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Education for Critical Thinking , by Williams, in Military Review, Jan-Feb 2013 A better strategy for the Armys PME is to adopt an educational philosophy that focuses less on knowledge and content and more on the ability to question and argue. Critical thinking means the ability to construct and defend an argument using reason, applying intellectual standards of epistemic responsibility, and recognizing and countering logical fallacies as we see them in others and ourselves. If we pay attention to our doctrine, this shift in thinking about professional education is a strategic imperative. We now accept as common knowledge that military operations defy rules, calling them instead 'human endeavors, characterized by the continuous, mutual adaptation of give and take, moves, and countermoves among all participants.' We agree that war is about identifying and solving ill-defined problems where experts can and do disagree on the range of solutions. The problem is that we have a PME system that relies on an educational approach in which instructors are guides for each new class to rediscover the same hackneyed truths as their predecessors. Mission command requires that we do more than allow for minor heresies. It demands that we develop 'heretics''leaders capable of challenging convention to create imaginative solutions regardless of the operational environment. An inquiry-based educational approach is the best way to develop these 'heretics' because it is about questioning, and good questioners unequivocally make better thinkers. |
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