Gen X Was Taught Critical Thinking. What the Hell Happened?
Gen X Was Taught Critical Thinking. What the Hell Happened?
What absolutely boggles my mind is seeing people my age… and, even worse, people I actually went to school with… arguing that vaccines don’t work, that Donald Trump was somehow chosen by God to “rule” the United States, or that everything happening in our government is perfectly constitutional because their preferred politicians are the ones doing it.
Like, seriously?
We sat in the same classrooms.
We had the same science classes. We had the same American history and government classes. We learned about the Constitution, checks and balances, the three branches of government, elections, civil rights, and why presidents aren’t fucking kings.
We had teachers busting their asses trying to teach us critical thinking, basic biology, research skills, and how to evaluate information.
Did you retain NONE of it?
I’m Grateful for the Teachers Who Taught Us to Think
The older I get, the more grateful I am for the teachers and administrators I had in high school.
We had excellent educators who did their damnedest to instill critical thinking in our brains. They didn’t just teach us facts for a test. The good ones taught us how to think, how to ask questions, how to defend an argument, and how to recognize when something didn’t add up.
Those lessons became even more important once we became adults.
Unfortunately, judging by some of the things I see people I went to school with posting today, apparently quite a few classmates left those lessons sitting somewhere inside their lockers.
Because some of the same people who sat through those science and government classes with me are now anti-vaxxers, red hats, conspiracy theorists, and defenders of politicians they would have recognized as dangerous if they’d actually retained what our teachers taught us.
And that’s what makes this so damn frustrating.
You were taught better.
Sometimes I Wish I Had Finished That Teaching Degree
There’s another reason I have so much respect for teachers.
I almost became one.
I went to college intending to become a teacher, and sometimes I genuinely wish I had finished that degree. There’s a part of me that would have loved standing in a classroom and teaching kids how to think critically, question what they’re being told, understand history, and recognize the difference between evidence and bullshit.
Then I look at the world we’re living in now and think…
Yeah, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t.
Because at this point in my life, I have approximately ZERO filters left.
I cannot imagine trying to navigate a classroom in this political climate while pretending I wasn’t watching rampant misinformation spread across social media, seeing basic science treated like a matter of personal opinion, watching people misunderstand, or deliberately misrepresent, the Constitution, and dealing with the willful ignorance I see coming from MAGA circles every damn day.
And with what I view as increasingly authoritarian, and yes, fascist, behavior coming from the current Trump administration, I’m pretty sure somebody would have called me into the principal’s office by lunchtime.
Probably before lunch.
“Ms. Bock, you can’t tell the students that’s fucking propaganda.”
BUT IT IS, SIR. AND THEY NEED TO KNOW HOW TO RECOGNIZE IT.
So, perhaps life knew what it was doing when my career took a different direction.
But I still think like a teacher in some ways.
When someone makes an outrageous claim, my immediate response is: What’s your source?
Where did you get that information?
Who published it?
What evidence supports it?
Can it be independently verified?
Is this a legitimate news organization, government document, scientific study, or primary source, or is it some jackass with a podcast, a ring light, and 700,000 followers?
Those are the questions our teachers trained us to ask.
And that’s exactly why teachers matter so damn much right now.
They aren’t simply teaching multiplication tables, biology, American history, or how to diagram a sentence. The best educators teach young people something infinitely more valuable:
How to recognize when they’re being manipulated.
How to separate evidence from opinion.
How to challenge authority intelligently.
How to research before repeating something.
How to understand that changing your mind when presented with better evidence isn’t weakness.
And how to realize that screaming “DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH!” doesn’t mean scrolling social media until an algorithm finally hands you a video confirming what you already believe.
Maybe I didn’t finish my teaching degree. But I’m incredibly thankful for the people who did.
Especially the teachers and administrators willing to keep teaching critical thinking when misinformation, political tribalism, conspiracy theories, and willful ignorance make that job harder than ever.
And considering my complete lack of a filter these days?
I’ll cheer them on from over here.
It’s probably safer for everyone.
Gen X Was Taught to Show Our Work
We’re Gen X.
We grew up when research meant actually researching something.
We cracked open encyclopedias. We went to libraries. We used card catalogs. We read books, newspapers, reference materials, and primary sources. Teachers expected us to cite our sources.
And remember math class?
SHOW YOUR WORK.
You couldn’t write down an answer and demand the teacher accept it because you felt strongly about it. You had to demonstrate how you got there.
That lesson applies far beyond algebra.
If you’re going to claim vaccines don’t work, show your work.
If you’re going to claim something is unconstitutional, show your work.
If you’re going to claim something is constitutional, show your work.
If you’re going to tell me the United States isn’t a democracy because it’s a republic, please, for the love of everything holy, show your work.
Because yes, the United States is both a democracy and a republic. More specifically, we’re a representative democracy organized as a constitutional federal republic.
These concepts aren’t mutually exclusive.
We learned this shit.
What Did We Learn in Civics Class?
Remember checks and balances?
Separation of powers?
The Bill of Rights?
The First Amendment?
The idea that government officials are constrained by law?
Remember learning that the Founders had just fought a revolution against a king and deliberately created a system designed to prevent one person from accumulating unchecked power?
A president isn’t a king. A president isn’t a ruler. A president isn’t above the law simply because you voted for him.
And criticizing a president isn’t somehow “un-American.” Political dissent is woven into the history of the country.
This isn’t some radical new concept invented by liberals on social media.
It’s American fucking history.
Science Didn’t Suddenly Stop Being Science
Then there’s science.
I don’t remember my teachers telling us that science only counts when its conclusions don’t hurt someone’s political feelings.
We learned about cells, bacteria, viruses, immune systems, disease, experimentation, evidence, and the scientific method.
Science changes when new evidence emerges because that’s how science is supposed to work.
Changing a conclusion based on better evidence isn’t proof that science failed. It’s evidence that the process is working.
Yet social media has somehow convinced people that watching three videos and reading a meme constitutes the equivalent of years of medical education and scientific research.
It doesn’t.
Some people would rather cling to misinformation because it validates what they already want to believe than admit that maybe scientists, doctors, researchers, historians, constitutional scholars, and decades of accumulated evidence know more than some random dipshit yelling into a phone.
Being Skeptical Is Healthy. Being Willfully Ignorant Isn’t.
Question things.
Absolutely.
Hell, Gen X was practically raised to question authority.
But questioning something means looking for the answer.
It means gathering information, comparing credible sources, considering evidence, recognizing your own biases, and being willing to change your mind when the facts don’t support your original conclusion.
It does not mean rejecting every answer until you find somebody on Facebook, YouTube, or TikTok who tells you exactly what you already wanted to hear.
That’s not research.
That’s confirmation bias with Wi-Fi.
And there’s a huge difference.
Teachers Are Still Leading the Charge
Perhaps one of the most encouraging things I’ve seen is educators continuing to stand up for the principles they spent their careers teaching.
Teachers and school administrators understand better than most what happens when history is rewritten, science is dismissed, books are removed, expertise is attacked, and critical thinking is discouraged.
Their entire profession is built around knowledge.
Around questions.
Around evidence.
Around exposing young people to ideas and giving them the tools to decide what those ideas mean.
That’s why seeing teachers, retired educators, administrators, librarians, and other education professionals speaking up matters so much.
They’re still teaching.
The classroom just got a hell of a lot bigger.
And frankly, we need them.
Critical Thinking May Be the Most Important Lesson We Ever Learned
Our teachers couldn’t possibly have known what the information landscape would look like decades later.
They couldn’t have predicted smartphones, algorithms, viral misinformation, AI-generated bullshit, deepfakes, social-media echo chambers, or influencers building careers by saying outrageous things into cameras.
But they gave us something remarkably useful for surviving all of it:
Critical thinking.
Ask who is making the claim.
Ask what evidence supports it.
Check the source.
Look for corroborating information.
Understand the difference between opinion and fact.
Recognize propaganda.
And perhaps most importantly, be willing to admit when you’re wrong.
Those aren’t merely academic skills anymore.
They’re survival skills for democracy.
For fuck’s sake, fellow Gen Xers.
We survived lead paint, lawn darts, secondhand smoke everywhere, drinking from garden hoses, questionable playground equipment, and riding around in the back of station wagons without seatbelts.
Surely we can survive reading a credible source.
Our teachers taught us how.
Maybe it’s time some of us cracked open those old lessons and started showing our fucking work again.
SMDH.