Dear Parents,

Critical Thinking (CT) is essential for the future success of students. It is regarded as the holy grail among popularly tagged 21st-century skills. The ultimate objective for developing CT in their students is for them to make well-informed, well-reasoned, and rational choices in life when faced with ambiguity and/or complexity. It is also important that their decisions align with their internal value system lest they regret these choices in the future as some decisions will invariably lead to undesirable outcomes.

The process of cultivating Critical thinking skills, therefore, starts with establishing a clear identity of the self. This can be achieved through in-depth discussions of morality, debates for and against accepted societal principles, role-playing exercises that cultivate empathy, and reading diverse accounts of similar historical events. Defeating prejudice, finding equilibrium and concessions in human values, and consciously playing the devil's advocate to one's own beliefs are some prerequisites for clarifying a personal identity that is deeper than labels of communities and hobbies. The pure idea of the self is the foundation upon which any sustainable Critical Thinking skills can be developed. We often discount the importance of value education, even when there is living proof that children with strong identities and incorruptible value systems showcase CT in broader scenarios. A parent taking decisions for their child is thinking critically and so is the child (e.g., choosing subjects in senior secondary) - but they may arrive at different decisions because their values vary, and CT is built upon our personal value system.

In the information age, it is imperative to sift through data swiftly and draw conclusions for compelling decision-making. Critical Thinking (CT) empowers us to structure our information in a manner wherein analysis becomes obvious and easier. To think critically is to think systematically, avoid cognitive bias, and recognise assumptions while making accurate inferences and synthesising comprehensive new work. To help students develop CT, educators inevitably need to work on these sub-skills. Breaking down complex problems into their constituents and solving them to arrive at a greater solution is often the best approach.

Structured writing is a superpower when acquired. It allows an individual to present ideas in discrete, concise, and rational compositions. To one's mind, all ideas start great and we are pre-set and biased in assigning exaggerated value to them. It is only when we compel our minds to synthesize these ideas into an essay, memo, email directive, presentation, speech, etc. that we think of them critically (assuming we have not yet trained ourselves to think critically). Writing allows us to distance ourselves from our thoughts in a way that opens these ideas to judgement and scrutiny. People who write well can structure their thoughts systematically and accurately. This structured organisation of ideas is essential to develop great critical thinking and is the first step towards a more compelling ability to function in complex situations. Writing is, in essence, the ability to structure ideas coherently.

Cognitive biases are fundamental to the way humans think and communicate. These biases are often a by-product of the brain's tendency to reduce cognitive load and influential communication strategy to survive in groups. Although most of these biases can be recognized easily, it takes training and effort to overcome them in the subconscious mind. Students are adept at working at low cognitive loads and are vulnerable to biases, often leading to poor critical thinking skills. The first hurdle is the bias blind spot - I do not have these biases. Discussing common experiences that shed the light on these biases can help mitigate them. At the same time, grading subjectively written assignments based on the presence of biases can give essential feedback on bias adherence. Defeating cognitive biases prunes the mind for higher-order critical thinking skills. A list of common cognitive biases may be found easily on the web to review and reorient strategy.

The Dunning-Kruger effect points to another abject reality wherein students overestimate their abilities or knowledge. Students overvalue their understanding of the world and a general trend verging on intellectual arrogance is visible as a result. A good education can only bring humility. Albert Einstein immortalized this by conceding that "The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know". That, our children are standing on the opposite end of this spectrum of ignorance, illustrates that they are not learning. It is each school's responsibility to ensure that students approach their education with reverence and with the understanding that knowledge is a vast sea and that the pursuit of truth and critical understanding of the world requires patience, perseverance and effort. The authenticity in our learning approach will keep us motivated to go further and deeper.

The world is becoming the playground of extreme specialists or deep generalists. Since specialization is the frontier of tertiary education and professional development, a school must concern itself with building a robust program with broad experiences. Building deep competence across multiple subject areas is fundamental to critical thinking. Depth in varied fields can often prime the foundations for agility in thought and reasoning capabilities. This multi-faceted nature of generalists also allows for unprecedented combinations of intellectual aptitudes that give birth to novel ideas and the synthesis of new knowledge paradigms. Strict adherence to Newtonian physics would make the existence of satellites and GPS impossible (as they account for the theory of relativity in order to keep in sync). Similarly, new art forms and music genres are discovered and created routinely (e.g., digital art, fusion cuisine, etc.) while Al collaboration amongst biologists gives rise to new powerful medicinal molecules (Al-Human teams operate across multiple sectors). The human potential - founded on the ground of Critical Thinking is nurtured with the cross-integration of erstwhile secluded knowledge zones. Cross-pollination of intelligence will benefit our students tremendously in a future of automation and Al where redundancy (manual, intellectual and creative) will be the primary fight of the generation.

Finally, evidence and logic-based critique of arguments is paramount for nit-picking misinformation from the vast streams of data that constantly bombard us. The ability to distinguish between fact and opinion, the mental strength needed to understand motive and bias in their contemporaries will indicate whether students have developed the right powers of Critical Thinking. The post-truth world belongs to the few who can critically evaluate arguments and identify accurate information. If any of the aforementioned attributes are lacking in our student body, then we may be at risk of creating leaders in the flesh but intellectual slaves. The movie Matrix represents a prison of the mind where our brains are slaves to the machines without realizing it because as a species, we lost our ability to evaluate evidence critically. The few who could see through the façade were the critical thinkers who formed the rebellion.

Now that we have covered the prerequisites and some of the sub-skills needed to cultivate Critical Thinking skills, we must evaluate and reflect on the changes that we need to undertake for these outcomes. While at it, we must also assess the urgency of adopting these changes. Intellectual depravity is the difference between utopia and dystopia. We are responsible for nurturing and intellectually stimulating the next generation.

The power of Critical Thinking will give them the toolkit to make better decisions and, thereby, a better world. Parents, educators and students should work at improving critical thinking merged with competence in a broad range of disciplines.

- FROM THE DIRECTORS' DESK