Blue Pen or Black Pen — Building Critical Thinking in kids
I was trained to teach secondary grades in Teach For India. However, a teaching fellow who was teaching 5th grade left in between. So, I took over.
Never ever in my dreams, I had thought that teaching 5th graders is much different than teaching 7th graders. So much difference in maturity. I faced a lot of problems with them, the weirdest being this one-
These kids had recently started writing with a pen. And we all (at least Indians) know how exciting this switch is- from primary to secondary, from pencil to pen, from junior block to senior block, from MCD to DOE (for some of my kids).
So, these giggling girls had a big confusion, and boy, they had it every day! In every class, 2–3 girls will ask me the same question.
“Didi! Blue pen or black pen?”
“Blue pen, kiddo.”
I would walk around the class and another girl from the back seat would raise her hand and ask “ Should I write with a blue pen or a black pen?”
“It is a heading, so black.”
After a few days, I announced- “Headings with black, rest with blue”. And I did keep saying it for the next few days. However, it didn’t help AT ALL.
I was pissed. How and why do I answer the same question 10 times a day?
I will tell them every day that the black pen is for heading and the blue is for content.
Still no respite from the same question.
One day we had a session on critical thinking with one of my favorite colleagues Utkarsh Tripathi from which I had just one takeaway but a solid one.
The best way to build critical thinking in children which spoke to me is to ask them to “choose” from options. Give them the freedom to “choose” themselves. You don’t need to ask them to choose from life-altering, life-threatening choices obviously!
It could be as simple as turning the question back to them (throw the ball in their court as one of my colleagues tell me) when they ask black or blue pen. So, the next day onwards whenever they asked me which pen needs to be used, I would ask them “Which one do you think?” And in 100 percent of the cases, they would know where to use black and where to use blue.
As parents and as educators, we can use this tool to build critical thinking in kids very easily.
Ask them to choose.
Ask them frequently if they want to have spinach or potatoes for dinner tonight? Do they want to wear black or red? Do they want to play football or cricket?
Don’t order them. Make them think! Ask ’em questions!
Ask them to choose.
