A few months back, I became curious about the alt-right, specifically why this political movement seemed to be choosing a moment of Republican ascendance to foment a civil war within Conservative ranks.Suspecting that I might be getting an inc

Thinking Critically About What Happened

Nov 15th, 2016

Having covered three Presidential elections with the goal of seeing how they can be used to teach and learn critical-thinking skills, I’m frequently asked the question of whether the latest election results mean we have lost the ability to thi

Surprise!

Nov 9th, 2016

Last night’s election coverage began from a place of familiarity. There were many of the same commentators I’ve seen describing election night events since the 1980s, a bit wrinklier but still talking about the virtues of exit poll data and th

Vote

Nov 8th, 2016

Even during strange political times like the one are living through, our most sacred democratic duty is to cast our ballot, which I hope all readers have done or are planning to do today.Eight years ago, after the first election I used as an o

Dystopia

Nov 3rd, 2016

While not a big cable binger, I’ve recently taken to a new Netflix series called Black Mirror. From what I’ve watched so far, it seems as though producers of each episode were given the mandate to come up with a dystopia that represents just a

Thinking Small

Oct 31st, 2016

With the vote just around the corner, I suppose we should be focusing on the momentous decisions before us. Although, perhaps, it is time to reflect on things closer to home.For instance, here’s a little something written for the blog associa

Curriculum Reading

Oct 30th, 2016

Having met my original financial goal in publishing Critical Voter (breaking even from out of pocket expenses) I’ve recently added chapters of the book to the curriculum pages so that teachers using that material can assign readings at no cost.

Apologies

Oct 20th, 2016

My tribe has recently been through the High Holy Days, during which we are supposed to reflect on our failings from the previous year. Such reflection puts us in the position to make amends for what we might have said or done that harmed other

Ignoring the Audience

Oct 10th, 2016

As usual, I’m leaving it to others to dissect the second Presidential debate in terms of policy and politics and instead focus on what we can learn from that exchange to become better critical thinkers and effective communicators.As readers

Fact Checking

Oct 5th, 2016

We seem to be entering that phase of the election cycle when fact-checking becomes an obsession on the part of the candidates, the media and the electorate.Back in ancient times (but within recent memory), fact-checking was the preserve of

An End to Rhetoric?

Sep 28th, 2016

Four years ago, I did some handicapping of the first Presidential debate between Mitt Romney and Barak Obama based on each candidate’s rhetorical success or failure. As it turned out, that first debate demonstrated that Obama’s skill in inspir

Fault Lines

Sep 22nd, 2016

One of the latest mini-twists to come out of this year’s twisted election season has to do with polling indicating that voters (particularly younger voters) Hillary Clinton has been counting on seem to be drifting to third-party alternatives.

Disorientation

Sep 15th, 2016

During a normal election year, you can set your watch based on the following stages of bias overwhelming the ability to think critically:Stage 1: Primary Season During this period, minds of even the most partisan voter tend to remain open. Th

British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands

Sep 1st, 2016

On a recent drive, my son introduced me to the phrase which headlines this post, which reminded me that one of the great beauties of language, and a key pillar of verbal humor, is ambiguity.“British Left Waffles on Falklands” was an actual new

The Crowd

Aug 25th, 2016

One of the things we are supposed to be celebrating in this era of social media, open-source everything, citizen journalism, and various forms of “super-enabling” Internet politics is how it frees us from having to rely on authority.In the pa

Critical Voter – Available Everywhere!

Aug 17th, 2016

As Degree of Freedom News subscribers heard earlier week, the ebook version of Critical Voter is now available on all major ebook platforms including iTunes, Barnes and Noble/Nook, Kobo and all of the other channels managed by the Smashwords pu

The Gaffe

Aug 16th, 2016

One of the great pleasures in life is to watch someone you can’t stand make a blunder, preferably publicly, and suffer ridicule (or worse) as the result.In politics, such blunders are referred to as “gaffes,” and it’s interesting to consider

Argument Ninja

Aug 9th, 2016

As many of you know, I’m a huge fan of Kevin deLaplante, the man behind Critical Thinker Academy and Critical Thinker Academy podcast, both of which were hugely inspirational when I went down the route of podcasting critical-thinking lessons wi

The Single Issue Voter

Aug 2nd, 2016

“It’s been six days since the Reticulan battle fleet entered Earth orbit, and today this unearthly race of reptilian shapeshifters issued their demands that Earth submit to their will and surrender mankind’s freedom, mineral wealth and women,”

Plagiarism

Jul 28th, 2016

The big political news from last week was the Republican nominating convention and, if you judge the importance of stories based on time spent spinning in the news cycle, it seems as though the Yugist Event was Trump’s spouse allegedly lifting

Conventional Wisdom

Jul 19th, 2016

Last chance to receive a free Kindle version of Critical Voter at Amazon, with the last Fre-ebook Tuesday of the season.Speaking of free, with the convention season kicking off I thought I’d provide a couple of free chapters from the book that

Convergence

Jul 15th, 2016

In my day job as an educational researcher, I encounter a great many educational standards and other works trying to help ascertain the knowledge, skills and abilities students need to learn to succeed in the 21st Century.The Partnership for

Noise

Jul 6th, 2016

When introducing Critical Voter to friends and colleagues, I tend to describe it as my attempt to use election politics to teach critical thinking skills, an effort that (given this year’s primary circuses) clearly failed.This actually repres

Doubt

Jun 30th, 2016

While blogging recently at my favorite philosophy web site, I mentioned one theory of how thinking (critically or not) evolved out of a nagging desire inherent in the human species to eliminate (or at least minimize) doubt.In an age that welc

Another Fre-ebook Tuesday

Jun 28th, 2016

Just a reminder that today is another Fre-ebook Tuesday where you can get the Kindle version of Critical Voter free from Amazon.Pass along the link/word and remember that Fre-ebook Tuesdays will continue until July 19th.JonathanThe post