Raising Critical Thinkers

A Parent's Guide to Growing Wise Kids in the Digital Age

By: Julie Bogart, Barbara Oakley

Narrated by: Julie Bogart, Nancy Linari

Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

A guide for parents to help children of all ages process the onslaught of unfiltered information in the digital age.

Education is not solely about acquiring information and skills across subject areas, but also about understanding how and why we believe what we do. At a time when online media has created a virtual firehose of information and opinions, parents and teachers worry how students will interpret what they read and see. Amid the noise, it has become increasingly important to examine different perspectives with both curiosity and discernment. But how do parents teach these skills to their children?

Drawing on more than 20 years’ experience homeschooling and developing curricula, Julie Bogart offers practical tools to help children at every stage of development to grow in their ability to explore the world around them, examine how their loyalties and biases affect their beliefs, and generate fresh insight rather than simply recycling what they’ve been taught. Full of accessible stories and activities for children of all ages, Raising Critical Thinkers helps parents to nurture passionate learners with thoughtful minds and empathetic hearts.

This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF that contains exercises from the book.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Julie Bogart and Barbara Oakley (P)2022 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“In a world where too many people think they know what isn’t so, there are few skills more vital than critical thinking and rethinking. This is the guide parents need to teach their kids to become thoughtful consumers of information.” –Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again

“Julie Bogart is a brilliant educator who’s written a wonderful book that shows us how to nurture children’s ability to think critically and carefully. Each chapter offers dozens of questions, lessons, and exercises for helping learners understand their biases, evaluate the sources from which they get information, and consider other perspectives. These tools can enable students from kindergarten through high school to experience the joys of discovery and insight, and they can help young people grow into compassionate adults who want to make a positive contribution to their world. Read this book and use it. Your children and students will thank you, and you’ll learn a lot about yourself, too!” —William Stixrud, PhD, bestselling coauthor of The Self-Driven Child

"There is no one I know whose wise counsel I would trust more than Julie Bogart when it comes to teaching our children (and ourselves!) how to think. Critical thinking has never been more important, and Julie arrived just when we needed her. This book is a must for anyone who wants to raise children to be thoughtful, kind, and independent." —Sharon McMahon, creator of Sharon Says So

Useful for all parents out there

Loved the ideas for activities and discussion points that we as parents can use to engage with our children.

fantastic content, fantastic narrator

Must listen! Well researched. Julie Bogart's work is a must read/listen. And I love the way she narrates.

The Education Panacea We All Needed

So many helpful ideas for each age group with ideal new strategies for embracing life!

Fascinating and engaging!

As a Mom and a Professional Mediator, Bogart's information in this book, is imparative for teaching students to engage in effective thought and empathy. The activities she provides in the book are priceless. She provides tangible ways to access valid data when problem solving and helps to navigate the bombardment of information. I will be using this book as a resource for years to come.

Tolerance, but not in the typical way

This book is very well written and applicable to families with children of all ages. It teaches to step back and truly consider other perspectives through a process of legitimate research.

Refreshing

Much needed book in the homeschool community. (from my biased opinion)

Julie is a true brave learner!

Love the suggested exercises. I will be referring to them for years to come.

Leaves the glass half empty

I found Raising Critical Thinkers by Julie Bogart to be misleading. Staying open-minded, I remained dedicated to finishing this book. Unfortunately, this book has always felt biased. While I understand why it's important for the reader to understand modern day beliefs vs. past beliefs, the level of politics present is blinding and casts a shadow over what's supposed to be the whole point: raising our children to be open-minded, independent, critical thinkers. I don't believe that there is a current political issue that wasn't mentioned.

In addition, Bogart's mentioned points to ponder feel indirectly one-sided. The questions actual wording is neutral but the following direction she takes feels like she's trying to drive home a specific point. Even when I agreed with Bogart's point of view, it always felt like she was trying to sway me to see things through her perspective and really drive her view home. It got to the point where this book was more discouraging than inspirational. I just wanted it to end.

After reading this book, Julie Bogart is not an author I'd recommend nor will I read any more of her titles or recommend them. 

Mostly Self Contradictory Liberal Drivel

What I find most ironic about most of this book is two key contradictions that the author seemingly doesn't even recognize. First, the book emphasizes throughout the importance of experience as a method of teaching, and numerous times makes the point that one can read through textbooks all they want but won't truly understand the concept unless they experience something first hand. I couldn't agree more. Yet, here's a book by someone whose only direct education experience of young kids, so far as I can tell, is homeschooling her own five kids. Um, what kind of experience is that? Does that kind qualify this author to give advice to others on creating a hands on educational experience that applies to students other than her own kids? Relatedly, she also criticizes several teachers' attempts at trying to recreate experiences as best they could given limited resources... essentially dismissing them as close minded ignorant morons, failing to recognize that perhaps what they were trying WAS innovative given their limited resources and the context of what was and was not considered acceptable at the time. Second, the author's entire premise is based on allowing children to think on their own, yet the book is littered with examples that only are viewed from the perspective of an uber liberal female. My favorite her point when discussing perspective and the use of grammar, and goes out of her way to point out that "young girls are not impregnated, but instead men impregnate young girls." Don't the overhwhelmingly vast majority of pregnancies involve two willing participants? It seems the author is throughout advocating open-mindedness, which is great, unless and until that open-mindedness contradicts one of her liberal beliefs. Lastly, the author's actual reading of the book was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.

I thought this was for kids

This book starts out with catholic grandparents having sex before marriage. This is inappropriate. I was in the fence about buying her writing program. Guess I’m not going too.