Very little imagination on the part of those middle school teachers.

Here's why I think critical thinking needs to start in elementary school (nay, primary school). I was shocked when, during the Trump/Clinton election in 2016, kids as young as fifth grade had hardened opinions on both candidates for the usual overly general reasons that non-thinkers have. If kids can have opinions, then they should have reasons. And if they can have reasons, then they should have reasoning abilities.

I also knew kids at that age who would argue the weirdest things with me, such as the color of the walls in our classroom, and tell me it was something different than what our own eyes revealed. They weren't color blind, and I believe THEY believed they were being critical thinkers, but in fact they were misunderstanding (badly) when and how we use our critical reasoning. We don't argue for the sake of an argument, I told them; we argue when a claim is made that strains credulity and requires evidence. Kids at this age are not too young to understand Sagan's quote about extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence, nor are they too young to be exposed to Occam's razor. That's what I aim to do with my book and educational videos.