Building Our Best Future: Thinking Critically About Ourselves and Our World - Hardcover

Deanna Kuhn is Professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her previous books include Education for Thinking (Harvard University Press), The Skills of Argument (Cambridge University Press) and Argue With Me (Wessex Press).

Deanna Kuhn is the world expert on how young people can develop useful argumentation and critical thinking skills. Her new book will serve as a uniquely valuable resource for students and teachers and will equip young people with important intellectual tools for their future lives. --William Damon, Director, Stanford Center on Adolescence and Professor of Education, Stanford Graduate School of Education

Kuhn has created a remarkable gift for students and teachers a toolkit of urgent topics, related nonfiction resources, and a repertoire of debate and argument protocols to expand students skills. What a tremendous asset this collection will be for young thinkers as they hone their advocacy skills. --Lucy M. Calkins, Robinson Professor in Children s Literature and Founding Director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project

We have successfully implemented a required secondary-school course at Beijing Royal School based on the program described in this book, introducing students to new skills not taught at BRS before. Their implementation has been a welcome addition for students and instructors alike. We especially like the fact students learn in a very natural way. Students already have shown growth that would never have been dreamed of. With continued implementation these new techniques should have far-reaching effects on our students’ futures." -Charlotte Walker (Curriculum Development Coordinator) & Steven Wood (course teacher), Beijing Royal School, Beijing, China

We've long been admirers of Kuhn's work and we're excited now to see how her argumentation and inquiry curricula will work in Singapore. It's essential that our students learn to think independently, and this approach indeed seems a path to get them there." --Dr. Christine Kim-Eng Lee, Assoc. Professor and Head, Curriculum Teaching & Learning, National Institute of Education of Singapore; Dr. Yew Jin Lee, Assoc. Professor, Natural Sciences and Science Education, National Institute of Education of Singapore

We have had good success in introducing middle-school students to argumentation with this method, and they then progress with enthusiasm to the more classical debate forms." --Erik Fogel, Director New York City Urban Debate League

We have introduced this skills-based approach in my sixth-grade social studies class with positive results. Students enjoy debating contemporary issues, connecting them to topics within our regular social studies and history curriculum, while building critical skills in both verbal and written argument. -Nicole Feliciano, West Prep Academy (MS 421), New York NY