critical thinking meaning in art

Art and Critical Thinking

Arts Academy

in the Woods

How Art Education Fosters Critical Thinking and Why It Matters

These days, the ability to grasp the logical connection between ideas is a necessary skill.

Unless you’re a hermit living in a cave, there is so much information coming at all of us at any given moment.

Being able to discern which information is of worth – and which is not based in reality – requires critical thinking.

So What Exactly Is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is often synonymous with reflective and independent thinking. It means knowing how to take in the data and then come to a reasonable conclusion. 

Those who engage in critical thinking are constantly questioning ideas and assumptions rather than just accepting what’s being peddled to the masses.

Critical thinkers want to know that the incoming information is representative of the bigger picture. If they determine that it’s not, they’ll take the necessary measures to get that additional information.

Critical Thinking Versus Being Critical

Critical thinking is not the same thing as being argumentative or critical/judgmental of other people. Sure, critical thinking can expose errors or poor reasoning.

But it’s also crucial for cooperative reasoning and then moving toward constructive tasks. Because acquiring more knowledge improves and strengthens one’s theories and arguments. And this subsequently leads to enhanced work processes.

How Art Improves Critical Thinking

Because critical thinking tends to incorporate logical and rational thinking and veers from instinct, many people see it as a hinderance to creativity.

After all, creativity requires breaking the rules, right? (Well, yes and no .)

Still, critical thinking truly requires out-of-the-box thinking. Rather than just taking popular approaches and swallowing them whole, critical thinkers challenge the consensus. This means they often have to pursue less popular thoughts or approaches.

So if you think about, critical thinking is an absolutely necessary component of creativity. Without it, how can the creative person continue to evaluate and improve upon his or her ideas?

It’s this very process of observation and study that teaches students of the arts to more intensely observe and analyze the world. And it gives them the skills that build the foundation of critical thinking.

But Why Does It Matter?

You might think that if your path leads you to work in research, law, education, management, finance or medicine, then you’ll absolutely need this skill. And you’re right.

But no matter what you   choose to do with your life, the ability to think clearly and rationally is important.

Knowing how to receive information, clearly consider it and then use it to systematically solve problems is an asset for any career. Especially in light of this new knowledge economy. To be successful in such an economy requires one to able to handle changes quickly and effectively.

There is an increased demand for workers to be able to analyze a lot of information from diverse sources, then integrate it in order to find solutions. Critical thinking promotes these skills.

It also enhances language and presentation skills. The simple act of learning to think in a more systematic and logical fashion can also improve the way one expresses ideas.

Furthermore, in having to analyze the structure of different information sources, critical thinking also improves one’s ability to comprehend.

And as we mentioned above, critical thinking actually promotes creativity. Coming up with creative solutions is more than just having new ideas. There has to be an understanding that the new ideas are useful and relevant to the required task.   Critical thinking plays an important role in this.

That’s right. Critical thinking is even important for this. It’s nearly impossible to structure a meaningful life without the ability to justify and reflect on our own values and decisions. And critical thinking provides the tools for this process.

So yeah, it’s safe to say that critical thinking definitely matters.

Learning Critical Thinking with an Arts Integration Education

Arts integration education merges the important skill of critical thinking achieved through art education and blends it in with academics.

There’s no disputing the importance of STEM. The above mentioned knowledge economy requires students to understand facets of science, technology, engineering and math.

With arts integration though, there’s the added importance of art – hence the term STEAM. Arts integration isn’t looking to bypass STEM. It strives instead to create an integrated program that includes all of those, while teaching the application of skills learned through the arts – such as critical thinking.

Arts integration helps students see the world from multiple angles, and to take a design-thinking approach in finding solutions.

Teaching young people to be careful and deliberate observers can go miles toward expanding their worldview. And this, in turn, can create a stronger democracy.

Do You Want to Explore An Arts Integration Education?

So take a look at what our students have to say . And/or request a tour of our school and see what we have to offer.

Then get ready to put those critical thinking skills toward a higher purpose.

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A Teacher Asks: Why the Renwick?

Vaija Wagle, former teacher at Washington International School. 

Welcome to the Renwick Gallery. I am Vaija Wagle. I have been a classroom teacher for the last 40 years. For 20 of those years, ideas from Project Zero , a research institute at Harvard Graduate School of Education influenced teaching and learning in my classroom. Upon retiring from the classroom, I took on the challenge of writing teacher resources for the Renwick Gallery.

As a teacher, my initial concern was that the Renwick Gallery would not be a teacher’s intuitive choice. Teachers have limited time and the artwork at the Renwick Gallery were not connected to any curriculum content. However, I soon recognized that the artwork at the Renwick Gallery presented a unique teaching opportunity.

Finding the Key

The artworks begged understanding. Using thinking patterns to understand and appreciate the artworks could offer students vital lessons to learn about critical thinking. If thinking about their thinking (metacognition) could be part of this experience, then the students might, in addition, transfer these thinking patterns across subject areas and to the world beyond.

If a visit to the Renwick, either through reproductions in the classroom or in-person, offered an opportunity to learn about using critical thinking skills and metacognition, teachers like me might find it quite valuable. With this in mind, I set to work on the units now available in the Resources section. They use a variety of trans-disciplinary thinking patterns to appreciate and understand the Renwick’s artworks such as:

• Uncovering Hidden Stories
• Taking Multiple Perspectives
• Getting to the Heart of the Matter
• Gleaning Context from Objects
• Making Connections

Learn more about Field Trips and School Tours at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The Units’ Philosophical Core

At Project Zero , I was profoundly drawn to the idea of making cultivating understanding through critical thinking as the goal of learning. This idea promised to benefit students’ learning in the classroom, but also for life long learning beyond the classroom.

You’ll notice that the units I created:

• Constructing an understanding of big conceptual ideas : Big conceptual ideas describe physical and social patterns that govern the world, how things work or why they are the way they are. They provide an enduring and universal lens through which to view subject matter but also the world around.
• Engage active student thinking . While knowledge may be dished out and delivered, understanding can only be cultivated through critical thinking, and through the units, students are guided to use a variety of thinking patterns to construct the desired understandings.

The units are designed for a variety of age groups; elementary to middle school students or middle to high school students.

Each unit takes between 60 and 90 minutes and can be accomplished during a visit to the museum or by displaying high definition photographs of the artworks available on the website.

Each unit uses a particular thinking pattern to look closely at a select artwork, and form informed and relevant interpretations.

There are metacognitive breaks along the way to help students become cognizant of the thinking pattern they are using to engage with the artworks.

A closing moment of reflection is built in to allow the students to revisit the experience and think about what they gained both in terms of ideas the artwork generated and patterns of thinking used.

Examples of how the various thinking patterns can be used to successfully teach curriculum content are also provided.

Practical Testing

As a teacher, I know that there is nothing better than a chance to actually teach the units and receive feedback. So, I took multiple opportunities to test the units in the gallery and at workshops across the city and gather feedback from participating students and teachers. I also reflected on what worked and what didn’t.

My highlight was when we presented the unit on Hidden Stories (the importance of seeking side and hidden stories to better understand the main story) to a high school art class at St. Alban’s School. Having visited the classroom some days before, my host teacher wrote to me and said that the students had returned from their art class and informed their teachers in the history and literature classes that they ought to be looking for side and hidden stories!! This, to me, is the ideal outcome. With all this feedback I set to revise the units.

Thinking Through Craft  resources were funded by a generous gift from the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust.

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Visual Art as Critical Thinking

Creative approaches to core subjects

We've heard this story before. The first thing to go in budget cuts is the visual art program or another related art. Proponents of arts education counter with the usual rhetoric on the importance of self-expression and creativity. I, myself, am a product of arts education.

From the early age of kindergarten I was in musical theater. I eventually transitioned in music as a focus, and was a choir nerd in middle school and into college. In fact, my participation in Jazz Choir kept me in school, as I struggled with depression as a young adult. I kept singing into college, where I led the jazz and a cappella ensemble, and participated in a semiprofessional jazz ensemble the Seattle Jazz Singers . Although my schedule no longer allows me to sing on a regular basis, karaoke continually calls my name. I'm sure many of you had have had a similar experience, where art remains a crucial part of your being. These stories alone say "Yes!" to arts education.

Well, I have another argument to advocate for arts education. Visual arts (as well as other arts) are an excellent discipline to build and utilize critical thinking skills. I don't think we often give credit to the deep conceptual and interpretational thinking that goes into the creation of a piece of art, and this is often because art is treated as something separate from the core content areas. School does not need to be this way. In fact, I have recently seen two excellent ways that art can be used to wrestle with rigorous content from the core while allowing for creativity and expression.

I had the privilege of visiting High Tech High and Middle in San Diego, California. The first thing I noticed that art was vital to the culture of the school. Whether using physics content to create kinetic art with pulleys or to create 21st century resumes (see photo above), teachers embraced art as part of the culture of study.

Chris Uyeda was nice enough to sit down with me to talk about a recent chemistry project by his students. They were told that the common image of the atom was WRONG, and that they needed to create a pitch for a better representation of it. Chemistry and the study of the atom require deep conceptual thinking, some of which is hard to grasp. Chris saw art as an opportunity to have students critically think around the content to create a beautiful art piece. The student example below shows just one student's take on a more appropriate representation of the atom through the motif of bees and beehive. Art was a great way to familiarize students with critical content they would need later in the course.

A colleague of mine, Dayna Laur, a social studies teacher at Central High School in York, Pennsylvania, worked with her art teacher colleague Katlyn Wolfgang to ingrate the study of art and politics. Edutopia featured their story and advice , and you can use some of their resources. The driving question for the project was, "How can art reflect and inform the public about policy-making agendas?" In it, the students had to collaborate across classrooms to create an art piece that had a message.

More than just making connections, the art students had to use their critical thinking skills not only to understand all the information and nuances of their public policy issue, but also to synthesize it into an art piece that conveyed a message. Students researched legislation, background information and other pertinent content. Instead of simply creating artwork with a message (which is a natural function of art), they had to wrestle first with critical content of politics and social studies before creating the art piece. Student examples are pictured above and below.

Teachers, your mission is finding ways to integrate art into the core subjects. Use your students' creative impulses to bring a new purpose to interpreting, conceptualizing and critically thinking around content. This type of integration can work for ANY discipline. It will help to value art as not just a separate entity, but rather integral to the school culture. Art is important as a single subject, but also should be valued as core through rigorous integration. In addition to being a fulfilling part of your students' lives, it can engage them in the core content.

Teaching Critical Thinking through Art, 0.2: Focal Point: Why use art to develop thinking?

In this video, Shari Tishman, the principal researcher and developer of Artful Thinking at Project Zero in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, talks about the powerful ways in which art stimulates critical thinking as she answers the question: Why is art so important for people, and students specifically, to think about? 

The Elements of Thought

How we think….

What is Critical Thinking?

To be honest, there are many definitions of critical thinking. You can search and find dozens and dozens, each a bit different. But they all seem to boil down to what Dr. Richard Paul once said:

Critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it.

That’s a small sentence that says quite a lot. Let’s take it apart and see what we find.

What is powerful about critical thinking is that it helps us to not  only look into our own thinking, but also the thinking of others. We can analyze what Juliet thinks of Romeo when they first meet. Then we can analyze what they think of each other on the balcony. We can also analyze what Shakespeare thinks about Juliet, and even what you think about what Shakespeare thinks about Juliet. And then we can compare all of these, evaluate how strong their (and our) thinking is, and then see if we agree with how others think. Critical thinking can help us get into anyone’s mind.

WITH A VIEW TO IMPROVING IT

We always need to grow as thinkers, to become better at analyzing and evaluating our thinking and the thinking of others. In order to become a critical thinker we need to practice enough to make it a habit. Then we can make better decisions and act in accordance with what we have carefully reasoned.

Yes, it does take work and diligence, but also creativity and imagination. In the end, we not only become better thinkers and understand the world on a deeper level, but we become better people, understanding our place in the world and what we can do to improve it.

Critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it.

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Critical thinking definition

Critical thinking, as described by Oxford Languages, is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.

Active and skillful approach, evaluation, assessment, synthesis, and/or evaluation of information obtained from, or made by, observation, knowledge, reflection, acumen or conversation, as a guide to belief and action, requires the critical thinking process, which is why it's often used in education and academics.

Some even may view it as a backbone of modern thought.

However, it's a skill, and skills must be trained and encouraged to be used at its full potential.

People turn up to various approaches in improving their critical thinking, like:

• Developing technical and problem-solving skills
• Engaging in more active listening
• Actively questioning their assumptions and beliefs
• Seeking out more diversity of thought
• Opening up their curiosity in an intellectual way etc.

Is critical thinking useful in writing?

Critical thinking can help in planning your paper and making it more concise, but it's not obvious at first. We carefully pinpointed some the questions you should ask yourself when boosting critical thinking in writing:

• What information should be included?
• Which information resources should the author look to?
• What degree of technical knowledge should the report assume its audience has?
• What is the most effective way to show information?
• How should the report be organized?
• How should it be designed?
• What tone and level of language difficulty should the document have?

Usage of critical thinking comes down not only to the outline of your paper, it also begs the question: How can we use critical thinking solving problems in our writing's topic?

Let's say, you have a Powerpoint on how critical thinking can reduce poverty in the United States. You'll primarily have to define critical thinking for the viewers, as well as use a lot of critical thinking questions and synonyms to get them to be familiar with your methods and start the thinking process behind it.

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critical thinking

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• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Critical Thinking
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Critical Thinking
• Monash University - Student Academic Success - What is critical thinking?
• Oklahoma State University Pressbooks - Critical Thinking - Introduction to Critical Thinking
• University of Louisville - Critical Thinking

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critical thinking , in educational theory, mode of cognition using deliberative reasoning and impartial scrutiny of information to arrive at a possible solution to a problem. From the perspective of educators, critical thinking encompasses both a set of logical skills that can be taught and a disposition toward reflective open inquiry that can be cultivated . The term critical thinking was coined by American philosopher and educator John Dewey in the book How We Think (1910) and was adopted by the progressive education movement as a core instructional goal that offered a dynamic modern alternative to traditional educational methods such as rote memorization.

Critical thinking is characterized by a broad set of related skills usually including the abilities to

• break down a problem into its constituent parts to reveal its underlying logic and assumptions
• recognize and account for one’s own biases in judgment and experience
• collect and assess relevant evidence from either personal observations and experimentation or by gathering external information
• adjust and reevaluate one’s own thinking in response to what one has learned
• form a reasoned assessment in order to propose a solution to a problem or a more accurate understanding of the topic at hand

Theorists have noted that such skills are only valuable insofar as a person is inclined to use them. Consequently, they emphasize that certain habits of mind are necessary components of critical thinking. This disposition may include curiosity, open-mindedness, self-awareness, empathy , and persistence.

Although there is a generally accepted set of qualities that are associated with critical thinking, scholarly writing about the term has highlighted disagreements over its exact definition and whether and how it differs from related concepts such as problem solving . In addition, some theorists have insisted that critical thinking be regarded and valued as a process and not as a goal-oriented skill set to be used to solve problems. Critical-thinking theory has also been accused of reflecting patriarchal assumptions about knowledge and ways of knowing that are inherently biased against women.

Dewey, who also used the term reflective thinking , connected critical thinking to a tradition of rational inquiry associated with modern science . From the turn of the 20th century, he and others working in the overlapping fields of psychology , philosophy , and educational theory sought to rigorously apply the scientific method to understand and define the process of thinking. They conceived critical thinking to be related to the scientific method but more open, flexible, and self-correcting; instead of a recipe or a series of steps, critical thinking would be a wider set of skills, patterns, and strategies that allow someone to reason through an intellectual topic, constantly reassessing assumptions and potential explanations in order to arrive at a sound judgment and understanding.

In the progressive education movement in the United States , critical thinking was seen as a crucial component of raising citizens in a democratic society. Instead of imparting a particular series of lessons or teaching only canonical subject matter, theorists thought that teachers should train students in how to think. As critical thinkers, such students would be equipped to be productive and engaged citizens who could cooperate and rationally overcome differences inherent in a pluralistic society.

Beginning in the 1970s and ’80s, critical thinking as a key outcome of school and university curriculum leapt to the forefront of U.S. education policy. In an atmosphere of renewed Cold War competition and amid reports of declining U.S. test scores, there were growing fears that the quality of education in the United States was falling and that students were unprepared. In response, a concerted effort was made to systematically define curriculum goals and implement standardized testing regimens , and critical-thinking skills were frequently included as a crucially important outcome of a successful education. A notable event in this movement was the release of the 1980 report of the Rockefeller Commission on the Humanities that called for the U.S. Department of Education to include critical thinking on its list of “basic skills.” Three years later the California State University system implemented a policy that required every undergraduate student to complete a course in critical thinking.

Critical thinking continued to be put forward as a central goal of education in the early 21st century. Its ubiquity in the language of education policy and in such guidelines as the Common Core State Standards in the United States generated some criticism that the concept itself was both overused and ill-defined. In addition, an argument was made by teachers, theorists, and others that educators were not being adequately trained to teach critical thinking.