The big debate: Should critical thinking be taught as a standalone subject in schools?

In a world where students (and teachers) are bombarded with social media and misinformation, critical thinking skills have never been more important. Thinking critically allows your students to evaluate sources of information, creatively solve problems, and to make informed decisions based on real evidence – both inside and outside the classroom.

Education plays a key role in building these skills, but we’ve yet to agree firmly on how critical thinking should be taught in schools. Some experts say it’s best embedded into existing subjects, whilst others argue that it should be its own subject.

So, what’s the best route to follow? Let’s take a look at both sides.

Critical thinking should be a standalone subject

There is a belief that teaching critical thinking as its own subject can help students develop general cognitive skills that can be transferred across different parts of their lives.

For example, a study found that when teachers explained critical thinking strategies to students, and modelled critical thinking themselves, their students’ cognitive abilities improved. Students especially benefited when they were given critical thinking exercises that put them in real-life contexts.

Critical thinking as its own subject can also give your students a more structured opportunity to practise specific skills. For instance, a dedicated hour to critical thinking could involve critically assessing newspapers, analysing TV debates, and answering problems so students can develop their logical reasoning.

All these skills can be transferred to other subjects too, and of course later on in life when your students start working. One study on teaching critical thinking as an independent subject found that students considered multiple perspectives and outcomes in their problem-solving in other areas, leading to greater academic success across subjects.

Tips to teach critical thinking as its own subject

If you’d like to focus on critical thinking as its own subject for a class or two, a good approach is giving your students real-world problems to solve, and guiding them through their thought process and decision making.

To start, ask your students to have a debate – pick a topic that sparks a lot of conversation, for example ‘Should we all be vegetarian?’. Then ask your students open-ended questions to get them to dig deeper into the topic, such as:

1. What evidence supports your view?
2. Can you think of an alternative perspective?
3. What assumptions are we making in this discussion?

You could also take your students through a role-play exercise, where you give them different positions on a debate, e.g., ‘Should school uniforms be banned?’, which always elicits lots of discussion. Students have to share their opinions and ideas with one another and defend their side.

As the teacher, you can get students warmed up and thinking more critically with the following questions:

1. What’s the strongest argument for your position?
2. What’s the strongest counterargument?
3. What would you say to those who disagree?

Analysing different news articles, advertisements, or even social media posts is another powerful way to engage your students’ critical thinking skills. Together, reflect on the sources' reliability and where the author’s bias might be affecting the message.

Critical thinking shouldn’t be a standalone subject

There are plenty of educators and researchers who think that critical thinking is most effective when it’s integrated into other school subjects.

This research highlights how critical thinking depends on students’ background knowledge of a topic – that students need a certain level of understanding in a subject to be able to apply critical thinking more easily. It says that critical thinking should be part of existing subjects so that students can learn about topics and critical thinking at the same time. Doing so allows them to see how critical thinking can be applied in meaningful contexts.

Other research shows that critical thinking skills are context-bound too. That means that your students best grow their critical thinking when it’s rooted in what they’re doing.

Introducing critical thinking as its own subject could lead to curriculum overload, where schools have to accommodate a new subject and cut time spent on other subjects. Teachers might also face excess demands, and have to do additional training to teach critical thinking as a separate subject.

How to embed critical thinking into existing subjects

So, what’s the best way to integrate critical thinking into your lessons? It starts with using specific activities to really make your students aware that they’re developing critical thinking skills.

In social studies and history, you could take your students through a primary source analysis exercise. Give them a document such as a letter, speech, photograph, or political cartoon, and ask them to analyse the source, considering the author’s intent, the audience, and the historical context. Ask them: What message is the author trying to convey? What biases are present? How does the document relate to its context?

In the sciences, you might ask your students to design a scientific experiment to test a hypothesis. Take them through each step – from defining a hypothesis to analysing the outcome – and have them evaluate whether their data supports or refutes their hypothesis. This activity will help them more deeply understand how scientific inquiry works in practice, and allow them to create testable questions and draw conclusions based on evidence.

Across subjects, it’s useful to ask open-ended critical thinking questions that promote deeper thinking. These questions could be:

1. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
2. How would you solve the problem?
3. Why does it matter?
4. Can you give me an example?
5. What would you say if you were on the other side?

It’s equally great to teach students about metacognition – basically how they think about their own thinking. Questions for this could be:

1. How did you reach that conclusion?
2. Why did you ask that question?
3. What could you do differently next time?

A critical conundrum?

There’s no doubt that critical thinking is here to stay in schools, but the form it will take in schools might change.

Teaching critical thinking as a standalone subject could help students understand what it is more deeply, but it also could isolate critical thinking too much. That’s not to say though, that how we teach critical thinking won’t evolve in the future.

Just like critical thinking itself, curriculums and teaching styles are always inquisitive and always expanding!

Further reading

Discover more ways to equip your students with life skills in the classroom. Read How to teach your students emotional regulation, The teacher’s guide to building executive function skills by age, and Strategies for teaching students how to disagree respectfully.