critical thinking unesco

International Bureau of Education

Critical Thinking and Generative Artificial Intelligence

Critical thinking is a staple of a good education: it comes from the Greek word “criticos”, meaning to judge. At the highest level, knowing how to judge is important as it presupposes higher order thinking strains of analysis and evaluation. These are essential in everyday situations (analysing what people say, what they mean and how we might respond) but also when taking major decisions: deciding who you are going to spend the rest of your life with for example, or which career you are going to engage in. So learning to be a critical thinker is important. 

However, there is a tendency to view critical thinking in a narrow sense, the way that Socrates practised it - in any case, some accounts of Socrates (exactly what Socrates said and meant will remain, forever, a mystery as his words are always in the mouths of others, mainly Plato’s). Socrates was known as the “gadfly” or”torpedo fish” , meaning that he was irritating and even dangerous, constantly badgering and attacking his interlocutors. He would famously arrive right at the end of a long speech and ask for it to be repeated in just a few words so he could catch up with the meaning. Because the speeches he had missed were often pompous, convoluted and fairly empty, invariably the Sophist speech makers could not do this successfully, and even when they could, Socrates would grill them with a barrage of questions on what exactly they meant until they eventually could no longer answer and stalled in a humiliated silence. The Socratic method was a way of tripping up his opponents (the Sophists, well established rhetoricians) by asking disingenuous questions that would eventually tie them into the knots of their own contradictions and ignorance. 

The Socratic approach to critical thinking is a type of “gotcha!” game where the search for truth and higher meaning is superseded by the desire to catch someone out, to show them that they don't really know what they are talking about. The controversial and enigmatic 19th Century philosopher Nietzsche detested Socrates for this, seeing him as no more than an embodiment of the reactive principle: not someone who creates and puts forward but someone who looks upon the work of others and destroys it.

The Socratic approach is powerful and necessary in all sorts of ways. Without discernment, the ability to see contradictions and falsehoods, without a stubborn refusal to believe things at face value and, on the contrary, to always want more proof and logic, the pursuit of knowledge and the intellectual fabric of society would not be particualrly rigorous: we would simply take everything lying down and never push back or question and, as a consequence,fall prey to manipulation. This can be particularly important in dogmatic or superstitious regimes where people are asked to believe in things for the sake of believing them and any form of questioning is not encouraged.   

However, the Socratic approach to critical thinking, this hard-nosed scientific scepticism, is also very limiting. It is what characterises debates (from the Latin “desbattere” - to fight) where a type of childish oneupmanship predominates and there is little in the way of any sort of reconciliation to find common ground. This narrow definition of critical thinking describes a person who is well trained in spotting errors and pointing out weak points in the work of others, in poking holes in documents and recognising contradictions and problems with logic, but only in a negative, reactive manner.

The philosophers Richard Paul and Linda Elder expanded the definition of critical thinking into a series of dimensions or areas. One of these they called intellectual traits of critical thinking: 

Intellectual Humility

Intellectual Courage

Intellectual Empathy

Intellectual Autonomy

Intellectual Integrity

Intellectual Perseverance

Confidence in Reason

Fair-mindedness

( Paul & Elder , 2001) 

More rounded and humane dimensions of thought come to the fore here: one senses much more than the necessity to simply be right and sharp. With Paul and Elder, the goal is about being honest, fair and open to others. These traits lead to more of an exchange than a conflict and more of a construction than destruction of knowledge. This is one of the central tenets of the work of  Matthew Lipman , the inventor of Philosophy for Children, who saw philosophy as an act of caring thinking in which there would be discussions rather than debates.

It is surely this expanded definition of criticality that is necessary today given the need to build a more peaceful and a more sustainable future for our planet. The emphasis on teamwork, dialogue and creating environments of psychological safety are necessary for diplomacy.

So this is the first point of this article: criticality should be viewed not in a narrow, negative sense but in a broad, positive sense.

Artificial Intelligence

Much has been written about Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) recently, often in a tone that is full of foreboding if not panic. The idea that human intelligence is challenged by algorithmic machine learning to start with is not something that flatters us, and it should not surprise us that such an idea is met with hostility. 

Some, like  Yuval Harari , have gone so far as to claim that the rise of GenAI is the end of civilization. This may be true, although it seems unlikely. The main contention is that humans will become more and more cognitively idle with systems and processes that can be automated and, at a more existential and dramatic level, that human agency will be submerged by programmed thinking and that eventually this will turn against us and destroy us, like something out of a bad science fiction film.

There are other concerns: the propagation of statistically significant information does not mean it is without bias, on the contrary, it spreads stereotypes. Misinformation can be produced through an algorithm without human scrutiny to screen it, and so-called hallucinations are not uncommon. Artificial intelligence is a powerful tool that can be used to mislead and distort: some predict that deep fakes and misinformation might disrupt - and indeed already have disrupted - democratic processes very significantly. For  some ,this could go so far as to lead to civil unrest and war.

There is the not unsubstantiated worry that artificial intelligence will take over many sectors of the economy, putting people out of work and allowing a rampant neoliberal ideology to spin out of control, maximising profit through the ultra-mechanisation of labour.

However, these are narrow and negative descriptions of artificial intelligence. It is worthwhile explaining our understanding of what artificial intelligence is to appreciate the more day-to-day advances that it produces, making life not only easier to live, but far more productive. Spell Checkers, GPS, the scanning of pathologies, microsurgery, word processing and aeroplane autopiloting, to mention just a few examples of accelerated and augmented systems and processes, are all advances that have been due to artificial intelligence writ large. 

Even the most prosaic safety reminders, like an alarm that goes off when the fridge door has been left open too long or your safety belt is not on might not be particularly sophisticated examples of machine learning, but they remind us of how everyday life is improved by technology. It would be hypocritical to make claims against technological advances while living under its canopy.

Technology, particularly artificial intelligence,is often opposed to learning and good research, the idea being that one no longer does the research but lets an algorithm do it for them. In reality, what powerful new technologies have done, certainly in the field of academics, is allow much more widespread,systematic and effective research to take place. Knowing how to use a search engine (a form of artificial intelligence) does not impoverish research, it improves it. 

Programming is merely an extension of thought itself. I don't throw every frog I find in a stream to see if it can swim because I have programmed a useful message in my head, that frogs swim. It's called deduction. Now my deductive assumptions might be wrong from time to time, and overgeneralisations can be dangerous, but all errors can be dangerous, and errors are everywhere, not only through and because of technology.

So, just as critical thinking should be seen as more than Socrates haggling on a street corner, artificial intelligence should be seen as much more than a threat, it should be viewed through a broader scope than the myopic, fearful and slightly hysterical reaction to GenAI that characterises much of what is said and written about it.

Technology and critical thinking have always developed hand in hand: one propels the other. Early advances in the development of writing instruments and materials, pigments and carving tools allowed for the transmission of knowledge to transcend small group oral transmission, harnessing fire and the invention of the wheel meant that humans had to expand the horizons of their thought into systems thinking, more complex migration patterns and abilities. The invention of the printing press expanded access to information and the general socialisation of what had remained, until then, a highly protected and hieratic world of knowledge. 

We often say that technology prevents direct human contact, but how much thought is given to the fact that people can meet more easily, including large coordinated groups, than ever before, not in spite of technology but because of it? Imagine trying to organise community-building events with smoke signals and notes blown from conches on mountain tops.

For Heidegger, technology should be considered the way that Ancient Greeks saw it, most especially in the brilliant inventions of thinkers like Hero and Archimedes, as unity with nature, a gathering and concentration of the force of nature rather than something contranatural, imposing and violent. Not all technology follows this pattern: some forms, like a dam (constricting and redirecting water), are more imposing than others, like a windmill (working with the wind).

Technology will only be as effective and productive as we want it to be. Screen addiction is not the fault of screens, it's the fault of the people letting themselves be addicted. Ransomware is not the fault of the ability to do so, the responsibility lies in the hands of those who make the moral decision to hold an organisation hostage by doing this. Deep fakes are not a technological problem, they are a human problem. Technology should be used for good, not for ill, it should move with noble principles the way that ancient technological inventions moved with the elements, in harmony.

Therefore, if critical thinking is about much more than error detection but an attitude towards not only knowledge but other people, an attitude of humility and a sense of ethical responsibility, and if artificial intelligence is much more than the most acute and potentially destabilising effects of extreme cases of particularly powerful types of machine learning, but more a way to enhance the human experience, then we should be serene with the idea of using it, of folding it into the educational experience seamlessly and continually.

If “cheating” (a word that, in educational settings, suggests the wrong type of assessment to start with) is easier because of GenAI, then we need to design assessments where this is no longer possible but also reinforce the deontological code that tells us that cheating is the wrong thing to do; if artificial intelligence can give greater access to learning in the form of adaptive online tests or automated courses that can be taken asynchronously, then why not use them? If students with severe learning needs can be better assisted through specific software programmes, then let them be used; when teaching something factual, let students access the web to get the information, is it really that important that it comes through the teachers on a whiteboard?

Above all, since cyberattacks, cyberbullying and fraudulent activity have been made much easier because of the power of technology, let us not forget that the ultimate purpose of an education has not changed and never will change: knowledge,skills, but also attitude - how to be a good person. The problems posed by technology are not technological problems, they are moral problems, and the type of critical thinking that is needed to take on these moral problems is not simply one of scrutiny but one of integrity.  

To sum this last point up by means of a story: one of the most significant technological advances for human beings has been in the field of medicine, and it is from the annals of this world that the final words of this essay will be articulated. In the 1500s, a student in the world’s first medical university, Montpellier, the philosopher François Rabelais, felt saturated by the plethora of equipment, terminology, concepts and knowledge-heavy constructs that weighed down on his studies. For Rabelais, this was the epitome of a burdensome Renaissance education, something he satirised in his masterpiece  Gargantua and Panatagruel . Reflecting on this state of affairs he wrote, famously, that science without conscience would be the ruin of the soul (“science sans conscience n’est que ruine de l’âme”). This is the lasting idea that should transcend both critical thinking and technology. 

Conrad Hughes (PhD, EdD) is the Director General of the International School of Geneva (Ecolint). He is also a Senior Fellow at UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education, a member of the advisory board for the University of the People and research assistant at the University of Geneva’s department of psychology and education. Conrad’s most recent books are Education and Elitism: Challenges and Opportunities (2021, Routledge), Understanding Prejudice and Education: The Challenge for Future Generations (2017, Routledge) and Educating for the 21st Century: Seven Global Challenges (2018, Brill). 

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Education for Sustainable Development and Critical Thinking Competency

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Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals ((ENUNSDG))

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Cognitive ability ; Curiosity ; Education to achieve sustainable development ; Inquisitiveness ; Sustainability education

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Education for sustainable development (referred to as “ESD” hereafter) is education that “empowers learners to take informed decisions and responsible actions for environmental integrity, economic viability and a just society, for present and future generations, while respecting cultural diversity.” In simple words, we can also define “ESD” as education to achieve sustainable development.

Critical thinking is the individual’s ability to apply higher-order, rational thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, problem recognition and problem-solving, inference, and evaluation. In this age of information technology, the amount of information available is massive. This kind of information explosion will continue in the future, and, in this situation, children need to weed through the information and not just receive it passively. Hence, critical...

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Taimur, S., Sattar, H. (2019). Education for Sustainable Development and Critical Thinking Competency. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A., Brandli, L., Özuyar, P., Wall, T. (eds) Quality Education. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69902-8_64-1

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Critical thinking and effective personality in the framework of education for sustainable development.

1. Introduction

Effective personality and critical thinking, 2. materials and methods, 2.1. measurement instruments, 2.2. sample, 2.3. procedure, 3.1. the relationship between effective personality and critical thinking, 3.2. linear regression analysis of critical thinking and effective personality, 3.3. the model when the sex variable intervenes, 3.4. the model when the educational stage intervenes, 4. discussion and conclusions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.

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Merma-Molina, G.; Gavilán-Martín, D.; Baena-Morales, S.; Urrea-Solano, M. Critical Thinking and Effective Personality in the Framework of Education for Sustainable Development. Educ. Sci. 2022 , 12 , 28. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12010028

Merma-Molina G, Gavilán-Martín D, Baena-Morales S, Urrea-Solano M. Critical Thinking and Effective Personality in the Framework of Education for Sustainable Development. Education Sciences . 2022; 12(1):28. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12010028

Merma-Molina, Gladys, Diego Gavilán-Martín, Salvador Baena-Morales, and Mayra Urrea-Solano. 2022. "Critical Thinking and Effective Personality in the Framework of Education for Sustainable Development" Education Sciences 12, no. 1: 28. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12010028

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Critical Inquiry and Inquiry-Oriented Education

Opinion: K.P. Mohanan, Professor, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune

Human violence has multiple roots. Someone who stabs another in a fit of road-rage is acting under blind emotions. Someone who cannot kill humans but is prepared to kill animals has not expanded the scope of their ethical considerations beyond humans. And someone who wages war against another country is guided by ideological or economic factors, unaffected by ethics. To deal with violence, then, education must incorporate strands that aim at the emotional, ethical and intellectual foundations for peace.

Educating emotion requires helping the young liberate themselves from negative emotions such as anger, hostility, hatred, cruelty, intolerance, selfishness and competitiveness, while strengthening positive emotions such as empathy, compassion, love, and the spirit of altruism.

Educating the intellect for peace involves helping learners protect themselves from ideologies of violence. It should also empower them to change systems and practices that either promote violence or fail to prevent violence.

Ethical foundations draw on both emotion and intellect. Enriching the natural ethical instincts is a matter of emotions. Expanding the scope of ethical considerations is a matter of both emotions and reasoning. And connecting ethical values and principles to one’s actions and practices is a matter of reasoning.

In sum, we need a form of education that combines the emotional and the intellectual.  In this article, my concern is with the intellectual part.

Intellectual education needs to include not only the information and knowledge to work towards a non-violent world but also the abilities of critical thinking and inquiry to investigate the causes of violence, and to find ways to dissolve those causes. This means that Inquiry-Oriented Education (IOE), which seeks to develop the capacity for rational inquiry, has to be recognised as an important strand of education. What follows are my reflections on the role of rational inquiry in education and of critical inquiry as a specific form of rational inquiry.

What is Rational Inquiry?

Inquiry is the  investigation of a question on the basis of our own experience and reasoning, to look for an answer and arrive at a conclusion.

It involves:

• Questions  whose answers we wish to find out
• Methodological strategies  to look for answers
• Answers to the questions,  and  conclusions  based on them
• Rational justification  (proof, evidence, arguments) for the conclusions
• Thinking critically about  our own or others’ conclusions and justification

Rational inquiry  is inquiry that is committed to the following axioms:

• Rejecting Logical Contradictions : We must reject statements that are logically contradictory
• Accepting Logical Consequences : If we accept a set of statements, then we must also accept their logical consequences

By ‘logical contradiction’, we mean a combination of a statement and its negation. Thus, the statement that the earth is flat and the earth is not flat constitutes a logical contradiction. A logical consequence of a set of statements is a conclusion derived from them through logic. Thus, the conclusion that all humans are vertebrates is a logical consequence of these statements: (i) all humans are primates; (ii) all primates are mammals; and (iii) all mammals are vertebrates.

For readers who wish to go beyond this brief sketch, a wide range of examples of rational inquiry for school and college education are available at  www.schoolofthinq.com

Inquiry-Oriented Education, which seeks to develop the capacity for rational inquiry, has to be recognised as an important strand of education.

What is Critical Inquiry?

There are many situations where we do not realise our ignorance. We also take many beliefs and practices for granted, without questioning. When we subject such domains to critical thinking, we are pursuing  a special kind of rational inquiry, called  critical inquiry, which begins with doubting and questioning what has been taken for granted (analogous to ‘interrogating/cross-examining’ an ‘expert witness’ including ourselves) and demonstrating that we don’t know what we think we know.

Questions for critical inquiry are triggered by critical thinking.  Critical thinking is a set of mental processes for evaluating the merit of something . ‘Merit’ here could be the truth of a statement (e.g., the statement, ‘That the earth is round’ is true.), the  usefulness  of a product, action, practice, or policy to achieve a given goal (e.g., death penalty to effectively deter crime), the  ethical desirability  of an action, practice, or policy (e.g., the ethical rightness of the death penalty), the  beauty  of a work of art (e.g., Is da Vinci’s Mona Lisa a great painting?), or the  value  of something that we (ought to) strive for (e.g., we ought to liberate ourselves from anger and hatred).

Mathematical and scientific inquiries offer fruitful emotion-free terrains for the practice of critical inquiry.

Examples of Critical Inquiry

Critical inquiry into issues of terrorism, communal violence, forced migrations, xenophobia, nationalist and religious ideologies that promote violence, and the relation between economic policies and violence, are of direct relevance to education for peace. Such issues, however, are emotionally charged. They might be seductive for beginners, but precisely because of their emotional appeal, there is a danger that when investigating them, feelings replace thinking and assertions of personal opinions replace rational conclusions.

My experience suggests that for beginners to engage with such topics with adequate detachment, clarity and rigour, they need to strengthen their mental equipment in two ways: by striving for emotional maturity, in order to detach feelings from reflection and reasoning; and by strengthening and sharpening their intellectual capacity, using topics that would not create emotional storms.

Mathematical and scientific inquiries offer fruitful emotion-free terrains for the practice of critical inquiry. Let me sketch an example.

Suppose we begin a class activity for eighth graders with an innocent-sounding question:  How many angles does a triangle have?  The textbook answer is: Three. We can now initiate critical inquiry:  What is an angle such that triangles have three angles and rectangles have four?

Most novices would think of this as a trivial question. But then, the function of critical inquiry is to challenge complacency.

What is an angle?  A student’s answer might be: “If two straight lines meet in such a way that they do not form a single straight line, what lies between them is an angle.” If so, the combination of two straight lines in Fig. 1 forms an angle, but not in Fig. 2.

What is a right angle? What is an acute angle? What is an obtuse angle? What is a straight angle?  The standard textbook answers are: “A right angle measures 90º; an acute angle is less than a right angle; an obtuse angle is more than a right angle (but less than two right angles); and a straight angle is two right angles.”

We now proceed to rigorous reasoning. Given these ‘definitions’, it follows that angle ABC in Fig. 1 is an obtuse angle; while angle DEF in Fig. 2 is a staight angle. Since any straight line can be viewed as being made up of two straight lines at a straight angle, there is a straight angle at every point in a straight line.

How many angles does a straight line have?  Since every finite straight line has infinitely many points, it has infinitely many straight angles. Therefore, it has infinitely many angles. Since a triangle is made of three straight lines, it has infinitely many angles. This conclusion negates the textbook answer to the question we started with.

We now have to either accept the conclusion that triangles and rectangles have infinitely many angles, or re-define the concept of angle such that we abandon the concept of straight angle from the textbook.

If schools around the world could engage in discussions pursuing rational inquiry into principles and concepts of ethics, there would perhaps be far less violence in the world.

This begins an inquiry into questions whose answers we realise we don’t know:  What is an angle?

This example illustrates the strategy of ‘problematisation’ in critical inquiry: we begin with questions on what we think we know and take for granted; we engage critically with the answer; and realise that we don’t know what we thought we knew, triggering further inquiry.

As I said, math and science offer rich terrains for emotion-free practice of critical inquiry. Once learners acquire the necessary sharpness and strength of mind, they can be guided into critical inquiry in emotion-riddled terrains. We now explore two such examples.

2. Freedom Fighters and Terrorists

We give students the following hypothetical story.

Suppose a country, Arraya, rules over an island, Parumbi. The people of Parumbi don’t want Arraya to govern them, but the people of Arraya want Parumbi under them. Parumbians take up arms to achieve their goal. Their supporters describe them as ‘freedom fighters’, and their activity as an ‘independence struggle’. But the government of Arraya and its supporters describe them as ‘terrorists’, and their activity as ‘terrorism’.

We then give them the following real world story:

An article, “Terrorism, Not Freedom Struggle” (The Times of India, 10 August 2001) stated that “rejecting Islamabad’s description of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir as freedom struggle,” India’s external affairs minister said that under no circumstance should India accept “Islamabad’s attempt to confer cross-border terrorism a kind of diplomatic legitimacy  1  …” Pakistan’s newspaper Business Recorder quoted Harry Truman as having warned that “once a government is committed to silencing the voice of dissent, it has only one way to go. To employ increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” It went on to say: “Nothing illustrates the Indian policy, vis-à-vis occupied Kashmir, better than the above quoted remark of the American leader 2 .”

The students’ task is to spell out how we would distinguish between ‘freedom fighters’ and ‘terrorists’ and to define ‘terrorism’ and ‘independence struggle’ such that we can engage in a rational debate on whether a particular movement qualified as an independence struggle or as terrorism.

3. Nation and Nationalism

Activity 1 Write down the answers to the following questions: What is your nationality? Do you feel good when you hear your national anthem or see your national flag? Are there nations that you dislike or are hostile to? Write the names of those nations.

Activity 2 Now consider the following question: What is a nation?

Discussion : Two meanings of the term ‘nation’ emerged:

• People-nation : nation as a people united by a shared ancestry, language, and culture. (e.g. ‘Naga-nation,’ ‘Navaho- nation,’ ‘Palestine as a stateless nation’). People-nation prompts loyalty and, devotion to the people with shared ancestry, language, and culture.
• State-nation : nation as a government that rules a population in a given geographical region. (e.g. India, Pakistan, Vietnam, South Korea, United States of America, Australia, Nigeria, Argentina, and Germany). State-nations are results of war, conquest and power negotiations; they don’t require shared ethnicity, language, or culture.

A promising avenue for emotion-education is perhaps something along the lines of mindfulness meditation: ‘looking’ internally at the contents of one’s own experience . . .

Activity 3 Consider the concept of nationalism : We may define it as: a form of collective identity that prompts loyalty and devotion to  one’s nation .

Discussion : Given the two distinct concepts of nation, we needed to recognise the corresponding concepts of nationalism: people-nationalism and state-nationalism. People-nationalism might perceive the rulers as ‘foreign’, prompting the political separation of one’s people from those rulers. State-nationalism would perceive those involved in that separation as ‘traitors’. State-nationalism then is loyalty and devotion to one’s rulers and is identical to ‘patriotism’.

Activity 4 Let us go back to the questions we asked earlier: What is your nationality? Do you feel good when you hear your national anthem or national flag?

Discussion : Is your concept of nationality grounded in people-nation or state-nation? Do you feel good when you hear the national anthem or see the national flag? Do you feel patriotism rise in your heart? Does that feeling come from loyalty to the people, or to the state?

What would your nationality be now?

Which national anthem and national flag would produce feelings of patriotism in your grandchildren? Which nations are your grandchildren likely to hate?

Now answer the same questions by assuming that there were no wars anywhere in the world after the tenth century, and that the political map continued without change till today.

After thinking through these questions, go back to the concepts of state-nation and peoples-nation and write a one-page reflection on the concepts of nation, nationality, nationalism, and patriotism, and the role of violence in the origin and evolution of nations.

An Example of Ethical Inquiry

As a form of rational inquiry, ethical inquiry seeks to help develop the capacity to construct and evaluate ethical theories at individual and collective levels and to deduce the ethical judgements derived from those theories.

In a class session that I did for 6th Graders in Pune, India, the children came up with this ethical principle:  It is immoral to kill humans and other creatures . During the subsequent discussion, one child said that the principle doesn’t apply to enemies. The entire class agreed that it is okay to kill enemies. The principle was revised as:  It is immoral to kill fellow creatures other than enemies .

Some students even suggested that killing enemies is our ethical duty. This resulted in the following dialogue:

At this point, they were no longer sure about their position on enemies. I gave them a few minutes to discuss the problem in groups and come up with a concept of ‘enemy’ such that killing enemies is okay. After some discussion, most groups came up with the following statements:

Those who want to kill others are our enemies.

Those enemies exist in both India and Pakistan.

I would have liked to raise the question: Is it morally right to kill someone who has killed another? This could have taken us to fairly complex issues like mercy-killing, honour-killing, war, abortion and death penalty. I did not pursue that line of inquiry, for I wasn’t sure if it was age-appropriate for the children.

If schools around the world could engage in discussions of this kind, pursuing rational inquiry into principles and concepts of ethics, there would perhaps be far less violence in the world.

  Contemplative Inquiry

As mentioned earlier, the education of emotions has an important role to play in minimising human violence. A promising avenue for emotion-education is perhaps something along the lines of mindfulness meditation: ‘looking’ internally at the contents of one’s own experience, including sensory and non-sensory experience, as well as the experience of emotions. Meditative techniques such as attending to breathing, body scan, loving-kindness and observing thought are forms of looking at the inner world 3 .

The so-called  contemplative inquiry  in this tradition is a form of rational inquiry that takes the results of such introspection as the grounds of inquiry to arrive at rational conclusions about oneself. This allows us to address questions as, “Am I a covert racist?” “Am I as ethical as I think?”, “Do I carry hatred in me?”, as part of inquiry into a fundamental question: “Who am I?”

Instead of merely experiencing emotions such as anger or hostility, we can employ contemplative inquiry with the rational-perceptual part of the mind examining with equanimity the emotional suffering part. The outcome of attention then forms the basis for rational investigation of oneself.

Inquiry-Oriented Education

Helping the young to develop the capacity to engage in these diverse modes of rational inquiry, combined with practices that enhance positive emotions and dissolve negative ones, is an imperative that institutionalised education can no longer afford to ignore in today’s world. Mathematical, scientific, conceptual, ethical and contemplative inquiries play significant roles in this enterprise, which would involve incorporating the strand of Inquiry-Oriented Education into schooling at the primary, secondary, as well as tertiary levels. UNESCO MGIEP has currently undertaken such a move in a collaborative endeavour with ThinQ 4  in its LIBRE programme.

1   http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Terrorism-not-freedom-struggle-Jaswant/articleshow/1086523490.cms

2   http://www.brecorder.com/index.php?option=com_news&view=single&id=1108304

3  http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_choose_a_type_of_mindfulness_meditation

4   www.schoolofthinq.com

K.P. Mohanan  received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and taught at the University of Texas in Austin, MIT, Stanford University and the National University of Singapore (NUS). At NUS, he initiated the General Education Programme for undergraduate students and, as part of this programme, created a web course on Academic Knowledge and Inquiry.

In January 2011, he moved to IISER-Pune, where he created a three-course package on rational inquiry, covering scientific, mathematical, and conceptual inquiries. He is currently engaged in developing courses and programmes on different types of inquiry-based learning for high school and college students.

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The UNESCO Courier

Developing a critical mind against fake news

By Divina Frau-Meigs

Media and Information Literacy (MIL) is often called to the rescue these days, as the media is threatened on all sides, in totalitarian and democratic regimes alike. The alert was sounded in France on 7 January 2015, when the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo , was attacked. It was an attack on one of the oldest forms of media in the world – caricature.

At the time, I was Director of the Centre pour l’éducation aux médias et à l’information (the centre for media and information literacy (CLEMI). We had to prepare students for their return to the classroom the day after the attack, and meet the needs of teachers and parents. We proceeded as we did after all major catastrophes – we searched our archives for educational fact sheets on caricature and propaganda, and posted media resources online (reference websites, a press review, a series of headlines). We also released an unpublished interview of Charb, which CLEMI had done in 2013, titled, “Can we laugh at everything?”. The cartoonist and journalist, whose real name was Stéphane Charbonnier, was murdered in the attack.

This crisis situation showed the strengths of MIL, but also its limitations. We were well-prepared to respond in terms of resources, but we did not anticipate the impact of social media.

Like pre-digital media, MIL must take a leap forward and include in its concerns what data does to the media – it pushes information to the fore through the regulation of algorithms, linked to people’s search histories. It can enclose people in a “filter bubble” to reinforce the biases of confirmation that support preconceived ideas, and reduce the diversity and pluralism of ideas by monetizing content (clicks by views). It is invasive of privacy and threatens fundamental freedoms by using digital footprints for purposes beyond the user’s control.

The latest crisis stemming from fake news – a blend of rumour, propaganda and plot theory – has shaken up MIL. Fake news is even stronger than disinformation, which is a toxic, but generally discernible mixture of truth and lies. Fake news is a phenomenon that falls into the category of disinformation, but its malicious intent is unprecedented, because information technology makes it trans-border and trans-media, and therefore viral.

Media and Information Literacy must imperatively take into account the digital transformation, which has moved from the “blue continent” to the “dark continent”. In other words, it has gone from surfing, babbling and chatting on platforms controlled by the GAFAM (an acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft), to noxious data mining for the purpose of massive manipulation and destabilization.

It is in this respect that the decoding of online propaganda is complex, because it is a question of deciphering a form of disruptive ideology, which is technologically innovative, but paradoxically represents a conservative global revolution − designed to create chaos in existing political systems rather than proposing a system of progressive political thought.

The return of gossip

This is why MIL is obliged to rethink the media and the political and ethical foundations that legitimize it. The role of social media needs to be revisited, as do the exchanges that take place on it. The growth of digital media, which transforms old audiences into new communities of sharing and interpretation, also needs to be taken into account. The renewed tendency to gossip manifested by social media is not insignificant and should not be treated with contempt. A conversation in undertones that conveys a jumble of rumours, half-truths and hearsay, gossip makes what is private, public. It places authenticity above a truth that is perceived as fabricated by elites, far from daily and local concerns.

Social media, then, conveys news where truth is uncertain, and falsehoods have been used to arrive at the truth or by showing that the truth is not all that clear-cut. Hence the temptation to categorize social media as “post-truth”. But this stance reduces its scope and refuses to see in it the quest for a different truth, when the supposedly gold-standard systems of information go bankrupt. Social media centres once again on the eternal journalistic battle between objective facts and commentary based on opinion, that is played out in these models of influence.

In the information-communication sciences, gossip falls within the category of social bonding. It fulfills essential cognitive functions: monitoring the environment, providing help in decision-making by sharing news, aligning a given situation with the values of the group, etc. These functions have traditionally legitimized the importance of the media. But the media is now perceived as deficient and biased – this is symptomized by the reliance on online gossip, relayed by social media. The blame falls less on social media than on those who are responsible for public debate in real life.

In destabilized political situations all around the world, social media is restoring meaning to the regulatory role of social narrative. It highlights the violations of social norms, especially when political institutions boast of transparency, because secrets are no longer safe. Set against newspapers that toe party lines, social media is disrupting the norms of objectivity, which has become fossilized by requiring the presentation of one opinion for and one against. The public shows distrust of the “veracity” of this polarized discourse and is seduced by the strategy of authenticity. It establishes a close relationship of trust with the community of members that now constitutes the audience, and aims to involve them in debates, while basing itself on the principle of transparency. Thus social media pits the ethics of authenticity against the ethics of objectivity.

Explorer, analyst and creator

Social media and fake news consequently make up a textbook case for MIL, which calls upon its fundamental competence − critical thinking. But this critical thinking must have an understanding of the added value of the digital: participation, contribution, transparency and accountability, of course, but also disinformation and the interplay of influence. The critical mind can be exercised and trained, and can also act as a form of resistance to propaganda and plot theory. Young people must be put in a position of responsibility while being protected by the adults around them: they can be prompted to call into question their use of social media and to take into account the criticism against the consequences of their practices. We must also trust their sense of ethics, once it is called upon. In my Massive Open Online Course on Media Education – the MOOC DIY MIL, which received the 2016 UNESCO Global MIL Award – I offer students three critical roles: explorer, analyst and creator. The explorer gets to know the media and data; the analyst applies the concepts, such as source verification, fact-checking, respect for privacy; the creator tries his/her hand at producing his/her own content, sees the consequences of his/her choices and makes decisions about distribution.

The MOOC has given birth to projects such as “ Citoyen journaliste sur Twitter ” (citizen journalist on Twitter) and “ HoaxBuster ”, against plot theories. In all cases, the point is to ensure that young people acquire the critical thinking reflexes of MIL, so that they can avoid the traps of hate speech, non-voluntary internet traces and fake news. Other initiatives exist, including some led by UNESCO, which has founded the Global Alliance of Partners on MIL (GAPMIL) −  MIL CLICKS is a recent project to take ownership of MIL via social media.

Scaling up MIL

It is also important that MIL exercises critical thinking against the media itself. It turns out that the top press organizations are among the biggest influencers and the ones who tend to push rumours, on Twitter for example, before they are confirmed. The fake news that circulates on Facebook, the first of the social media to spread it, draws its grain of truth from the fact that news professionals are overly responsive to the pressure of the scoop, transmitted before it is checked, in the same manner as the amateurs. And the denials do not generate as much buzz as the rumours!

It is clear that challenges still exist to significantly scaling up MIL. Decision makers need convincing that trainers must be trained, teachers and journalists alike. My research at the Université Nouvelle Sorbonne, within the framework of the TRANSLIT  project of the Agence Nationale de la Recherche and the UNESCO Chair in “Savoir-devenir in sustainable digital development”, consists of comparing public policies in Europe. It shows that many resources and training opportunities exist on the ground, provided by organizations or teachers on their own initiative, rather than sponsored by universities. It points, however, to a lag at the public policy level, despite the inclusion of MIL in many national educational programmes. There are few interministerial mechanisms, little or no co-regulation, and little or no multi-stakeholder coordination. The governance of MIL emerges as composite, with three models existing in different countries: development, delegation, or… disengagement (D. Frau-Meigs et al, 2017).  

An ethical leap

The good news is that journalists are becoming increasingly aware, revising their ethics and realizing the value of MIL. Their ethical leap can help teachers to reposition MIL and provide valid resources to bolster resistance in favour of the integrity of data and media. Actions that are re-establishing the value of in-depth investigation are already taking shape − using data journalism, which reveals information that cannot be obtained otherwise.

Scandals such as the colossal leak of confidential documents known as the  Panama Papers  have helped moralize political life and restore confidence in the press. Other actions are aimed specifically at fighting fake news using digital means. These include AFP Correspondent , the Agence France Presse blog (which reveals what happens backstage at a large news network); Décodex, featured in the French newspaper, Le Monde (which lists sites according to their unreliability), Google's RevEye (which checks whether an image is genuine in three clicks), and Conspi Hunter on Spicee, the online TV reports and documentaries platform (to debunk plot theories).

In order to be deployed fully and to create an educated citizenship, MIL’s critical thinking must also be applied to the geo-economy of social media. The GAFAM digital platforms, all under California law, have long refused to be classified as media companies, to avoid all social responsibility and to evade any related public-service obligations. But algorithmic monitoring has revealed the ability of GAFAM to exercise editorial control over content that is worth monetizing. In doing so, these organizations define the truth, because it is real or ethical.

The GAFAM mega-media have so far played the card of self-regulation: they make their own rules, they decide to remove sites or accounts suspected of conveying fake news, with no accountability for themselves. But they cannot resist the need for a responsible model for long – it will probably be a hybrid between a “common carrier” and “public trustee”, if they want to preserve the trust of their online communities. The communities could also organize themselves, and even circumvent them, to co-regulate the news with journalists, as is the case with Décodex. The option of co-designing an algorithm that would have journalistic ethics and fundamental freedoms built into its DNA is undoubtedly one of the alternatives to come, according to digital logic!

Divina Frau-Meigs

Divina Frau-Meigs (France) is a professor of information and communication sciences at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, and holder of the UNESCO Chair “Savoir-devenir in sustainable digital development”. The author of several books, she has just published  Public Policies in Media and Information Literacy in Europe: Cross-Country Comparisons , which she has edited along with I. Velez and J. Flores Michel (London, Routledge, 2017).

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Professors say they teach critical thinking. But is that what students are learning?

Suzanne Cooper. " Do we teach critical thinking? A mixed methods study of faculty and student perceptions of teaching and learning critical thinking at three professional schools . February 21, 2024

Faculty Authors

Suzanne Cooper

What’s the issue.

The ability to think critically is an essential skill for professionals, including doctors, government officials, and educators. But are instructors at professional schools teaching it, or do they just think they are? Approaches to teaching and assessing critical thinking skills vary substantially across academic disciplines and are not standardized. And little data exists on how much students are learning—or even whether they know their instructors are trying to teach them critical thinking. 

What does the research say? 

The researchers, including Suzanne Cooper, the Edith M. Stokey Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at HKS, compared instructors’ approaches to teaching critical thinking with students’ perceptions of what they were being taught. They surveyed instructors and conducted focus groups with students at three professional schools (Harvard Medical School, Harvard Kennedy School, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education). 

The researchers found that more than half (54%) of faculty surveyed said they explicitly taught critical thinking in their courses (27% said they did not and 19% were unsure). When the researchers talked to students, however, the consensus was that critical thinking was primarily being taught implicitly. One student said discussions, debates, and case study analyses were viewed as opportunities “for critical thinking to emerge” but that methods and techniques were not a specific focus. The students were also generally unable to recall or define key terms, such as “metacognition” (an understanding of one’s own thought process) and “cognitive biases” (systematic deviations from norms or rationality in which individuals create their own subjective reality). 

Based on their findings, the researchers recommend that faculty should be required to teach critical thinking explicitly and be given specific approaches and definitions that are appropriate to their academic discipline. They also recommend that professional schools consider teaching core critical thinking skills, as well as skills specific to their area of study.   

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How Socrates' Method Of Critical Thinking Led To His Execution

Socrates is considered one of the greatest philosophers of all time, on par with other great minds such as Plato, Aristotle , and Epicurus. He made significant contributions to philosophy by seeking to think more critically. Socrates challenged people to question their assumptions and beliefs about themselves and the world around them. This gained him many admirers, but it also made him a social outcast, ultimately leading to his death.

Who Was Socrates?

Socrates was a philosopher in born in 470 BCE in Ancient Greece . Socrates didn't record any of his philosophy. Instead, his teachings live on through his students and admirers. Plato and Xenophon have works that reference Socrates and outline his philosophy. They both portray Socrates as a wise man dedicated to self-mastery and argumentative skill.

Socrates is famous for saying, "The only thing that I know, is that I know nothing." He wasn't humbly bragging when he said this. This quote reflects his view that we can never really know anything for certain. While we can hold certain beliefs and opinions, we never really know if they are correct. This is an idea that has now been debated for centuries. Thinking about it forces us to challenge our own beliefs, which is what Socrates did best. This belief in critical thinking is the backbone of his famous philosophy, the Socratic method.

The Socratic Method

The Socratic method is a term used vaguely in education today. However, it is a real method developed by Socrates. At its core, the Socratic method asks someone a series of questions to lead them to a deeper understanding of a subject. This was important to Socrates because he believed that by questioning our assumptions, we could better understand ourselves and the world around us. Another important part of the method is intellectual humility. This means being open to the perspectives and ideas of others. Socrates would use the Socratic method to guide his interlocutors toward questioning their beliefs and ideas rather than outright feeding them his opinion.

A Hated Man

Despite Socrates ' contributions to philosophy and his community, the public hated him. Many people misunderstood who Socrates was. This is in part because of beauty and status-obsessed Athens . Unlike his students and admirers, Socrates did not come from wealth and he had no interest in politics. Socrates further stood out because he was considered ugly. In ancient Greece, beauty was an important part of life and success. Socrates was also controversial and pushed back against the mainstream views at the time, such as Greek Democracy. However, this was one of the milder controversies Socrates committed. Socrates was so controversial that he was ridiculed publicly in plays. One of the plays mocking Socrates that still exists today is Aristophanes’ play Clouds.

Beyond opposing social standards, Socrates also openly defied power. In one instance he refused to help in the arrest and execution of a man named Leon of Salamis. This ruffled more than a few feathers and some people saw Socrates as a threat to Greek society. At this time, Athens was changing and many people were exhausted by Socrates questioning. Socrates often got into trouble by asking questions about the beliefs of his fellow citizens. Some historians believe Socrates became more hated because people didn't want to reflect on themselves.

Socrates' Death

Socrates was brought to trial on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. Although Socrates' indictment claimed he was charged with impiety for failing to recognize the gods at the time, this was peculiar. Socrates was known to refer to a single god or deity that was unknown to people at the time, possibly as an addition to or replacement of the existing Greek gods. However, there were foreigners, non-citizens, and slaves who followed different religions in Athens. As far as corrupting the youth, Socrates' conversations with the youth caused them to express dissent and rebel against existing ideals. Socrates's encouragement of critical thinking ultimately led to his downfall.

Socrates had to face the consequences of his conviction in an Athens court. Socrates represented himself, but, unfortunately, the jury of 500 men in court found Socrates guilty. The justice system in Ancient Greece allowed the defendants to suggest their own punishments. Socrates cracked a joke that he should be rewarded, but the jurors did not find this funny. If anything, it aggravated them since most of them voted in favor of the death penalty. Socrates was given the choice of exile, but he chose to remain in the city and honor the law. A cup of poison, likely Hemlock, was given to Socrates to drink, causing his death at around the age of 70.

Ancient Athens may have executed Socrates, but they couldn't take away his philosophical ideas that infiltrated Greek society. Even though he has no written work himself, his philosophy lives on through the works of his admirers like Plato. From these works, we have learned about important ideas such as the Socratic method. The Socratic method teaches critical thinking and reflects Socrates' desire for deeper inquiry and understanding in life. It's admirable that he dedicated his life to teaching others how to question more and think critically despite the consequences.

The legacy Socrates left behind is to question the world around us and think critically. Socrates stuck to his philosophy and teaching, even though it eventually killed him. There is value for everyone in questioning more, even if the cost is sticking out from the crowd.

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When a Team Member Speaks Up — and It Doesn’t Go Well

• Megan Reitz
• Amy C. Edmondson

How the both of you can move beyond counterproductive emotions and use it as an opportunity to build psychological safety.

Speaking up — and being heard — in organizations is critical, but failed attempts to speak up happen often at work and can lead people to silence themselves and others in the long run. Instead, leaders and team members should frame such situations as opportunities to learn. But this isn’t easy; it can be difficult to recognize such moments as learning opportunities; it can be difficult to move beyond counterproductive emotions like shame and blame,;and we tend to be too busy and focused on the short term to learn. The authors’ research and experience have shown that the antidote starts with all team members, including the leader, explicitly framing such interactions as experiments from which everyone expects to learn; preparing for them; paying attention to them; implementing certain process tools; and thinking more long-term about learning.

Elena, a new member of a manufacturing operations team, has identified possible safety improvements. She’s thought about what she wants to say to the team but is nervous about speaking up. Why? She’s wary of her new boss, Raya; she doesn’t want to get off on the wrong foot with her colleagues; and she isn’t absolutely sure her ideas will work across the multiple plants that the team oversees.

• Megan Reitz is an associate fellow at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and adjunct professor of leadership and dialogue at Hult International Business School. She is the author of Dialogue in Organizations (2015) and the coauthor of Mind Time (2018), Speak Up (2019), and the second edition of Speak Out, Listen Up (2024). Follow her on LinkedIn or meganreitz.com .
• Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School. Her latest book is Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well (Atria Books, 2023).

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Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino credits Trump for saving own life

According to a former member of the Secret Service, former President Donald Trump did what the agency failed to do Saturday: Save his life.

Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and now a radio host, credited Trump for saving his own life by dodging the bullet.

“The bunting around the front of the stage is probably armor," Bongino said on Fox and Friends Sunday. "Donald Trump knew to duck. I mean, most people would. He saved his own life."

Bongino was a Secret Service agent from 1999 to 2011 and was extremely critical of how they reacted Saturday.

Trump rally: Donald Trump supporters hold rally in Toms River after assassination attempt

“If that’s the best technology we have, and we had a CS team up there, we’re trained out to 1,000 yards in the Secret Service with the counter sniper team, how did they miss someone, at most 1/5 of the way there?" Bongino asked. "It doesn’t make any sense.”

Bongino wasn't the only one asking questions Sunday, a day after Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, was injured in the right ear when a sniper opened fire Saturday evening with an AR-15-style rifle from a rooftop about 400 feet outside a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania. 

One spectator was killed and two others were "critically injured," the Secret Service said. 

The FBI identified the gunman as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, outside Pittsburgh. Crooks was killed by Secret Service agents moments after gunfire erupted at the former president's rally.

While Bongino was crediting Trump for his quick thinking, Trump gave the credit to a higher power.

“Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers yesterday, as it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening,” Trump wrote on Truth social. 

“In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win. I truly love our Country, and love you all, and look forward to speaking to our Great Nation this week from (the Republican National Convention in) Wisconsin.”

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Critical Thinking in Food Safety: What It Is and How To Use It

At the end of a food safety audit, when we—as auditors—show the quality team the list of nonconformances that were found, the immediate reaction we often get is “we didn't know that” or “we overlooked that.” In a way, that's understandable. After all, how can we know what we don't know? On the other hand, however, lack of awareness can put the quality and safety of your products at risk.

Fortunately, there is a way to bridge the gap between the known and the unknown: it’s called critical thinking, an approach to food safety that allows you to understand the risk of any potential nonconformances associated with your production process.

In this article, we'll explain what critical thinking is, how to apply it in your food facility and will also provide some practical examples of how to connect it back to the SQF Code requirements.

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is best explained by looking at its four mai aspects.

It’s a disciplined proactive process

It’s data driven

It’s open minded

It’s solution focused

The four steps of critical thinking

In this section we’ll look at each of the four steps of the critical thinking process and provide practical examples of how to apply it to an internal audit to get ready for the renewal of an SQF certification.

Observation

A frequent limit that we see in internal audits is that they only take note of surface issues and don’t dive deeply enough. Observation in critical thinking, however, focuses on details and actively considers how and why things are done in a certain way, trying to uncover unknown risks for your food safety management system. Active observation is something that everyone in your facility—including line workers—should practice at all times, not only during internal audits.

Practical example. Employee observed not following the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for metal detection.

This is where the data-driven element of critical thinking stands out the most. While with active observation you have identified a potential nonconformance, with the analysis step you start digging deeper by breaking down the issue into smaller elements. Your goal here is to assess what level of risk is associated to the nonconformance by separating facts from feelings and opinions.

Practical example. The two main questions you want to answer regarding your initial observation are whether metal detection is a CCP (Critical Control Point) and whether the lack of compliance with SOP for metal detection was a one-off event or part of a systemic breakdown.

The SQF Code offers simple but effective guidance for this type analysis, called RIO, which stands for records, interviews and observation. By following the RIO method, you will:

• Review records, such as calibration and maintenance records, the food safety plan, the process flow, customer complaints, etc.
• Interview people on the floor and ask them about their tasks and the training they received.
• Observe how SOPs for metal detection are executed across different shifts and at different points of the production line.

You can break down the issue into smaller elements by asking the following questions:

• Have there been any complaints from customers about foreign objects in food?
• Are SOPs up to date?
• Was the metal detection process validated?
• Are rejects dealt with correctly?
• Did internal audits identify similar issues before?
• Have employees been trained?
• Is the metal detector operating at the right frequency?

Application

Application is the ability to draw informed conclusions based on the results of the analysis and to connect these conclusions to the requirements of your certification scheme. During this step you’re basically answering the “Why” and “Where” that nonconformance does not meet the requirements of your scheme of reference.

Practical example. Depending on the gravity, the metal detection SOP nonconformance could be in breach of one or more requirements of your food safety scheme. The example below shows how this connection between findings and requirements would work within the SQF Code:

• There were customers complaints but were not managed correctly à section 2.1.3 - Complaint Management.
• SOPs in the food safety plan are not up to dateà section 2.4.3 - Food Safety Plan.
• The foreign material detection process was not validated à section 2.5.1 - Validation and Effectiveness.
• Rejects are not dealt with correctly à section 2.5.3 - Corrective and Preventative Action.
• Previous internal audits were not thorough enough à section 2.5.4 - Internal Audits and Inspections.
• Employee training is insufficient à section 2.9 – Training.
• The metal detector is not operating at the optimized frequency for that product à section 11.2.3 – Calibration.

Communication

The final step of the critical thinking process is to communicate your findings to everyone in the company, from senior management, to supervisors, to employees. The reason why we consider this a standalone step is that it’s of crucial importance and requires its own set of skills. To be effective in your communication, you’ll have to be clear and concise. Everyone should come away with a clear idea of what hazards were identified, and what requirements exactly these hazards are in breach of.

Practical example. Let’s imagine two opposite results of the investigation: in one case the lack of compliance with metal detection SOP turned out to be an isolated event, which leads to a Minor NC (nonconformance); in the other case, several issues were found, leading to a Major NC.

Here’s how you would communicate that concisely and clearly:

Employee was observed not following the Metal Detection SOP – Minor NC.

Metal Detection CCP was observed ineffective – Employee not trained, wands did not detect, reject mechanisms not functioning and 5 metal complaints in past month – Major/Critical NC.

Conclusions

To get to know what you don't know, you have to continually challenge your processes, removing opinions and feelings and basing your conclusions on data. Critical thinking allows you to do just that. With its structured approach, it gives you the ability to logically analyze and understand the links between your operations and the requirements of your food safety certification, helping you produce safer and better-quality food products.

Would you like to learn more about Safe Quality Food (SQF) certification?

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Lakers News: JJ Redick Hires Seasoned Assistant Coach

Ricardo sandoval | jul 9, 2024.

• Los Angeles Lakers

The Los Angeles Lakers will another coach to JJ Redick's staff. The Lakers are set to add Greg St.Jean as an assistant coach. Jovan Buha of The Athletic confirmed on the news via Twitter/X.

I can confirm the Lakers are adding Greg St. Jean as an assistant to JJ Redick’s staff, per team and league sources. St. Jean was at the Lakers-Kings summer league game today. https://t.co/zCLZrKABGc — Jovan Buha (@jovanbuha) July 7, 2024

St. Jean served as a player development coach on the 2020 Lakers champion staff under former read coach Frank Vogel. He will join Nate McMillan and Scott Brooks, who were hired just a few days ago. Both McMillian and Brooks have extension head coaching experience, which should be an excellent help for Redick. As for St. Jean, he has been under championship-level coaches like Jason Kidd of the Dallas Mavericks alongside Vogel.

St. Jean is the son of Garry St. Jean, who was the head coach of the Sacramento Kings in the 1990s.

St. Jean started his coaching career with the Kings in the 2013-14 season as a member of the video operations department. Following his stint with the Kings, he moved on to the Brooklyn Nets organization, where he assisted with the NBA Draft combine, free agent minicamps, summer league practice, and player development workouts. St. Jean was also a member of the Nets coaching staff for the NBA Summer League in Orlando. St. Jean is another former player turned coach, and now he will be an assistant for one of the more historic franchises in all of sports.

More Lakers: LA Hires 2 Longtime Head Coaches to Serve as JJ Redick Assistants

RICARDO SANDOVAL

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Critical Thinking about Critical Resources

Critical resources are those essential to the technological advancement and development for modern society. As we move into an increasingly technological age, the global demand on rare Earth elements and other nonrenewable resources intensifies. A mobile phone alone contains 40 different nonrenewable elements, including cobalt, gallium, platinum and rare Earth elements. Governments and international agencies have identified a crisis in critical resource supplies to the 21st century economies; continuing with our current trends in resource extraction is not possible.

Critical resources, and the issues surrounding them, are themes woven through many of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) 2014 projects - highlighting its importance to the world’s economy and development. It is crucial to understand the geological occurrence, formation and mineral residence of critical elements, determine future resources, and quantify their global availability.  A project funded through the IGCP aims to increase the knowledge on natural resources: IGCP 600: “Metallogeny of collision orogens” .  This project brings together researchers from various scientific backgrounds, from different countries, at different stages of their career and promotes cooperation, knowledge exchange, and collaboration on researching Earth’s systems.

Although nonrenewable resources underpin our economy and have greatly improved our quality of life, there are controversies surrounding extraction techniques and environmental damage, especially in Africa.  This is the result of economic pressures and a slower evolution of environmental awareness.  African communities have experienced the damaging effects of mining activities and the impacts on the ecosystems and public health.  IGCP supports projects that attend to these issues: IGCP 606: “Addressing Environmental and health impact of major and abandoned mines in Sub-Saharan Africa” and IGCP: 594 “Impact of Mining on Environment in Africa.”   These projects provide science-based knowledge and advice for governments and local authorities on contamination monitoring, land-use planning and on remediation technologies to mitigate environmental damage in contaminated regions.  

Mining is one of the principal drivers of the Sub-Saharan economy – contributing more than 20%.  Agriculture also makes up a vital arm of the regional economy, but has felt the impacts from the development of mining.  Decades of metal mining have introduced various toxic metal species into surface and groundwater resources, soil and food crops, with potential consequences farther up the food chain for animal and human populations.  Some Sub-Saharan African countries lack an inventory of abandoned mines, giving rise to the critical need to systematically survey and assess impacts on the region.  Some countries also lack basic information required to distinguish between anthropogenic and natural sources of metals in waters, soils, and vegetation.  Environmental baselines are therefore being established to assess the degree of contamination in soils and crops.  UNESCO, in collaboration with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), is currently supporting research to determine the extent of damage caused by metal pollutants, their impact on human and animal health, and the effect on the environment and ecosystems.  

In 2013, analysis was conducted on 10 sites in 9 countries.  This included studies on lead-cupper-silver-arsenic contamination in a Namibian mine, lead-zinc contamination in Vitengeni, Kenya and iron various harmful metals from tailings in Kolwezi, Democratic Republic of the Congo. In total 800 samples from various sites were collected and analyses in an internationally accredited laboratory with preliminary results to be published in May 2014.  The outcomes serve as scientific data for policy briefs and decision makers.  

One success story arises from the lead, vanadium, and zinc Berg Aukas abandoned mine in Namibia.  The abandoned buildings on the mining site were being used as a youth agricultural school and the surrounding area for growing crops.  After soil analysis determined that the soil was unsafe, the school was moved to uncontaminated grounds.  Another project located in the Kedougou region in eastern Senegal studies the degree of mercury pollution resulting from artisanal small-scale gold mining.  The surrounding sediment, water, and fauna were found to be contaminated and mercury bioaccumulates found in fish were above the World Health Organisation thresholds.  Even more, mercury concentrations were analysed from human hair – confirming human contamination and an urgent need to educate local communities about the long-term impacts of mercury use in mining.  

UNESCO’s projects improve capacity building in environmental monitoring and Earth sciences in general, strengthen the capacity for African institutions in geoscience research, raise public awareness regarding the impacts of mining on environmental and human health, and facilitate cooperation between geoscientists, environmental scientists and medical scientists.  Results are being used for land-use planning, remediation strategies, and mitigation of environmental dangers in contaminated regions.  Mining and quarrying for natural resources is inevitable, considering the integral part they play in scientific and technological development.  However, extraction of these resources needs to be conducted sustainably; rehabilitation technologies and remedial actions for contaminated mining sites must be co-developed alongside further mining developments.   

Related links:

• Earth Sciences  
• International Goescience Programme (IGCP)  
• Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)

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