuals create a more dynamic experience for the audience, giving them the opportunity to engage with the material.

Presentation skills go beyond the classroom. Students at the University of Illinois will often participate in summer internships to get professional experience before graduation. Many summer interns are required to present about their experience and what they learned at the end of the internship. Jobs frequently also require employees to create presentations of some kind—whether it’s an advertising pitch to win an account from a potential client, or quarterly reporting, giving a presentation is a life skill that directly relates to critical thinking. 

Fostering independence and confidence

An important life skill many people start learning as college students and then finessing once they enter the “adult world” is how to budget. There will be many different expenses to keep track of, including rent, bills, car payments, and groceries, just to name a few! After developing your critical thinking skills, you’ll put them to use to consider your salary and budget your expenses accordingly. Here’s an example:

• You earn a salary of $75,000 a year. Assume all amounts are before taxes.
• 1,800 x 12 = 21,600
• 75,000 – 21,600 = 53,400
• This leaves you with $53,400
• 320 x 12 = 3,840 a year
• 53,400-3,840= 49,560
• 726 x 12 = 8,712
• 49,560 – 8,712= 40,848
• You’re left with $40,848 for miscellaneous expenses. You use your critical thinking skills to decide what to do with your $40,848. You think ahead towards your retirement and decide to put $500 a month into a Roth IRA, leaving $34,848. Since you love coffee, you try to figure out if you can afford a daily coffee run. On average, a cup of coffee will cost you $7. 7 x 365 = $2,555 a year for coffee. 34,848 – 2,555 = 32,293
• You have $32,293 left. You will use your critical thinking skills to figure out how much you would want to put into savings, how much you want to save to treat yourself from time to time, and how much you want to put aside for emergency funds. With the benefits of critical thinking, you will be well-equipped to budget your lifestyle once you enter the working world.

Enhancing decision-making skills

Choosing the right university for you.

One of the biggest decisions you’ll make in your life is what college or university to go to. There are many factors to consider when making this decision, and critical thinking importance will come into play when determining these factors.

Many high school seniors apply to colleges with the hope of being accepted into a certain program, whether it’s biology, psychology, political science, English, or something else entirely. Some students apply with certain schools in mind due to overall rankings. Students also consider the campus a school is set in. While some universities such as the University of Illinois are nestled within college towns, New York University is right in Manhattan, in a big city setting. Some students dream of going to large universities, and other students prefer smaller schools. The diversity of a university’s student body is also a key consideration. For many 17- and 18-year-olds, college is a time to meet peers from diverse racial and socio-economic backgrounds and learn about life experiences different than one’s own.

With all these factors in mind, you’ll use critical thinking to decide which are most important to you—and which school is the right fit for you.

Develop your critical thinking skills at the University of Illinois

At the University of Illinois, not only will you learn how to think critically, but you will put critical thinking into practice. In the College of LAS, you can choose from 70+ majors where you will learn the importance and benefits of critical thinking skills. The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at U of I offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate programs in life, physical, and mathematical sciences; humanities; and social and behavioral sciences. No matter which program you choose, you will develop critical thinking skills as you go through your courses in the major of your choice. And in those courses, the first question your professors may ask you is, “What is the goal of critical thinking?” You will be able to respond with confidence that the goal of critical thinking is to help shape people into more informed, more thoughtful members of society.

With such a vast representation of disciplines, an education in the College of LAS will prepare you for a career where you will apply critical thinking skills to real life, both in and outside of the classroom, from your undergraduate experience to your professional career. If you’re interested in becoming a part of a diverse set of students and developing skills for lifelong success, apply to LAS today!

Read more first-hand stories from our amazing students at the LAS Insider blog .

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Global Learning & Critical Thinking

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Critical thinking

GLP-E aims: Young people will also develop the skills to interpret that knowledge in order to make judgements about global poverty. In this way they will be able to:

• think critically about global issues.

The GLP has a strong focus on developing young people's knowledge and understanding of development, and in particular on exploring different approaches to reducing global poverty through development. This is an opportunity for pupils to develop their skills in enquiry and critical thinking by engaging with sometimes complex and controversial ideas - thus also developing their understanding, views and responses in an informed way based on evidence and sound knowledge. Many of the GLP subject-based case studies have a strong focus on enquiry and/or critical thinking and the approaches of different schools subjects will make distinctive contributions to this area of work.

In relation to global learning, enquiry and critical thinking might include:

• asking and responding to a range of questions, e.g. as part of an investigation into how poverty was reduced in a place or through a particular project, and opportunities to plan, develop and reflect;
• explaining and reasoning, thinking about evidence and making judgements or decisions, e.g. in a role-play or decision-making exercises;
• assessing or evaluating information, e.g. distinguishing fact and opinion, evaluating the sources of data/evidence and the message they convey;
• making links between topics, so learning to think systematically, e.g. between historical and present patterns of trade, colonialism, migration and culture;
• expressing a point of view, understanding that people have different points of view, and engaging with these, e.g. through discussion;
• looking for hidden meanings or perspectives, for example from groups unrepresented in a discussion or issue.
• considering different voices and points of view on global issues, e.g. different perspectives on the causes of global poverty and the actions people can take to overcome it;
• being able to change one's point of view, e.g. about who will benefit from a development.

Key Questions for investigation:

Enquiry and critical thinking

• Which questions do I need to ask? Which are most useful, important? How could I investigate these questions?
• What's the best way to present and communicate the results?
• What arguments could I use? Which are the best arguments?
• Where is this information from and is it reliable? Is any information biased?
• How good is the evidence? What is fact and opinion?
• Who should have a say and why? What do I think? What do other people think? Do I need to change my thinking?
• Do people's views have an effect on changes in the world?

Examples from the history curriculum:

A. Considering different voices and/or points of view and explaining and reasoning, thinking about evidence and making judgements or decisions.

When studying the Vikings at Key Stage 2, for example, we might begin by asking pupils to draw a Viking. They will inevitably draw a tall shaggy man with a sword or axe and a shield. Certainly their raids on monasteries and towns reflect this image. Much of the evidence from the time reinforces this. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle [an annual record kept by monks from the time of Alfred the Great] is particularly critical of the Vikings, as you would expect. It quotes priests finishing their sermons with the prayer, ‘Lord, protect us from the Northmen.'

Yet it is possible to use the evidence to paint a very different picture of the Vikings. They went exploring, and were probably the first Europeans to find, and briefly settle, in North America. They traded throughout the known world - Russia, North Africa, the Mediterranean and Constantinople all had strong trade links with Vikings. And of course they did settle in Britain. Viking towns like Jorvik give a very different picture of the Vikings.

So what is the real image of Vikings we should arrive at in our history lessons? Were they violent thugs, or gifted traders and craftsmen? Each opinion is valid, supported by the right evidence, but how do we reconcile the differences?

B. Making links between topics, so learning to think systematically.

There are striking parallels between some of the topics chosen as part of the Key Stage 2 curriculum. For instance many children will start their course looking at Stone Age to Iron Age in Britain, and the changes - and continuities - in that 10,000 year period. But the Maya, for example, in MesoAmerica, were still a stone -age society around 1200AD. Why might this be? Ancient Sumer built the first cities in the world, centred around a strong farming economy. Many years later, Britain moved from a hunter-gatherer society to a settled, agricultural-based society in the New Stone Age. Similar parallels can be made with Bronze Age and Iron Age Societies, or between the Roman Empire in Key Stage 2 and the British Empire in Key Stage 3. These kind of links are essential if pupils are to develop a coherent picture of British and World history.

C. Explaining and reasoning, thinking about evidence and making judgements or decisions.

At Key Stage 3, for example, students often look at Nazi Germany. Germany 1933-45 is often portrayed as a terrifying place, totally controlled by the Nazis and the Gestapo. People are portrayed as being afraid to step out of line. But was this always the case? Can you govern 80 million people through fear? And was there a Gestapo [Secret Police] officer or informant on every street corner?

The case of Otto and Elise Hampel throws an unusual light upon this. Otto and Elise lived in Berlin and for two years, from 1940-1942, distributed hundreds of hand-written anti-Nazi posters and postcards. They knew they would probably be captured and killed, but they insisted on doing what they believed to be right. You can find out more about the Hampels here...

The online Museum of German Resistance lists many more people who stood up to the Nazis because they thought it was the right thing to do.

The Hampels give us an opportunity to re-examine evidence and re-think our conclusion about life in Nazi Germany, as well as asking ourselves if we would have had the courage to do what we thought was right despite the consequences.

I'm sure you can think of many more examples that grow logically out of your own history curriculum.