Why Johnny Can’t Think

Rob Jenkins Aug 08, 2021

If it seems that young people these days believe absurd things, that they utterly lack both the ability and the inclination to reason logically—well, it’s not your imagination. Today’s college graduates can’t think, or at least don’t think, because they’re not being taught to.

This sad reality, though long suspected, became clear in 2011, with the publication of Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, by scholars Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa. After a four-year study of more than 2300 undergraduates at selective universities across the country, they concluded that a sizeable percentage of them improved little if at all as critical thinkers.

Since then, numerous studies and surveys by organizations like Noel-Levitz, the Association of American Colleges and Universities,The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Payscale have confirmed Arum’s and Roksa’s thesis. Employers consistently report that new hires fare poorly in writing and critical thinking—essentially, two sides of the same coin.

Meanwhile, colleges and universities not only claim to be teaching critical thinking; they shout it from the rooftops—even as the end users of their “products,” employers, complain that skill is in short supply. Why the disconnect?

The answer, I believe (and as I argue in my bookThink Better, Write Better) is that what institutions of higher learning are teaching these days under the banner of “critical thinking” really isn’t—or at least it isn’t what employers mean when they use the term. Organizations want people who can be objective and analytical, using logic and reason to solve problems. That’s what the term “critical thinking” means to them, and what it has meant to most of us for decades. It’s certainly what I was taught in college..........To Read More....