PROGRAM FOR CRITICAL THINKING

At OCS, critical thinking was taught to give students the tools necessary to solve problems and create a better world.
This document, which was displayed as part of an OCS exhibit at the De Young Museum in San Francisco, provides insight into the particulars of how critical thinking may have been taught at OCS. It outlines topics that the critical thinking program should cover, including: philosophical thinking, critical reading, analogies, definitions, common thinking errors, common strategies used in marketing and politics, and misleading tricks in arguments.

Rodney Gillead, a former teacher at OCS, discusses how he incorporated critical reading lessons into kindergarten lessons.  Ericka Huggins discusses in her oral history how teachers employed a critical approach when teaching about the history of slavery in the United States.

Many documents in this archive state that at Oakland Community School, students were taught how to think, not what to think. This document illustrates the content behind that statement.