
Clearing the Fog: Reflective Thinking and the Socratic Seminar
Critical thinking has become a catch-all phrase in any education literature that touts the development of 21st century learning. It
April 2026



April 20, 2026 | By Uche S. Osuji and Rihana S. Mason
“I want to cultivate the capacity for second thoughts, by which I mean the stance and the competence that makes it feasible to inquire into the obvious. This is what I call learning.”
—Ivan Illich, “Ascesis”

Critical thinking has become a catch-all phrase in any education literature that touts the development of 21st century learning. It

Ask any group of faculty whether they include critical thinking on their course learning objectives, and nearly every person will

I had been teaching for nearly 30 years when I discovered that I had failed to instruct my students
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