Teaching kids to think, not just memorise

A few years ago we were teaching two young students who'd been out of mainstream school for a few years to memorise the Quran. We were working to get them caught up so they could re-enter school at the right grade level the following year, which meant covering maths, English, Afrikaans, science and EMS, with a heavy focus on maths and English as the core subjects. They were a pleasure to teach. But we ran into a particular challenge with English: how could we get them to think critically about what they read? They were very good at memorising and regurgitating information, which, to be fair, is a lot of what school asks of students. But that shouldn't be what education is about. It should also be about teaching students to think for themselves and to question what they're reading and learning. That's the only way they can really reflect on information, analyse it, pull out the key points, and decide whether or not they actually agree.

Critical thinking matters. It's the basis of becoming a responsible, capable adult rather than a mindless robot. So why don't schools teach more of it? I want to be clear that this isn't the teachers' fault. Most teachers would love the time to do exactly this kind of work. But they're up against classes that are far too big, limited resources, a curriculum they have to get through no matter what, and a mountain of admin on top of it all. The slow, open-ended work of teaching children to think for themselves simply doesn't fit into the day. It's a problem with the system, not the people in it.

Growing up, I was always strong in maths and science and struggled more with English. But do you know who my favourite teacher was? My Grade 10 and 11 English teacher. He'd go off on the most wonderful tangents. We'd discuss current issues, learn Yiddish words, hear about his own doctoral thesis. When we wrote argumentative essays, he told us he didn't care what we argued, as long as we backed it up with sound logic. He'd even push us to argue the opposite of our own opinions, just to test our skills and examine what we actually believed. And he taught us to keep asking ourselves Why?, over and over, until we reached our baseline beliefs and could see whether they still held up.

That habit has stuck with me. Critical thinking forms the base of how we interact with the world: how we take in and process information, and how we protect ourselves from being manipulated. It helps us reason through complex questions, even in subjects that seem unrelated, like physical science. It's worth far more than any single mark.

So what can students and parents actually do to build it? Here's where I'd start.

For students, the shift is from reading to find out what happened, to reading to work out what to make of it. When they read something, get them questioning the text rather than just absorbing it. Do I agree with this? What is the writer trying to convince me of? What evidence do they give, and is it any good? What's been left out? The same applies to answering questions in any subject. Instead of repeating what the textbook says, they should be able to explain why it's true. If they can justify their reasoning, they understand it. If they can only recite it, they've memorised it.

Two habits are especially worth practising. The first is arguing the other side, just like my old teacher had us do. Asking a child to make the case against their own opinion forces them to think rather than simply feel. The second is asking Why?, and not stopping at the first answer. Why did the character do that? Why is this the right method? Why do I believe this? It's surprising how quickly that gets you to the heart of things.

For parents, the most useful thing you can do is also the hardest: resist giving the answer. When a child is stuck or frustrated, it's natural to want to step in and fix it. But every time we hand over the answer, we take away the very moment where the thinking would have happened. Asking works better than telling. What do you think? Why do you reckon that? What would happen if you tried it the other way? How do you know?

You don't need a textbook for any of this either. Talk about the news together, about a film you watched, about a real decision the family is making. Let them hear you weigh things up, change your mind, disagree with someone respectfully. And try to praise the thinking rather than just the result: the good question, the clever approach, the willingness to wrestle with something hard. That tells a child that thinking is the point, not just the right answer.

It's something we build into our lessons wherever we can, in every subject, not just English. In maths, we'll often ask a student to talk us through why they solved something a particular way rather than just giving us the answer. The answer on its own doesn't tell us much. The reasoning behind it does, and saying it out loud is usually where the understanding really clicks into place. In science, we get students to highlight the key words in a question before they go anywhere near solving it, so they actually interrogate what they've been given: what's being asked, which information matters, and which method the question is really pointing them towards. It's a small habit that saves a lot of marks, because so many are lost by misreading the question rather than not knowing the content. And in English and Afrikaans comprehension, we ask students to back up every answer with evidence from the text rather than a gut feeling, and to look past what a writer is saying to how and why they're saying it: spotting opinion dressed up as fact, noticing the tone, and asking what's been conveniently left out.

We'd far rather a student explain their reasoning and get it a little wrong than parrot back a perfect answer they don't really understand, because the first one is real learning and the second one falls apart under pressure. With my two students, getting them to question what they read, rather than just remember it, is slowly becoming the most valuable thing we do together.

Raising children who can think for themselves is slow work, and it doesn't show up neatly on a report. But it's the part of education that lasts the longest. If it's something you'd like help with, we're always happy to chat.