I have always liked Rudolph Clausius’s statement of two laws of thermodynamics in the original German: “Die Energie der Welt ist konstant. Die Entropie der Welt strebt einem Maximum zu”. If you know thermodynamics and a little German, this statement summarizes a wealth of experimental data. The title of this editorial is the second law translated into “txt lingo”, the language of text messages and other abbreviated communications, by a Web service called “Transl8it!” (1). It seems to me that more has been lost in that translation than between the German and the English versions.Wen U compose a msg UzN a ceL fone keypad 2 entR letRz, it iz natRL 2 abbreviate az much az posebL. It is also natural to wonder what happens to the writing skills of those who send text messages via phones. In a recent issue of The Atlantic, Nicholas Carr, a writer on technology issues, asks, “Is Google Making us Stupid?” (or, as the cover of the magazine has it, “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?”) (2). Others have also suggested that modern technology and multitasking significantly reduce our ability to concentrate and perhaps alter the way we think and process information (3). If they are correct, the implications for education are profound.

Carr reports anecdotes from bloggers who say that they no longer read at length and in depth, but rather scan many items in bite-sized chunks from a broad range of sources. He quotes a study of browsing behavior by users of Web-based research sites in the U.K. that says, “users are not reading online in the traditional sense”. The way we read, and the way we use other information technologies, can and do affect the way we think. There is evidence that the more we multitask and the more fragmented our inputs of information, the less able we are to make connections and gain insights from concentrated thinking, without distraction, over significant spans of time.

To concentrate on and think about a single subject without interruption is a luxury and ought to be highly valued. Those to whom that luxury is available should not throw it away in a frenzy of multitasking, abbreviated writing, and flea-like jumps to read one tidbit after another on the Web. Deep thinking and thoughtful reading and writing are essential skills that need to be taught and nurtured. A major value of traditional liberal-arts education is that students and faculty have time to contemplate human knowledge and develop their own personal mental edifice reflecting the intellectual tradition.

The less contemplation and deep thinking are included in everyday life, the more we teachers need to make certain that our students develop and value these intellectual skills. One way to do this is to ask and encourage students to think critically about what they read on the Web (more on this next month). Another way is to show that we ourselves value thinking, to practice it in front of students, and to require that students evaluate critically all of the information they take in—including what comes from the front of the classroom. In support of this we need to actively encourage questioning and discussion in our classes, to provide opportunities for students to talk, even argue, with each other about scientific subjects, and to make certain that students have assignments and evaluations that require more than rote regurgitation of facts.

Teaching critical thinking is very important but it is neither easy nor straightforward (4). Thinking and content are closely intertwined and each student’s prior knowledge will influence how the student thinks about any issue. Scientific thinking is not a simple skill for which an algorithmic procedure can be developed and taught. It requires practice, constructive feedback, and a high level of teacher skill. Evaluating whether students’ scientific thinking abilities are improving is subjective, difficult, and time consuming, particularly when we would like students to be able to apply what they have learned to a variety of new, unfamiliar situations. Testing for such transfer leaves a teacher open to the complaint, “You didn’t teach us that.” Nevertheless, we need to do more, not less, in this area of teaching. Perhaps the Web, which can facilitate rapid, broad exchange of information, will be able to help us learn to teach critical thinking faster than it makes us all “stoopid”.

Literature Cited

1. transL8it! Make Sense of Txt Lingo. (accessed Jul 2008); I thank Janice Hall Tomasik for making me aware of this site.
2. Carr, Nicholas. The Atlantic 2008, 301, 56–63.
3. Kirn, Walter. The Atlantic 2007, 300, 66–80.
4. Willingham, Daniel T. American Educator 2007, 31(2), 8–19.

Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour,

Rains from the sky a meteoric shower

Of facts … they lie unquestioned, uncombined.

Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill

Is daily spun; but there exists no loom

To weave it into fabric;

Excerpted from a sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay

in Huntsman, What Quarry?

New York: Harper and Brothers, 1939.

Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking: In…