By LAURETTA HYDE

For The Beachcomber

Globalization, growth or decline on a worldwide scale is an inexorable part of 21st-century life. As such, it is imperative that parents and teachers instruct our children on how to be active, circumspect global citizens. To this end, teachers need to dedicate classroom time providing instruction and guidance on how to think deeply and critically.

In “Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking,” the writers contend that a successful active learner is one who is willing to change his or her mind. For students to remain this flexible, they must be as open as possible to ideas that may strike them as weird or simply wrong.

In our eighth-grade class at The Harbor School, the students are being introduced to the world of logic — identifying issues, conclusions and reasons, while looking for ambiguous language and fallacies. However, I believe the most important aspect of critical thinking for these middle school students is to practice taking time when judging conclusions, beliefs or opinions. Learning how to say, “wait a moment, let me think on this for a while” is something we must emphasize to our children even as our world demands instantaneous assessments and evaluations.

Second only to stressing slow, thoughtful inquiry is teaching students the necessity of keeping an open mind, an essential element to becoming a judicious global citizen.

I was thrilled when my youngest son, then a middle school student of Mr. Foege’s, was required to investigate what was currently happening in Sudan for a unit on human rights.

I was equally pleased when I realized the humanities department at Vashon High School was teaching our Island children American history in an honest, exigent way — not the whitewashed textbook version many of us received in high school.

This honesty, which can occasionally be disheartening and even brutal, lends itself to challenging discussions that include conversations on ethics and morality, the very stuff that can lead to new, more sophisticated ways of thinking about the world and one’s place in it.

Evidence abounds on this Island that our schools and parents are doing great work in teaching tolerance and open-mindedness. In my eighth-grade social studies class, as we researched the issues surrounding the presidential election, the students who were hoping for a McCain victory came to class Nov. 5 not mourning their loss or debasing our new president-elect, but fully understanding and appreciating the historical significance of what had just occurred. They celebrated too, as shouts of “yes we can” rang through the halls.

When we teach children to slow down and examine why they believe as they do, and require them to carefully and thoughtfully consider alternative points of view, we are creating room for more expansive thinking, which opens minds, letting in tolerance and understanding, the very character traits necessary for 21st-century citizenship.

So when our elementary schools teach about Ramadan and Yom Kippur, our middle schools introduce students to the history of the Middle East and our high schools require the reading of difficult, provocative novels, they are preparing our Island children to be intelligent, deep-thinking global citizens. As a mother of three, I am grateful.

— Lauretta Hyde teaches social studies at The Harbor School.