Let’s thank a retired New Jersey high school teacher for eloquently advocating the importance of teaching high school students to think. Frank Breslin recently wrote at Medium about how teens aren’t learning critical thinking, the most important skill in their education.

Breslin writes:

 “A school should teach its students how to think, not what to think; to question whatever they read, and never to accept any claim blindly; to suspend judgment until they’ve heard all sides of a question; and interrogate whatever claims to be true, since truth can withstand any scrutiny.“

I agree with him that my students aren’t scrutinizing information online as carefully as they should. They aren’t thinking about whether the information is reliable or not. In French class, they use Google Translate, believing it will provide answers quickly and accurately, even though the online translation program can’t be fully trusted. Better to use, word reference.com which requires more work–and some thinking–but gets it right.

More importantly, I must teach students to analyze information on line and make them understand how content can be biased. They must learn to distinguish facts from opinions, analyzing the source of the information and rebutting falsehoods. They must not blindly accept what they read on the Internet. They must learn to think for themselves, understanding that if they don’t, they run the risk of being brainwashed.

Breslin provides a simple solution. He writes:

“The following warning should be affixed atop every computer in America’s schools: Proceed at your own risk. Don’t accept as true what you’re about to read. Some of it is fact; some of it is opinion masquerading as fact; and the rest is liberal, conservative, or mainstream propaganda. Make sure you know which is which before choosing to believe it.”

Let’s advocate for this message to be spread far and wide. We owe it to our society to mold our young people into adults who are able to think critically to solve issues facing our world.