On June 23, 2025, Time Magazine published an article titled “ChatGPT May Be Eroding Critical Thinking Skills, According to a New MIT Study.” It is not unique. Recently there have been a spate of articles exploring the dearth of critical thinking in the United States. Many of the stories explore AI’s negative influence on critical thinking. Other articles explore different contributors to the decline of critical thinking, including social media, the modern educational system, and the general distractibility driven by our busy lifestyles.
What happens when people cannot think critically? They can fall prey to persuasive ideas, whether those ideas are correct or not, of other people and movements. Think of a leaf floating downstream. It travels in the current, directionless on its own, dependent upon the forces surrounding it. This is what it is like when a person is unable to think critically. That individual is subject to the whims and assertions surrounding him and potentially risks becoming part of an echo chamber that amplifies whatever idea is in vogue at the moment. Clearly, there is a great need for students to learn critical thinking skills.
How do we teach students to think critically? Children are rapt observers of the adults around them. Be sure that you reflect the type of critical thinking you would wish to see in your students. Critical thinkers display an innate curiosity about the world. They ask questions. They engage with ideas. They love to learn! Critical thinkers are willing to entertain an idea that may not necessarily align with their own notions or follow the popular trends, but they hold the idea in their mind and look at it from multiple perspectives, weighing whether it has merit. They even consider whether their own ideas might possibly be wrong or partially faulty and adjust their thoughts and beliefs accordingly. Connect with your students through conversation by asking open-ended questions that encourage thought and reflection. As you do, be sure to listen attentively too. It shows students that you are truly engaged and interested in their thoughts and serves as a model for them to emulate as well.
Another way to foster critical thinking is to read high-quality literature aloud to students. This is equally important for preschool through high school. Discuss the book together. Ask questions about it. Depending upon the ages of your students, you can reflect on possible themes, make predictions, discuss motivations, and evaluate worldview. You can examine the literary devices the author selects and discuss how they contribute to the narrative. Sharing literature is a great way to not only strengthen critical thinking skills but also build positive relationships with your students.
Not only can educators foster critical thinking through discussion, they can hone it through composition instruction. IEW’s writing methodology utilizes source texts that cross the curriculum. These source texts increase students’ background knowledge, expanding their understanding of the world. Beginning in Unit 3: Retelling Narrative Stories, students learn to ask themselves questions about the source text in order to write their key word outlines. Throughout the rest of the units, students continue to ask thoughtful questions to write their key word outlines from which they will write their compositions. As they do, they are learning how to shape their answers to best reflect the ideas they want to express.
Unit 5: Writing from Pictures provides an excellent opportunity for students to practice their discernment skills. In that unit students encounter a series of three pictures and write an event description using just the pictures and their brains. To extract the content they will write about, they ask themselves questions about what they see in the pictures. An amalgam of fact-based writing and creative writing, Unit 5 offers students the opportunity to exercise their brains as they write about what they see. It is a powerful bridge to later units, where students will begin to write from prompts without the support of source texts or images.
IEW’s source texts and structural models are not the only way students strengthen their critical thinking skills. The stylistic techniques learned throughout the year provide students with opportunities to use words and phrases that will construct the mood or image they wish to convey. IEW’s founder, Andrew Pudewa, has often asserted, “You can’t get something out of a brain that isn’t there to begin with.” By teaching the stylistic techniques and utilizing IEW’s checklists with the EZ+1 approach, students begin to accumulate vocabulary and syntax that allows them to more effectively and precisely communicate through the written word.
In the article “Writing Maketh an Exact Man,” Andrew Pudewa states, “Technology will atrophy the skill it replaces.” We are seeing this truth play out daily as artificial intelligence continues to increase in use, eroding people’s ability to think critically. As educators, let us all do the hard work of teaching students to think critically. It is a work of profound importance.
by Jennifer Mauser
