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An Interview with
An Interview with Linda Elder About Using
Linda Elder About Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools
Using Critical
Thinking Concepts
and Tools Interview questions provided by:
(http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/an-
Michael
16) ManyF. Shaughnessy
college students are dealing with “information
interview-with- Eastern New Mexico
overload;” They University
complain of “too much to learn in too little
linda-elder-about- time;”What
Portales, do
New you suggest?
Mexico -- April 2002
using-critical- The students are right. Most faculty are attempting to cover
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most fundamental concepts in our courses. When students are
The Miniature Guide for Students on How to Study and Learn is designed to
taught in the didactic mode, at the end of a semester’s course,
An Interview with help students become “master students.” It provides students with a variety of
most students cannot adequately articulate even the most basic
practical strategies to improve how they study and how they think about the
Linda Elder: About concepts in the course. They forget as fast as they learn.
classes they are in. It places the emphasis for learning on the student, rather
Critical Thinking Remember, most students take years of classes in science, history,
than on the teacher. Here is how the table of contents begins:
math, language arts, etc., and yet cannot accurately state what
and Gifted
science is, why
18 Ideas forit Becoming
is important to thinkStudent
a Master scientifically, what history is
Education
and why it is important to think historically, what math is and why it
(http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/an- How to Study and Learn a Discipline
is important to think mathematically, etc?
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Editorials: Race to think sociologically, to think scientifically,
students to understand to utilize for the rest of their lives? to think in a literary way, etc. It also
introduces students to the intellectual standards for thought, as well as the
the Top of the
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17) Many college students are confronted Therefore thinkingwith ideas into one’s
general thinking is the key
education
failure-of-
to learning any content. Critical thinking
requirements that they feel have no relationship to their major provides the tools of mind
andone needs to
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Whencan students studydo without engaging their minds using intellectual
minor: instructors to remedy this situation?
tools and standards, they study superficially. They may be adept at memorizing
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other
(http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/editorials-
cannot learn ideas in a meaningful way, they cannot learn deeply enough to have
But if we want students to change their concept of college, we
the-practical- their thinking altered and improved, they cannot become educated persons.
have to change our concept as well. We have to structure our
impractical-k- courses so that students develop intellectual skills that they
12/493) recognize
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employWhat do you see
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Critical thinking concepts are a rich set of ideas that enable us to
that can only be internalized over years of working on one’s mind.
substance/491) understand our minds, our thinking and emotions, and how to live
our lives effectively. Critical thinking “tools” is a metaphor for
Having said this, faculty must begin somewhere, and the Miniature Guide For
intellectual skills, abilities and dispositions of mind. Some of the
Editorials: Students on Howconceptsto Studyare andthe Learn, along of with the Miniature Guide to Critical
most important elements reasoning (purpose,
Collaborative Thinking Concepts and Tools,
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is a good place to begin. Both of
provide structural ideas that foster critical thought.
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18) What question have I neglected to ask ?
you have said? Can you give me an example? Can you illustrate?
Editorials: The New Perhaps the most important question still to be answered is: What
For students to develop intellectual discipline, they must practice critical thinking
Standards: The are the most significant barriers to the development of critical
on a daily basis for a substantial length of time. There is no reason why we
thinking abilities and traits?
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classroom/492) 4) Tell us what you mean by “form of thinking.“
to think within disciplines, we also need to teach students how the
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5) What do you mean by “the logic of a textbook?“
Click Here for our When we say “the logic of” we mean that there is an internal system of meanings
professional translations. that must be understood to understand what we are speaking of. We use the
(http://www.criticalthinking.org/page.cfm?
tools of critical thinking to analyze that logic. To figure out “the logic of” any
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Interviewofwith
reasoning, we About
Linda Elder need to focus
Using on the elements or structures of
Critical
Sublinks:
reasoning embedded in the reasoning. For example, all reasoning has a purpose,
answers some question, uses information, makes inferences (or comes to
Anconclusions),
Interview with reasons
Linda Elder About
from some Using Critical Thinking
viewpoint, Concepts
takes certain andfor
things Tools
granted (or
(http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/an-interview-with-linda-elder-about-using-critical-
makes assumptions), uses concepts and ideas, and has implications.
thinking-concepts-and-tools/495)
Given that a textbook is a product of someone’s reasoning, we can analyze the
An Interview with Linda Elder: About Critical Thinking and Gifted Education
reasoning embedded in the textbook by focusing on its intellectual parts. We can
(http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/an-interview-with-linda-elder-about-critical-thinking-
therefore figure out the purpose of the textbook, the questions that drive the
and-gifted-education/476)
author’s reasoning, the primary information and concepts used in the textbook,
Editorials: Race to thethe
the assumptions Topauthor(s)
of the bottom:
make,a the
Failure of Insight
points of view inherent in the textbook,
and so forth. The tools of intellectual analysis, then, provide students with an
(http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/editorials-race-to-the-top-of-the-bottom-a-failure-of-
effective way to understand the interrelated system of meanings that underlie
insight/934)
and define
Editorials: The an authors’
Practical reasoning,
Impractical whether
(k-12) in a textbook, and article, or any other
(http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/editorials-
written piece.
the-practical-impractical-k-12/493)
Editorials:
6) WhatRe-thinking the SAT:
are the defining Rhetoric
traits of theor disciplined
Substance?mind?
(http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/editorials-re-thinking-the-sat-rhetoric-or-
The disciplined mind is a mind truly educated, a mind with intellectual
substance/491)
dispositions or cultivated tendencies that go beyond basic intellectual skills. For
Editorials:
example, Collaborative Learning:
the disciplined mindCollaborative
has knowledge Mislearning
of its ignorance, questions its own
(http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/editorials-collaborative-learning-collaborative-
beliefs, is aware of the need to entertain alternative viewpoints, holds itself to the
mislearning/490)
same intellectual standards it expects of others, is willing to do intellectual work,
is confident
Editorials: thatStandards:
The New reason is the
Thebest
Caseway to determine
for Intellectual what to
Discipline in believe, and thinks
the Classroom
for itself.  As critical thinkers, these traits of mind are our ultimate goal. They are
(http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/editorials-the-new-standards-the-case-for-
intellectual-discipline-in-the-classroom/492)
 developed gradually, through daily practice in using the tools of thinking. They
are also interrelated. As we develop one of these dispositions, or virtues, the
others develop as well.
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purpose, the main questions the author is addressing in the article, the important
Criticalthinking.org Copyright ©2019 Foundation for Critical Thinking.
information the author uses, and the primary conclusions s/he comes to. We can
have students analyze the author’s reasoning a number of times until they
become relatively proficient in it. Gradually we can add the other elements of
reasoning until they can do the full “logic of” the article. At the same time, we can
give them practice in thinking through the intellectual standards and applying
them to thinking. We are then ready to have students begin to evaluate an
author’s reasoning using the criteria in the Miniature Guide for Students on How
to Study and Learn.

It is important that students learn to analyze, or take apart, an author’s reasoning

before they assess it. Too often students are quick to judge reasoning before
they understand it. My rule is this: If you cannot accurately explain an author’s
reasoning in your own words, you have no right to evaluate it. But most students
are used to taking positions they do not understand about reasoning they do not
understand. When we allow them to do so, we are not doing our job. We need to
begin slowly to get students on the right track appreciating the discipline that
critical thinking demands of them. They need lots of practice in analyzing
reasoning first. Only when they analyze well can they evaluate well.

8) What do you mean by “inert information“ and "activated ignorance;" and

"activated knowledge?"

Inert information is information learned at the superficial level. It is comprised of

the facts crammed into the mind without understanding the facts as well as
trivial facts rotely remembered that serve no useful purpose. Unfortunately, the
focus of most schooling focuses on storing up rote information in one’s short-
term memory – fragmented pieces of this and that, facts memorized for tests
and then quickly forgotten, information not valuable to us because we don’t
understand it well enough to use it in our lives. The key is that we don’t put inert
information to work in our thinking because we don’t understand it well enough
even to misapply it.

Activated ignorance, on the other hand, is comprised of all the ideas we actively
mislearn. Prejudices, biased misconception, and misinterpretations of various
kinds are all products of activated ignorance. The key (to activated ignorance) is
that we often internalize things that are not true and compound our error by
applying it over and over again (falsely) in real life situations. Activated ignorance
results from information wrongly learned, or information that is incorrect,
inaccurate, or based in half-truth. Activated ignorance can lead to intellectual
righteousness, the tendency to believe one is inherently right, that one’s ideas are
better than the ideas of others, and therefore that one has a right to “lord” those
ideas over others.
Activated ignorance is a natural state of the human mind. We don’t have to learn
to use falsehoods in our experience. The mind naturally sees itself as right, as in
possession of “the truth,” even when it is using faulty reasoning. We routinely act
on ideas that are irrational or unreasonable. Through self-deceptive tendencies
we are able to see ourselves as right when we are wrong. In other words, though
we often use faulty reasoning and distorted concepts in thinking, we
nevertheless are able to hide the problems in our thinking through self-deception.
Activated ignorance is a problem for a number of reasons. It can lead us to make
bad decisions. It can lead to problems in our personal lives. It can impede our
ability to learn and think through complex problems. It can lead to great injustice
and cruelty in the world. Indeed injustice usually occurs, not because people
know they are doing something wrong and do it anyway, but because they
wrongly think what they are doing is right. They believe themselves to be
perfectly justified, even when engaging in the most egregious of acts.
To exemplify the prevalence of activated ignorance in student thinking, consider
the following ideas students routinely use in thinking: “Learning should be easy.
Learning should be fun. If I am not learning it is the teacher’s fault. Learning
means doing what the teachers says.” Each of these ideas is flawed. Each when
believed and acted upon is a form of activated ignorance. Each leads to negative
consequences for students.

Activated knowledge occurs when we act on ideas we deeply and rightly

understand. It is knowledge that begets further knowledge. This is the ideal for
human thinking and a fundamental goal of the critical thinker.
To act in accordance with activated knowledge we must possess the intellectual
virtues or dispositions we talked about earlier. For example, when we have
intellectual humility, we are clear about what we know and what we don’t know.
We resist acting on prejudices and superficial understandings. We are not
intellectually arrogant in our approach to situations. We don’t presume to know
what we do not. We are careful in the conclusions we come to, and we hold them
tentatively when necessary.

The stronger the intellectual virtues in the mind, the more prominent the role of
activated knowledge.
For the most part, schooling fosters both the rote memorization of information
(producing inert information in the mind), and false understandings taken to be
true (producing forms of activated ignorance). The former is apparent in the
large volume of superficial work required of students throughout the
“educational” process.

The later can be exemplified in all the ways that students come to falsely believe
things: through classroom mislearning, through accepting media propaganda as
true, through uncritically accepting the beliefs of their peer group as true, etc…

In the educational process, we need to move away from inert information and
activated ignorance. Instead we need to foster the development of knowledge
that produces knowledge. Students need to learn to use their minds in
responsible, meaningful ways. to learn what is important to learn, to examine and
change their beliefs, to think things through from multiple competing
perspectives, and to deal in the world fairmindedly. Most of all they need
foundation stones of knowledge that lead them to unlimited knowledge.

9) You have a website at criticalthinking.org: How do you think websites and the
Internet will change critical thinking and reasoning and problem solving?
The information now available on the internet, like traditional information
sources, is useful to us only to the extent that we can accurately assess and
apply it. In other words, the internet information is not good in itself. We will not
improve our thinking or our knowledge merely because we have more
information available to us. In fact, people unskilled at thinking can easily be
manipulated through (what is often false or misleading) information that is pre-
digested and made available on the internet. To effectively use any information
we must utilize the resources of critical thinking. We need to determine the
accuracy, relevance, and significance of information.

The problem we now face is that students often believe whatever they read on
the internet. They uncritically consider it a source of reliable information. This is
true because they don’t have the intellectual tools to differentiate between
credible and incredible information and claims.
10) How do we teach students to think within the ideas of a subject?

To teach students to integrate foundational concepts and principles into their

thinking, we need first to place the emphasis on the most significant concepts
underlying the subject. We need to model thinking using those concepts. We
need to model finding connections between foundational and not-so-
foundational concepts. We need to proceed slowly, helping students to make
their ground sure before they move on.. We do this by having them read, write,
talk, and use foundational concepts in solving problems. We need to give them
time to actively discuss the concepts in class with other students. We need to
call on them to explain important concepts in their own words. We need to focus
less on coverage and more on depth so that students learn a few things well in
our classes, rather than many things badly.
11) A practical question regarding education: With the rise of mainstreaming
and inclusion, how can the average classroom teacher foster critical and higher
order thinking skills in today’s classroom?
One of the beauties of critical thinking is that the concepts and tools embedded
in it can be universally taught and applied. It need not, indeed it should not, be
reserved for more “advanced students.” All students need to learn to use their
minds more effectively. All students need to learn to think things through in a
disciplined way. The vast majority of students are capable of learning critical
thinking and using it. Though students will inevitably learn at different paces, we
can focus on the same material because foundational concepts can be learned
at different levels of depth. By having students work together in groups, they can
benefit by the insights of others.

Roughly the same practice is essential for all students in learning to think within
a discipline (historically, geographically, biologically, sociologically . . . ). For
example, all students can learn to ask questions of clarification within disciplines
(Could you say that in other words? Could you give me an example). All students
can learn to ask questions of relevance (How is what you are saying relevant to
the question we are trying to answer?). All students can learn to analyze
information for accuracy (How can we check to see if this information is
accurate?). All students can learn the intellectual dispositions and begin to work
them into their thinking (intellectual perseverance, intellectual humility, etc.)

In fact, questions focused on the elements and standards of thought can be

fostered with children at very young ages. For example, I have worked in
demonstration classes with elementary level students and have successfully
taught basic critical thinking skills to children even at the kindergarten level. I
have also written a miniature guide to critical thinking for children. In this
miniature guide, you will find the same foundations of critical thinking that are
fostered in the Miniature Guide for Students on How to Study and Learn. The
point is that students of all levels and abilities can benefit from critical thinking.

12) What critical thinking skills do we need to foster in terms of information on

the World Wide Web?
To effectively use information available to us on the web, we need basic critical
thinking skills to analyze, evaluate, and improve thinking. In other words, we need
to be able to figure out the agenda of the website, the questions they are
purporting to answer, the information being presented, the assumptions made,
the key concepts that drive the positions taken, etc.
But perhaps even more importantly, we need to be able to assess the quality of
website material. For example, we need to be able to figure out whether the
information is accurate, and hence how we could check to see if it is accurate.
We need to be able to figure out whether it is relevant to the issue we are
focused on. We need to be able to distinguish between information that is deep
and that which is superficial. We need to differentiate between the significant
and the insignificant. We need to be able to determine whether the information
provided is detailed enough (or precise enough) for our purpose, etc.
13) Your work focuses on “ essential ideas;“Where did this concept come from
and why is it important?
In every subject and domain of learning, there are ideas that are seminal and
ideas that are peripheral (and many ideas in-between). Essential ideas are
seminal. They are at the roots of many derivative ideas. When we know these
foundational ideas well, we are able to derive many of the others. They become
sources of power in our thinking. For example, one cannot understand physics
without understanding the idea of matter and energy. All of physics revolves
around these two ideas and their interrelationships. To think like a physicist is to
learn how to use these concepts everywhere in one’s thought.
It is essential ideas that form how we see the world, and how we function in it. If
you read the pages in the How to Study and Learn guide, you will notice that each
page is focused on one essential idea. Notice two things: 1) the essential idea is
the most basic point being made on the page or set of pages, 2) if students use
this idea in their thinking, they will reason better through the content and function
better as learners.
Take, for example, the essential idea on page 20, “To understand our experience
and the world itself, we must be able to think within alternative world views. We
must question our ideas. We must not confuse our words or ideas with things.”
Now image a student taking this idea seriously. This student would continually
seek out, and seek to master, multiple viewpoints. The student would routinely
question the ideas he is using in his thinking. He would recognize that things are
often confused with words. Words often hypnotize us and we use them without
reflecting on what they represent.
Critical thinking reminds us of the power of essential ideas in human thinking:
purpose, question, information, concept, inference, implication, point of view,
clarity, precision, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, and significance.
These are essential ideas for our thinking at a critical level. In this miniature
guide, we wanted to distill ideas for students so that they could easily see the
most basic ones and begin to learn how to put them to use. We did not assume
that students can figure out essential ideas on their own, given that they have
most likely lack the tools and discipline to do so.
14) Charles Sykes recently wrote a book about “ Dumbing Down Our Kids;” How
can we reverse this trend?

The only way we can do this is to begin to significantly change the way we
approach schooling at all levels. Students must learn to use their minds
mindfully. They must discover the (liberating) power of intellectual discipline.

But we face many barriers to intellectual development on a large scale. First,

teachers and faculty themselves largely lack intellectual discipline and process
new material in the same superficial ways their students do. Standardized tests
often do not focus attention on foundational concepts and intellectual tools.
Coverage “a mile wide and an inch deep” is the rule at most levels of education.
Those who should lead are often a significant part of the problem.
When those responsible for educating students misunderstand education as
“lecture and test” and do not realize that they are perpetuating the problem, it is
difficult to bring change about. In a study conducted by the Center for Critical
Thinking for the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, we found that
though college and university faculty overwhelmingly identify critical thinking as
of primary importance, few can adequately explain what critical thinking is and
how they are teaching for it. In other words they are in essence saying, “We teach
critical thinking but don’t ask us to explain what it is or to describe how we teach
for it.” This study focused on 38 public universities and 28 private ones. It took a
wide sample across the disciplines. The intellectual arrogance prevalent in this
study is not confined to faculty in California. It seems natural for teachers and
instructors to believe that they are teaching students intellectual discipline.
But this can change if faculty participate in well-designed, long-term professional
development activities. When faculty begin to take critical thinking seriously,
start to redesign their courses, and focus on essential concepts and basic
thinking within the discipline the light bulbs begin to go on.

15) Currently, many universities are going to “on-line courses “ and

Instructional Television; What impact do you think this will have on critical
thinking?

For the most part this will not have any significant impact on the teaching of
critical thinking given that critical thinking is far from prominent in college
classes today. What is crucial is a commitment to critical thinking. When that
commitment is there, the rest follows. Committed faculty use the internet for
class discussions, peer interaction, and teacher feedback. All things being equal,
the ideal is to use faculty with experience teaching students to think within
content. With the critical insights in place, the necessary adaptations will follow.