As a parent or caregiver of a child, there is a large amount of responsibility on your shoulders. On the surface, most of this responsibility revolves around your child’s physical health. But having said this, your child’s personal development is something that should be at the top of mind.
Critical thinking skills are especially important in an increasingly competitive world. Whether your child is just entering a Cape Town high school or is currently enrolled in high school, you will want to ensure that she is sharpening her critical thinking skills every day. By prioritizing her critical thinking skills, you are investing in her long-term success.
At VTC House, a private high school based in Cape Town, we recognize the power of critical thinking skills. We have seen the sheer transformation that occurs. Because of this, we want to use this post to highlight the importance of critical thinking skills and how we prioritize them in our work. In doing so, we hope to inspire you to devote even more attention to this extremely important attribute.
Why Critical Thinking Skills are So Important
As a baseline, critical thinking skills within children are important for a wide range of reasons—all of which are related to personal development.
For starters, critical thinking skills help them overcome inevitable obstacles on their road to success. No matter how driven or intelligent your child is, he or she will face roadblocks in their lives. Some of them may be related to academics. Others may be related to that job or internship that they are trying to get. Whatever the case may be, strong critical thinking skills will help your child find solutions to these roadblocks. They’ll certainly need to develop other skills (like grit), but a foundational set of critical thinking skills can go a long way.
Critical thinking skills are also valuable because they help children question the world around them. They can come to independent conclusions based on evidence that they read and see. Instead of relying on others to explain how the world works, these children can think for themselves. This is an extremely powerful attribute—especially as these students leave the classroom and enter the real world.
Finally, critical thinking skills help our children engage in self-reflection. While it’s important to rely on critical thinking skills when facing some obstacle or dilemma, they are just as valuable when reflecting after the fact. They help our children dispassionately analyse successes and failures in their lives. With this knowledge, they can avoid making the same mistakes and double down on their successes.
How VTC House Helps Students Think Critically
Critical thinking skills are important to us at VTC House. As a private high school in Cape Town, we focus on helping our students develop critical thinking skills that they can leverage for the rest of their lives.
Compared to other Cape Town high schools, we place an inordinate focus on independent learning and self-responsibility. While we hire terrific instructors and educators to guide our students, we encourage our students to challenge themselves. Our students commit to their studies and raise their self-expectations.
Raised expectations, however, result in obstacles and roadblocks. Because setbacks are inevitable, we create an environment that is warm and caring. We encourage our students to think for themselves and develop novel approaches to their studies. And if they fail? We encourage them to keep trying.
This type of environment is perfect to develop critical thinking skills. Our students become independent thinkers. They question the world around them and are fully committed to becoming the best students that they can be. By building these habits, they are much more prepared to take on the world once they leave our halls.
Leveraging Critical Thinking Skills
As a private high school in Cape Town, we take our responsibilities extremely seriously. Families trust us with their child’s development, and we invest significant time and effort into helping them become critical thinkers.
We do this because critical thinking skills are absolutely essential. If your child can consistently rely on their critical thinking skills, they will have an unfair advantage in the marketplace. They’ll be able to overcome difficult challenges and look at the world in a more thoughtful and independent way.
In the end, to give your child the best head start in life, it’s clear that students should focus on critical thinking skills. While the work is difficult, it is an investment that will certainly pay off.
For more information about VTC House see www.vtchouse.co.za
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