Should Logic be taught as a mandatory subject at school?

None of the above needs to be introduced as a discreet subject, certainly not in years 7 -12. Critical Thinking can be incorporated, like many other things, into the everyday curriculum, as apart and parcel of process.

There is always someone calling for schools and teachers to do "more", but there are not the hours in the day to to do everything in the way that people would like to see.

My personal experience is that many teachers, like many people generally, struggle with critical or independent thought as it is. Teachers are not all academic by any stretch of the imagination.

We had the basics of this for a while at my school. The trouble was, the (youngish) teacher teaching it clearly really struggled with it and often got multiple choice questions wrong...

"Not what to think but how to think!" Was the banner over the RS and Philosophy department at one of the schools I taught in. There was a strong emphasis on critical thinking and philosophy throughout the curriculum we offered each year (simple plato and aristotle in year 8). It was a grammar school though and the Head of Department was fab.

I know lots of subjects have unfortunately moved towards lots of knowledge regurgitation, but critically analyzing sources should be in History and Media Studies. Analysing an argument comes in RS...

Debating.
Critical Thinking.
Logic.
The Freedom Programme (as suggested by a pp)
Assertiveness.
Domestic Economics.
Basic food preparation.
Basic food growing.

What’s the point? Kids get taught biology and science in school and that doesn’t seem to stop many of them ignoring it when they grow up. The same idiots will just ignore the logical thinking they were taught at school instead.

Where I come from logic is part of the curriculum. My dad studied philosophy at uni so the concepts we're not foreign to me. That being said... It was taught as a branch of philosophy and not necessarily applied logic. I'm sure 99% of my classmates have completely forgotten about it.

Most definitely. Instead of what to think, how to think.

Logic would be a good thing to teach but I don't think it's the root cause of the issue. From what I can see the real issues are having verboten points of view, tribal loyalties, "no debate", and willful misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the other side of the debate.

In other words, it's not an inability to reason but a refusal to. Politics has long been about winning points over the opposition rather than actively working for the best solution, it's no surprise many other people are following suit.

Tangential, but I also think some basic introduction to psychology & the main principles of cognitive behavioural therapy, self esteem etc. Help young people to better understand themselves, their difficult feelings, thoughts and emotions, how their behaviours are intertwined and how they do ultimately have the power to effect these things, challenge their own assumptions about themselves and the world etc.

In principle I agree, but you'd have to find someone to treat it, and the current evidence suggests that most teachers are incapable of critical thought.

Absolutely.
Our education system as been an entire failure, we only memorisation, not thinking logically.
I remember getting penalised in primary school because I couldn’t recall most of the times tables by heart, but I did know how to work it out. But they weren’t interested in giving me a piece of paper and pencil to write the sum out. I also remember explaining to my friend how to work it out, who had memorised them but couldn’t work most of them out, especially the larger numbers. I feel like this is a good illustration of the school system.

I studied formal logic (yeah, I was home schooled.) I disagree that it's not applicable to everyday life. I'm amazed by how often I've seen and identified logical fallacies in newspaper articles etc.

You need to teach both the formal logic, and how to boil an argument down to the basics from a load of emotionally loaded text though.

(I also had the most tremendous head start when I went on to study maths at university, but that's probably less relevant to this discussion.)

I went to bog standard state schools in the 90s and we were taught:

-To compare and contrast the same news stories from different media sources.
-Critical thinking
-Debate. I vividly remember At age 11 being told to argue against banning fox hunting as part of a debating lesson. Foxes were my favourite animal at the time. I hated it, it made me uncomfortable at the time, and I didn’t do a very convincing job; but I am so grateful now for my English teacher who set the exercise because it was really the first time I was forced out of my comfort zone and had to look at the reasons behind other people’s wants and choices.

In Portugal we have Philosophy for 2 years in high school. It's akin to history... you learn about the different philosophers and their ideas. There isn't anything practical about it

I agree critical thinking is good to cover. A good language teacher (portuguese in mu case) will focus on hidden meanings and hidden sociopolitical commentary in texts. Shakespeare is littered with it as are all famous authors' work

Yes how can you have critical thinking an logic in schools when it is considered evil and 'transphobic' to point out that women don't have penises? And teachers have to back this up?

freedom of speech!

when pp have to fear speaking there's no critical thinking

Critical Thinking is a discipline though.

Unfortunately what is taught in schools around it is pretty unmitigated crap. It centres around what is presented as the traditional narrative and feeding the students the progressive talking points against it. I'd like to think logic would be less easy to co-opt to mean "whatever the progressive view is."

Maybe it could be kept though, if there was enough of a push. I probably have just become cynical about it.

Could you suggest any, please?

Here is the page for reviews of logic curricula by a homeschool review site - there are quite a few:

cathyduffyreviews.com/homeschool-extras/critical-thinking-logic

I’m new to a lot of this, but judging by the circular ‘logic’ I’m mainly getting in response I’d have to say an emphatic yes. I’ve lurked here a long time but honestly felt a bit out of my depth... then I hit my bullshit limit.

God yes!
And yes reading comprehension seems to have been neglected a bit.

But I thought women couldn’t do logic because of our lady brains./s

Reading comprehension, logic, including logical fallacy, and how to debate calmly would be wonderful but could we include how to listen?.

Theory of Knowledge is a compulsory part of the International Baccalaureate (alternative to A-levels).

DD is doing it at the moment, and really enjoying it. Assignments include things like finding an example of pseudoscience used in advertising and breaking down what is wrong with it.

I think something along those lines would be really helpful as a compulsory course for all 6th-formers or 1st-year uni students, of whatever subject.

www.ibo.org/programmes/diploma-programme/curriculum/theory-of-knowledge/what-is-tok/

These past few days I've been transcribing some historical texts about what constitutes a "good" education. Logic and critical thinking were a HUGE part of this in times past. So many times I thought to myself "why is this no longer taught in schools???".

I would have appreciated being taught how to avoid logical fallacies.
It is embarrassing learning how to do it as an adult.

i don,t think logic can be taught. We used to do dibates as part of what is now PSHE. (then pse.) Thats teachers ;logical and critical thinking. Also I did RE which meant debating Christianity and Moral issues so again critical thinking.