As faculty, we take great pride in teaching students critical thinking. We know this important to teach, yet we are not naïve. We recognize that while most employers say critical thinking is an important skill for graduates to have, few may really want it because employees will speak truth to power. That’s uncomfortable.
But, what about our own work? Do we think critically about teaching, course design, and course delivery? If not, why not? Why are we not doing what we teach our students to do? Perhaps we sense that our employer, the university leadership hierarchy, does not really want us to think critically about teaching, because is no encouragement or reward for doing that.
Higher education has long been criticized for being extremely slow to change, indicating pervasive difficulty among faculty (and administrators) to thinking differently and creatively imagining a better future. I suggest to you that, overall, there is a lack of critical thinking about teaching in higher education.
What are your thoughts?