
Unpacking the Critical Thinking Conundrum
When I was an undergraduate, I distinctly remember my political science professor informing the class, “If you take one thing
April 2026



April 6, 2026 | By Regan A. R. Gurung
April 6, 2026 | By B. Jean Mandernach
April 6, 2026 | By Brian Udermann
“I want to cultivate the capacity for second thoughts, by which I mean the stance and the competence that makes it feasible to inquire into the obvious. This is what I call learning.”
—Ivan Illich, “Ascesis”

When I was an undergraduate, I distinctly remember my political science professor informing the class, “If you take one thing

Critical thinking has become a catch-all phrase in any education literature that touts the development of 21st century learning. It

I had been teaching for nearly 30 years when I discovered that I had failed to instruct my students
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