- Is this the ideal method to teach critical thinking?
No, the ideal method would be for all teachers to be teaching all subjects using the critical thinking approach- helping students learn how to evaluate and synthesize information, question assumptions, meditate on increasingly complex topics, avoid logical fallacies and reason scientifically, be wary of biases and solve problems rationally.
But integrating CT skills in every lesson across schools and classrooms would be a decades-long project involving rehauled teacher recruitment, a revised teacher graduate curriculum, re-training current teachers, and developing new rubrics for test and exam evaluations. In the meantime, teaching these skills as a co-curricular subject would address the urgent need to incorporate rational thinking abilities in the school curriculum.
- Did this project add to the financial burden of the parents?
No, there was no additional fee or any other charge collected from parents for this project. The CT sessions did not add to the financial burden of the parents or even the take home curricular burden of the students in anyway. There was no textbook or notebook purchase, no homework except one small simple survey in the whole year, and no term/midterm/class tests. The tutor carried the activity sheets for the students and gave them only constructive feedback.