The Power of Critical Thinking: Philosophy Lesson for Students Aged 8-16 [P4C, Misinformation]

Help students to protect themselves against misinformation and delusion with this powerful set of resources!

In the age of misinformation teaching critical-thinking skills is an essential duty for teachers and schools. Aside from our standard ‘Fun Philosophy Lesson’ which will help you to trigger deep discussions and engaging debates about critical thinking with ease, this download also includes a special ‘Defence Against the Dark Arts’ lesson which is based on recent research that suggest ‘inoculating against misinformation’ is far more effective than trying to undo false beliefs retrospectively. The resource also includes our Logical Fallacy Training Pack which helps students practice their skills at detecting deceptive and manipulative arguments using the power of reason and logic!

This philosophy teaching resource pack is of interest to all teachers working with students aged 8-16 and explores topics such as:

• The nature of critical thinking
• The value of scepticism
• Emotional biases in the pursuit of truth
• Logical Fallacies
• Reliable vs unreliable sources of information
• Detecting misinformation online

The big question asked in this session is “How do we know if a particular claim is really true?”. Using a variety of engaging activities students will discuss and debate a wide range of other philosophical questions such as:

• Why is it important to be sceptical about what we read online?
• What might happen to a person who had absolutely no critical-thinking skills?
• What are the main sources of bias that influence your ability to wisely discern truth from falsehood? and
• To what extent is it possible to be 100% certain about anything?

Students will also analyse and evaluate an eclectic mix of philosophical claims such as:

• “We can trust that what our parents and teachers tell us is definitely true.”
• “Our emotions and feelings can get in the way of our rational pursuit of the truth” and
• “We should be wary of people who hold extreme political views”

As with all our resources, this session will help students to develop vital communication, social and interpersonal skills: healthy debates will help learners to practice ‘disagreeing in an agreeable fashion’. This resource is suitable for students aged 8-16; due to the flexible nature of the sessions design it can be used for multiple hour-long sessions or as a short stimulating tutor-group activity.

The ‘Fun Philosophy Lesson’ resource uses our unique format for philosophy teaching resources and features an integrated menu that allows teachers to select from a variety of starter, main, plenary, assessment and end-of-lesson reflection activities.