Critical Thinking
The critical thinking class is designed to teach the mechanics of logical thought. It instructs students to use reason to generate sound arguments and to judge arguments they encounter in media or in daily life. To put it simply, this class gives students the specific tools they need to identify sloppy thinking in others and to eliminate sloppy thinking in themselves.
This is important because language is inherently ambiguous. It can be used to persuade, and it can be used to deceive. The ability to deconstruct language and understand precisely when and why a given argument is fallacious is invaluable. It will serve the students well in school and in all future professional endeavors.
In this class, these skill sets are developed through the direct instruction on analogies, types of sentence construction, syllogisms, validity, invalidity and soundness, fallacies and symbolic logic. Students rarely have the chance to study these subjects directly before college. This is an opportunity to prepare the students, in advance, for the rigorous subject matter he or she will encounter at the university.
