Education: Teaching How to Think, Not What to Think – HuffPost
A comment of mine has been published on HuffPost, addressing the urgent need for a new direction in education in the digital era.
The full article is available here >>>
Education: Teaching How to Think, Not What to Think
In a world where knowledge is omnipresent and readily available, education must evolve beyond simply delivering pre-packaged content. The Italian school system remains trapped in a static model, failing to equip students with the critical thinking skills necessary to navigate the complexities of modern life. Social media, while captivating and influential, does not teach individuals to question, doubt, or analyze. This gap must be filled by schools, which should focus on fostering independent thought rather than imposing rigid ideologies.
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Recent educational reforms, including the new national guidelines, promised to overcome outdated frameworks. However, they merely replace one ideological approach with another, favoring conservative identity-based content over the critical skills that students need to thrive. Both progressive and conservative ideologies share a common flaw: prioritizing static knowledge over adaptable methods.
To prepare students for the 21st century, schools must adopt a critical approach rooted in historical methods of inquiry—such as Socratic dialectics, Aristotelian logic, and Popper’s falsifiability—while modernizing these tools for today’s challenges. Teachers must be empowered to become facilitators of thought, creating environments where students learn to question and explore rather than passively absorb information.
In a liberal state, the role of the Ministry of Education should not be to dictate what students learn but to create conditions for critical thinking, invest in teacher training, and encourage diverse approaches to learning. Without this shift, education risks losing its relevance in the face of the dynamic and engaging influence of social media.
The future of education lies in transforming schools into laboratories of freedom—places where students develop the ability to think critically, adapt to change, and engage constructively in an open society. Only then can education contribute meaningfully to shaping informed, resilient citizens for a rapidly evolving world.
