David B. Wilkins Quotes

There is a dearth of thinking skills - people are taught what to think, not how.

Students need to learn how to think critically, how to argue opposing ideas. It is important for them to learn how to think. You can always cook.

My investment of time, as an educator, in my judgment, is best served teaching people how to think about the world around them. Teach them how to pose a question. How to judge whether one thing is true versus another.

I'm raised to actually think, to use my brain.

It doesn't matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.

"Thinking about thinking" has to be a principle ingredient of any empowering practice of education.

It must be remembered that the purpose of education is not to fill the minds of students with facts... it is to teach them to think.

Most people do not actually know how to think for themselves, and unfortunately that prevents them from even knowing it.

Human beings are accustomed to think of intellect as the power of having and controlling ideas and of ability to learn as synonymous with ability to have ideas. But learning by having ideas is really one of the rare and isolated events in nature.

In our education system, we are taught to munch figures and remember them for lifetime. But does it help? We are not taught how to make decisions.

My goal is to invite readers to think along with me and draw their own conclusions.

Common Core reminds us what testing can do right. Modeled on standards of the world's education superpowers, questions demand critical thinking and creativity. Students are asked to write at length, show their work, and explain their reasoning.

The proper method for hastening the decay of error is by teaching every man to think for himself.

Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.

Less than fifteen per cent of the people do any original thinking on any subject. The greatest torture in the world for most people is to think.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

I suggest that an education and reading and facts aren't bad things on which to ponder a few notions.

I encourage active skepticism - when people are being skeptical because they're trying to identify the best course of action. They're trying to identify the next step for themselves or other people.

Mostly, I try to take a rational approach to life.

The true function of philosophy is to educate us in the principles of reasoning and not to put an end to further reasoning by the introduction of fixed conclusions.

Thought means life, since those who do not think so do not live in any high or real sense. Thinking makes the man.

Economists who have studied the relationship between education and economic growth confirm what common sense suggests: The number of college degrees is not nearly as important as how well students develop cognitive skills, such as critical thinking and problem-solving ability.

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

I don't want your vote. I want something more important. I want your commitment to think. Because once you start thinking, I'll get your vote.