About the School
You've taken your child's education into your own hands. That matters. Children are our most precious responsibility, and we owe it to them to give them the best possible education. We can't rely on schools to do that, unfortunately, no matter how good those schools might be. We have to do it ourselves.
The problem
This problem is obvious to any parent. Most schools, be they public or private, teach facts, skills, and subject knowledge. They almost never teach children how reality actually behaves in all its complexity. They are rarely taught real critical thinking, the kind of thinking that helps us understand how the world works, how to make good decisions, and how to navigate a complexity.
Children are left to figure this out on their own. Usually as adults, and often after costly mistakes.
But, it shouldn't be that way. These are learnable skills; they can be taught to an eight-year-old. And they transfer to every subject, every decision, and every challenge a child will face in the future.
Most "critical thinking" curricula respond to this problem with riddles, logic puzzles, and lists of fallacies. These are useful, but they are not the same as teaching children how the world actually works. In life, they will never be faced with a clean-cut logic puzzle. They will be faced with messy, complex problems that require real-world thinking skills.
This School fills that gap.
Founder perspective
I have spent years studying how people think, and how education shapes, or fails to shape, that capacity. My academic work in philosophy of education, which started in 2014 right after I got my PhD, led me to a conclusion that is hard to argue with once you see it: formal schooling teaches children what to think, almost never how.
That conclusion became personal when my daughter started school. Watching her move through a curriculum that was rich in content but thin on thinking confirmed my conclusion. If I wanted her to learn how to reason clearly — about causes, about uncertainty, about tradeoffs — I would have to teach her myself. That's what I've been doing for the past several years.
The School of Critical Thinking grew out of that effort, as well as my desire to share this approach with other parents. It is the curriculum I wish had existed when I was a kid. It is built on years of research and refined through the most honest test I know: teaching my own child.
My background is in philosophy, which is useful here because philosophy forces first-principles thinking about what education really should be. But this is not a philosophy class. My goal here is practical: to give children the mental tools to reason clearly, decide well, and navigate a world that does not come with instructions.
— Eldar Sarajlic
Founder, The School of Critical Thinking
The framework
The curriculum is built around five structures of reality — the patterns that govern how the world actually behaves. This is not conventional wisdom about critical thinking. It's not something you'd see on TikTok, Instagram, or even in a typical critical thinking class. It is something different.
- Patterns — recognizing structure in the world
- Causality — understanding cause and effect
- Uncertainty — reasoning under probability
- Models — how representations simplify reality
- Decisions — incentives, tradeoffs, and consequences
A child who understands these structures will grow up to think differently. They will be more competitive in the future job market, make better decisions about their health, relationships, or finance, or anything else that comes their way. They will think with clarity and won't easily fall prey to propaganda or misinformation.
Who it is for
The School's primary focus are families who are active in educating their own children.
You can be a homeschooling family, or you can be supplementing your child's education with after-school lessons.
Either way, the School's curriculum is designed to fit into your existing educational efforts.
The curriculum is designed to be taught by parents: no specialist background required.
There are three progressive levels (9 modules in total) that take children from ages 8 through 16, with 52 lessons per module, each 20–30 minutes long. They can be read by children on their own, but they are designed to be taught by parents, with discussion and exercises that make the material come alive.
The School also works with adults. We can help parents to prepare critical thinking lessons, but we also offer direct instruction and consultation for adults who want to improve their own reasoning skills. The Thinking Diagnostic is a free self-assessment that identifies your own reasoning blindspots and produces a personalized improvement plan. Also, live instruction and consultation are available for both children and adults.
- Curriculum and lesson materials for homeschooling families
- Books written as companions to each curriculum level
- Live instruction taught directly by the School's founder
- Consultation for parents teaching critical thinking at home
- The Thinking Diagnostic — a free self-assessment for adults
Get in touch
To ask about curriculum materials, live instruction, or consultation, use the contact form. For the adult self-assessment, take the Thinking Diagnostic.