November 9, 2025 • 22 mins
We’re raising a generation surrounded by noise, opinions, and algorithms — but how do we teach kids to actually think for themselves? Dr Justin Coulson talks with headmaster and author Michael Parker about helping children (and ourselves) escape echo chambers, stretch attention spans, and develop true independent thought in the age of AI and endless scrolling.
KEY POINTS:
- Why attention span is the #1 obstacle to deep thinking
- How social media and “influencer logic” shape young minds
- The surprising role of boredom and debate in critical thinking
- Practical ways to nurture reflection and focus at home
- Why AI might help—or hurt—our children’s ability to think independently
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
“Stop listening to the loudest and most extreme voices. Start thinking for yourself.” — Michael Parker
RESOURCES MENTIONED:
- Thinking for Yourself by Michael Parker and Fiona Morrison
- More parenting insights at happyfamilies.com.au
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS:
- Stretch your child’s attention span with longer, screen-free activities.
- Encourage respectful debates and devil’s advocate questions at home.
- Expose your family to multiple perspectives—especially those you disagree with.
- Model reflective thinking out loud when you make decisions.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Gooday, Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Being able to
think for yourself, Being able to think critically, being able
to be aware of your biases, the flaws in your perceptions,
the way that you're seeing things is something that is
increasingly absent, unfortunately, according to research, and for us as adults,
(00:27):
as parents, as business owners, as employees, whatever it is
that we're doing, being able to think for ourselves makes
life better. All too often we just act as repeaters.
We just say what we've heard somebody else say because
it sounded intelligent, and therefore we think if we say
what they're saying, then we must be intelligent because they
seemed intelligent when they said it. And is that really
working for us in the age of social media? In fact,
(00:49):
in the age of AI, I would argue that it's
a bit of a concern today. As special guest on
the Happy Families Podcast, Michael Parker. Michael is an author.
He's written a couple of books, including one It's on
My Bookshelves, and he's the head master of Newington College
in Sydney. I'm going to talk to him in just
a second about his brand new book called Thinking for Yourself.
(01:09):
I have no doubt this will be provocative, helpful for
us as adults, but also helpful us in our conversations
with our children as they are increasingly told not how
to think, but what to think. Stay with us, that's
coming up next. Hi, Welcome to The Happy Family his
podcast Real Parenting Solutions, every day on Australia's most downloaded
(01:30):
parenting podcast. My name is doctor Justin Coulson and today
I'm joined by Michael Parker. Michael is the head master
at Newington College in Sydney. He has a master's degree
in teaching philosophy to children and is the author of
seven well now eight books. Before being at Newington, he
was also the head master of Oxley College in the
Southern Highlands of New South Wales. And it's a real
delight to have you with me today, Michael, thanks for
(01:53):
being here.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
It's a pleasure. Thank you very much for having me. So.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I want to start off with this idea of thinking
for yourself. Where did the idea come from? How did
you decide that a book about it needed to be written?
Is this because of what you're seeing in schools? Is
it because of the conversations that you're having with I
think Newington has been in the news recently because a
lot of adults are convinced that Newington shouldn't go through
a transition that it's about to go through. Where did
this come from?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
In one sense, it came about sort of seven or
eight years ago. Where we were looking at it was
a combination of social media. It was looking at the
way in which people were getting more and more extreme,
a lot of people in the world getting more and
more extreme in their views, and it just seemed harder
to be for Bill without the talk to each other,
harder to feel without the rationalized, harder to be able
to think the other side. So we just let's put
(02:37):
together all the stuff that makes up good thinking. It's
almost like a bit of a recipe book, and you've
got all those ingredients there. You can learn about them,
you understand that needs like a couple of minutes to
take in each and you mix them all around.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
If every person the flavor of the taste is going
to be the same, but at least every he goes
this is.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
What good thinking looks like.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
It will help you make a decision, I will help
you able to talk to my kids, will be able
to help have those conversations with my kids and yeah,
and make.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Good decisions as well. So that's that's where it came from.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Michael. We live at a culture that really rewards individuals,
in other words, being able to think for yourself. There
are there are other cultures that are extremely collectivist and
reward conformity. Both have their advantages, both have their disadvantages.
What I'm curious about is this, what is our education
system rewarding right now, conformity or critical thinking.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
I think a lot of education says it rewards individuality
and rewards the individual response.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And the thing that comes out of discussion.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I do think in the general system there's still a
lot of we we know what we want to read
at the end, and we know what we want you
to produce, and we know what a good essay looks
like and so on.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
I'm sorry, So I think.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
That the aspirations to be very, very individualist is more
than what ends up happening at the other end.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Thinking about what you're just saying now, Michael, I'm reminded
of something that I often say when I'm running my presentations,
and that is that one of the most valuable skills
we can give to our children is the ability to
stand in front of an audience and prosecute an argument,
to be able to stand up and argue their point
of view, and to do it effectively. I'm not arguing
that debate should be compulsory in school, although I think
that it probably would be kind of handy if more
kids knew how to do that. But that capacity to
(04:28):
do so, like thinking said Henry Ford, is one of
the hardest things there is to do, which is probably
why so few people do it. That's paraphrased. But if
you're going to argue that we've got to be able
to think for ourselves, which is what the book is about,
to me, that means that we've got to be able
to You can't think well if you can't write well
(04:49):
and can't speak well, because writing and speaking demand a
degree of specificity and articulation. That means you're thinking has
to be clear. Yes, when it comes to creating clear thinking,
What are our biggest impediments? Because I would argue that
not only children today, but people at a fairly general
(05:11):
level aren't engaging what i'd consider to be deep thinking
and profound thinking and switch turning on life changing thinking.
What are the obstacles to really deep, thoughtful, considered thinking.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, the first is attention span, and probably the second
is attention span as well.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Sorry, I just got distracted what you're saying. The first
that was a joke because you were span. So we've
got attention span is the as a critical factor, a
critical stumbling block. It's funny to say that. I know
that there are others that you're going to mention as
challenges to deep thinking and thinking for yourself and critical thinking.
(05:54):
But I don't know if you saw or not. But
recently John Burn Murdoch from The Financial Times published a
fascinating analysis of a study out of America. It's called
the Understanding America Study, and what he found is that
in the youngest generations at the moment, that is our
sixteen to thirty nine year old so we're talking about
(06:16):
our gen z's, it will certainly be jen alpha thingk
although they were't included in the study, but our gen
z's and our millennials has seen a dropping conscientiousness over
the last ten years, that is by magnitudes greater than
anything else, an increase in emotional instability otherwise known as neuroticism.
They've seen a drop in agreeableness, a drop an extraversion,
(06:37):
and they've seen distraction and carelessness rising exponentially. Perseverance has
fallen through the floor. So when I think about what
you've just described as the critical first barrier to deep thinking,
to thinking for yourself, what I'm really hearing is that
attention span, that capacity to just focus on one thing
(07:00):
you look at all the data seems to be pointing
in the same direction. That is that that first key
thing is is just it's not there anymore.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yeah, We've started the kids of it and my wife
and co author, Fiona It works with kids at university
for two hours how to go and says her biggest
job is to get them to attend and to stay
focused and to stay with it four hours, because that
(07:28):
is the biggest, the biggest skill there is. And of
course all of society is sending the opposite messages. We
cut things up smaller and smaller YouTube videos and TV
than you know, five second things for doom scrolling. I
actually sat behind somebody in a train yesterday and did
a bit of a like. I just did account of
(07:51):
how long she spent on each screen, and it was
an average of one and a half seconds.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Wow. And this was like dozens of screen games.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Right, And so if your leisure time is out of
mized like that, funnily enough, if as teachers and parents
we accept it and we don't stretch that attention and
go ah, we've all got to chop it up and
just smaller and smaller bits, and you know guys that
blend it and whatever, then again they're they're not getting
it from us. And as a result, you can't you
(08:21):
can't do the harder thinking because hard I think, as
you're saying, thinking, thinking can be hard. Yeah, and so
you've got to be able to sit there and do
it for for a good a good period of time.
There's no great quote. I think it's Bernard Russell. He
said many most people would rather die than think. In
fact they do.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah. I was speaking to a school teacher just the
other day who said that a student had commented that
sometimes class is so boring that he just wants to
swipe up to the next screen.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
The next teachers.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Just swipe up, next teacher, next teacher. Not not working
for me? Well he gets cool by amazing. What other
barriers to real thinking thinking for yourself exist other than
attention span, the ability to focus.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
I think there's an invidious sense of influences and people
whose views they are getting monetizing making things show and
monetizing making things extreme and telling a really good, easy
(09:32):
story that people can just flow into, whether whether that's
about their gender, whether it's about their race, whatever, whatever
it is, and people can can just go, yeah, I can.
I can sink into this more extreme story and get
a little bit angry and it's yeah, and you get
you get a sense of I call it membership or
(09:54):
ownership or a sense of belonging by just being part
of that group and not not thinking about it, not
playing girl's advocate, not pushing against it, not doing that
that that hard work.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Identity politics. That's really what it is. Somebody is saying,
I'm part of this group, so therefore the group's done
the thinking for me. I'll just go along with what
the group is saying.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's that's right.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
My my, my political party says it, or the the
influencers that I'm listening to says it.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
So so I'm I'm going along with it. And you
can get that.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
You know, there's this you know, I talk about two
different types. There, there's the there's the one who radicalizes
you and I'm thinking about the Andrew Takes.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Of the world and so on. And then there's the
influencers who who just.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Talk about really bland stuff really quickly. Uh and and
that takes you away from from deep and substantial thinking
as well.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I'm talking to Michael Parker. Michael is the head of
Newington College and has written a brand new book called
Thinking for Yourself, very focused on critical thinking. Michael, when
we think about other obstacles, one one thing that really
jumps out at me is just the biases. The way
that that great quote from Ann in we don't see
the world as it is, we see the world as
we are, tell me about the biases or the one
(11:16):
bias to rule them all. If there was one bias
that really impacted our thinking and our ability to think critically,
what would what would be The one that stands out
to you is most impactful, the one that's the greatest obstacle, The.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Most impactful one is probably confirmation bias.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, yeah, I was hoping you'd say that that confirms
everything that I believed. So, so you were right, I
was right along, that's right.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
So and you've so good, I've got to be careful
with it. If there's an idea that comes from a
political party that I'm more aligned with, I go, yeah, Yeah,
that's a that's a that's a great idea. And if
I hear the same idea from the political party I
agree with less, I go, ah, I don't know about
that one.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, what's their agenda?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
What are they getting?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Why are they saying that.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Once you've got a position, as I think a lot
of people know you, you accumulate more data and more
things to confirm that story. And you're one of your
biases is you just shed information and you shed perspectives
that don't agree with it.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
And it's so easy.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
And as we as well as people more and more
get into their news echo chambers and their views echo
chambers and just talk to people who who agree with them, that.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
That confirmation bias happens more and more.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
And I try to make it a real point of
reading and listening to things that I disagree with and
looking for what a point of commonality is or what
I can learn from it because I'm disagreeing with it.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
But it's hard.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
It really is not the most interesting bias though I
can tell you about the most interesting one, Lafe.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Well let's say that one now, because they don't want
to step into a lightning round. And I mean lightning
rounds aren't known for provoking the deepest of thinking, but
they can certainly lead to provocative answers. What do you
think is the most interesting bias? And then we do
the lightning round.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Probably it's peak end by us, where the last part
of your experience takes on much more relevance or importance
in your head than the first partner. But it's the
way they found this out that was the most bizarre
they did. Yeah, it was decades ago. The researchers did
colonoscopy experiments. They got they got two groups.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Do you know I do. It's a terrible, terrible I mean,
they don't do colonoscary's this way anymore, thank goodness. But
it's a real pain in the butt, this story. But
tell it anyway.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
The story is back in the days when it was
much more painful. They got the control group and they
just did the colin oscary win for about eight minutes.
And then they got another and it was quite painful,
and they got people to chart their pain from one
to ten and it was really quite painful in the
last couple of minutes up to eight. They got another
group and they did the whole colonoscope that took about
(14:04):
ten minutes and quite painful at the end. And then
they just kept jiggling around for about another ten minutes
so that the person kept enduring more pain for much
longer that the pain wasn't as extreme. And then and
those colin os s took twenty five minutes. And then
they asked both groups who felt more pain, and it
was that first group who finished with more extreme pain
(14:28):
that said they had more pain. The second group clearly
had more pain because they had all the pain of
the first ten minutes and an other fifteen minutes thrown
on top of it, but because the pain wasn't as
bad at the end, they registered that their whole experience
was less painful. So this just this says what happens
at the end is really important, and you can take
like a family. So if you're going on a family holiday,
(14:50):
you make sure the last couple of days is where
you've got the best accommodation, the best site, the best experiences,
because that's the.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Only bit that anyone's going to remember. So that's some
practical advice.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Love it. Okay, let's ste a lightning round. This is
ten seconds or less, really really quick short answers, provocative
if you'd like to be. I mean, some of these
questions are designed to be that way. I'm going to
hit you with just a handful of them, and I'd
love to get your thoughts on these issues around thinking
nice and quickly. They're they're related to kids and education.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Okay, it usually takes me about ten seconds just to
think anything, So anyway, I'll see how we go.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Let's see how we go. What's the one moment in
school where we accidentally teach kids not to think for themselves?
Speaker 3 (15:29):
I want to say uniform hair, lateness or all those
procedural things.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Huh. What's the hardest age to teach independent thinking?
Speaker 2 (15:37):
You're nine?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Can you tell me why in one or two quick sentences.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Yeah, because they're their most tribal there least impact of
their family, but not yet looking at the whole world.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
They've just gone into what their friends think. And that's
that's something that makes you pray all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Love it absolutely Developmentally, I'm right there with you at
name one sacred in education that needs to be rethought,
but nobody's really thinking enough about it.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Subject.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Oh gosh, I want to go deeper with you on
that one. It's a lightning round. I can't do that.
I've got I've got to break the rules to do it,
and I'm not willing to. I won't rethink the rules.
I've got to come and I'm.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Not even doing ten sentence. I'm even doing ten seconds.
I'm doing it in one second.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
You're doing so well your book in one sentence, stop
X and start? Why what would the X and Y be?
Even though the book is called Thinking for Yourself? Stop
X and start? Why?
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Stop listening to the loudest and most extreme voices, Start
thinking for yourself?
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Beautiful name of thinking? Skill that matters more than knowing
the capital of New Zealand?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
That could be anything? Okay, thinking skill?
Speaker 1 (16:46):
But is it that matters more than knowing some arbitrary
fact like the capital of New Zealand?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Playing Devil's Advocate?
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Oh yeah, nice, excellent? Okay? Two more? Two more? Which
subject teachers thinking better at school and which one desperately
needs to rethink.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Philosophy is easily the best one?
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Uh huh? And at hardly any schools are offering philosophy.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, that's right. It's a big shame. I don't want
to chuck any department in it.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Come on, go out on a limb.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
What needs to rethink maths?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
You walk into a classroom, this is the last one
you walk into a classroom.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
It's really bad. I really like our math's department or
our mastages.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Well, you walk into a classroom, what's the one thing
that you look for that tells you that kids are
actually thinking?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
They're listening to each other?
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Interesting? Interesting. The book is called Thinking for Yourself. The
book is by Michael Parker and his wife Fianna Morrison. Michael,
let's wrap this up with one last What I hope
is a thoughtful question AI in schools, technology generally, but
especially the explosion of AI in schools disaster for thinking
(17:56):
or opportunity for thinking.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
In an ideal world, I think AI offers enormous potential speed, efficiencies,
but given the venalities and laziness of people, it is
I think going to end up being overwhelmingly in education
(18:18):
a problematic or even negative phenomenon. Because all of the
things that you do in things like if I can
use an essay as an example.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, the things that AI offers to do. It doesn't
that I'll write your whole essay for you, although it
does that too, But.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
You can get really legitimate things that say, let me
help you get some ideas for this, let me help
brainstorm with you. And then it's a let me get
let me like they put together a first draft.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Let me they get together. I'm writing, yeps you and
so you do that.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Let me order your thoughts for you. So it does that,
let me help edit all your thoughts, so it does
get the final polished draft, let you know, and then
the grammar and whatever, and so bit by bit it
has done the whole thing, and it's got you know,
it's got all these sort of you know, nice names
like co pilot and stuff, which makes you feel like
(19:07):
you're still in control, but really it has done the
whole thing, and we're sort of tacitly said, yep, that's
that's okay, or it's not so problematic for it to
do that. And I think that you do that, you
know often enough, and you're not learning that. The kids
aren't learning the skills at least as adults.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
We got to do it.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
And so you know, if we get it, if we
get it to you know, write a paragraph for us.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
At least we've written thousands of paragraphs.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
They the kids are learning it, and they'll they'll they'll
they'll never learn it. All.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
All they'll get is though you know, AI will do
the task for them.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
And I keep thinking, it's like Tetris blocks, Like all
the bits of thinking, they're like closed Tetris blocks, so
you know how to move them around, but you don't
know what's in any of the boxes. You don't know
what the thinking is or how to do that thinking.
So I am very can concerned about the impact of
AI on education. I accept and agree that it's individualization
(20:11):
and it's potential to be a coach and so on.
Can get all sorts of kids in different less advantaged
educational environments. It can give them a huge turbo boost
because they've got all that attention for the first time.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
But I've got a lot of concern So what do
you think?
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, thanks for asking, Michael. There are two things that
stand out to me. The first is this, what is
the purpose of education? If education is about getting the
outcome having the essay written, then AI is fantastic. But
I don't see that as the purpose of education. I
see the purpose of education is helping children to learn
how to think, learn how to structure, learn how to
collect resources, learn how to collate ideas, learn how to brainstorm,
(20:52):
learn how to do that, because that will make the
more effective more. I mean, your book is called Thinking
for Yourself. That will help them to think for themselves.
AI does not for ceutate thinking for yourself. And the
second thought that I have is in line with what
the I guess the big tech industrial complex has done
for the last twenty years in Australia, and that is
that they've bordozed their way in. They've said, we've got
(21:13):
this great new technology and everybody needs it. If you
don't get on board, you're going to get left behind.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
But at no point have they ever stood up and said,
and we have the evidence to show how this is
going to be beneficial. Yeah yeah, And right now I
just don't see any evidence that there's benefit to it
other than getting out comes faster. But that's not the
purpose of education. Education is not about getting out I
mean it is eventually, but it's about thinking for yourself
to get the outcomes out.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
I mean when the teacher sets the essay what are
the causes of World War Two? Yeah, it's not like
they're sitting around waiting for you to let them know
what the causes of World War two are.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
They that they want you to figure it out.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
They want you to they want to see how you're
going with it.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
And you're figuring out and if you get if you
get AI or whatever to do it, you haven't done
what the task was meant to do, which was get
you to chew it out yourself.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, I mean, I think that it would be so
much fun to sit around the dining table and have
a four hour, eight course diggas station while we have
an eight course discussion at the same time. Michael. I
love I love our conversations. I love the way that
you think. I love the things that you share. The
book is good.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
It's really good being able to talk and talk with you.
And yeah, you've got you've got a really good, good
frame on it all too.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
So I appreciate that the book is called Thinking for Yourself.
The author Michael Parker with his wife Fianna Morrison. You
can get it online and everywhere that you buye books. Michael,
Thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
It's pleasure, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Rowland for
Bridge Media. Mim Hammond's provides additional research, admin and other support,
and if you'd like more info to make your family happier,
check out Michael's book Thinking for Yourself. Will link to
them in the show notes and other resources at happy
families dot com dot a
Gooday, Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Being able to
think for yourself, Being able to think critically, being able
to be aware of your biases, the flaws in your perceptions,
the way that you're seeing things is something that is
increasingly absent, unfortunately, according to research, and for us as adults,
(00:27):
as parents, as business owners, as employees, whatever it is
that we're doing, being able to think for ourselves makes
life better. All too often we just act as repeaters.
We just say what we've heard somebody else say because
it sounded intelligent, and therefore we think if we say
what they're saying, then we must be intelligent because they
seemed intelligent when they said it. And is that really
working for us in the age of social media? In fact,
(00:49):
in the age of AI, I would argue that it's
a bit of a concern today. As special guest on
the Happy Families Podcast, Michael Parker. Michael is an author.
He's written a couple of books, including one It's on
My Bookshelves, and he's the head master of Newington College
in Sydney. I'm going to talk to him in just
a second about his brand new book called Thinking for Yourself.
(01:09):
I have no doubt this will be provocative, helpful for
us as adults, but also helpful us in our conversations
with our children as they are increasingly told not how
to think, but what to think. Stay with us, that's
coming up next. Hi, Welcome to The Happy Family his
podcast Real Parenting Solutions, every day on Australia's most downloaded
(01:30):
parenting podcast. My name is doctor Justin Coulson and today
I'm joined by Michael Parker. Michael is the head master
at Newington College in Sydney. He has a master's degree
in teaching philosophy to children and is the author of
seven well now eight books. Before being at Newington, he
was also the head master of Oxley College in the
Southern Highlands of New South Wales. And it's a real
delight to have you with me today, Michael, thanks for
(01:53):
being here.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
It's a pleasure. Thank you very much for having me. So.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I want to start off with this idea of thinking
for yourself. Where did the idea come from? How did
you decide that a book about it needed to be written?
Is this because of what you're seeing in schools? Is
it because of the conversations that you're having with I
think Newington has been in the news recently because a
lot of adults are convinced that Newington shouldn't go through
a transition that it's about to go through. Where did
this come from?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
In one sense, it came about sort of seven or
eight years ago. Where we were looking at it was
a combination of social media. It was looking at the
way in which people were getting more and more extreme,
a lot of people in the world getting more and
more extreme in their views, and it just seemed harder
to be for Bill without the talk to each other,
harder to feel without the rationalized, harder to be able
to think the other side. So we just let's put
(02:37):
together all the stuff that makes up good thinking. It's
almost like a bit of a recipe book, and you've
got all those ingredients there. You can learn about them,
you understand that needs like a couple of minutes to
take in each and you mix them all around.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
If every person the flavor of the taste is going
to be the same, but at least every he goes
this is.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
What good thinking looks like.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
It will help you make a decision, I will help
you able to talk to my kids, will be able
to help have those conversations with my kids and yeah,
and make.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Good decisions as well. So that's that's where it came from.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Michael. We live at a culture that really rewards individuals,
in other words, being able to think for yourself. There
are there are other cultures that are extremely collectivist and
reward conformity. Both have their advantages, both have their disadvantages.
What I'm curious about is this, what is our education
system rewarding right now, conformity or critical thinking.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
I think a lot of education says it rewards individuality
and rewards the individual response.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And the thing that comes out of discussion.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I do think in the general system there's still a
lot of we we know what we want to read
at the end, and we know what we want you
to produce, and we know what a good essay looks
like and so on.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
I'm sorry, So I think.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
That the aspirations to be very, very individualist is more
than what ends up happening at the other end.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Thinking about what you're just saying now, Michael, I'm reminded
of something that I often say when I'm running my presentations,
and that is that one of the most valuable skills
we can give to our children is the ability to
stand in front of an audience and prosecute an argument,
to be able to stand up and argue their point
of view, and to do it effectively. I'm not arguing
that debate should be compulsory in school, although I think
that it probably would be kind of handy if more
kids knew how to do that. But that capacity to
(04:28):
do so, like thinking said Henry Ford, is one of
the hardest things there is to do, which is probably
why so few people do it. That's paraphrased. But if
you're going to argue that we've got to be able
to think for ourselves, which is what the book is about,
to me, that means that we've got to be able
to You can't think well if you can't write well
(04:49):
and can't speak well, because writing and speaking demand a
degree of specificity and articulation. That means you're thinking has
to be clear. Yes, when it comes to creating clear thinking,
What are our biggest impediments? Because I would argue that
not only children today, but people at a fairly general
(05:11):
level aren't engaging what i'd consider to be deep thinking
and profound thinking and switch turning on life changing thinking.
What are the obstacles to really deep, thoughtful, considered thinking.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, the first is attention span, and probably the second
is attention span as well.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Sorry, I just got distracted what you're saying. The first
that was a joke because you were span. So we've
got attention span is the as a critical factor, a
critical stumbling block. It's funny to say that. I know
that there are others that you're going to mention as
challenges to deep thinking and thinking for yourself and critical thinking.
(05:54):
But I don't know if you saw or not. But
recently John Burn Murdoch from The Financial Times published a
fascinating analysis of a study out of America. It's called
the Understanding America Study, and what he found is that
in the youngest generations at the moment, that is our
sixteen to thirty nine year old so we're talking about
(06:16):
our gen z's, it will certainly be jen alpha thingk
although they were't included in the study, but our gen
z's and our millennials has seen a dropping conscientiousness over
the last ten years, that is by magnitudes greater than
anything else, an increase in emotional instability otherwise known as neuroticism.
They've seen a drop in agreeableness, a drop an extraversion,
(06:37):
and they've seen distraction and carelessness rising exponentially. Perseverance has
fallen through the floor. So when I think about what
you've just described as the critical first barrier to deep thinking,
to thinking for yourself, what I'm really hearing is that
attention span, that capacity to just focus on one thing
(07:00):
you look at all the data seems to be pointing
in the same direction. That is that that first key
thing is is just it's not there anymore.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yeah, We've started the kids of it and my wife
and co author, Fiona It works with kids at university
for two hours how to go and says her biggest
job is to get them to attend and to stay
focused and to stay with it four hours, because that
(07:28):
is the biggest, the biggest skill there is. And of
course all of society is sending the opposite messages. We
cut things up smaller and smaller YouTube videos and TV
than you know, five second things for doom scrolling. I
actually sat behind somebody in a train yesterday and did
a bit of a like. I just did account of
(07:51):
how long she spent on each screen, and it was
an average of one and a half seconds.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Wow. And this was like dozens of screen games.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Right, And so if your leisure time is out of
mized like that, funnily enough, if as teachers and parents
we accept it and we don't stretch that attention and
go ah, we've all got to chop it up and
just smaller and smaller bits, and you know guys that
blend it and whatever, then again they're they're not getting
it from us. And as a result, you can't you
(08:21):
can't do the harder thinking because hard I think, as
you're saying, thinking, thinking can be hard. Yeah, and so
you've got to be able to sit there and do
it for for a good a good period of time.
There's no great quote. I think it's Bernard Russell. He
said many most people would rather die than think. In
fact they do.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah. I was speaking to a school teacher just the
other day who said that a student had commented that
sometimes class is so boring that he just wants to
swipe up to the next screen.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
The next teachers.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Just swipe up, next teacher, next teacher. Not not working
for me? Well he gets cool by amazing. What other
barriers to real thinking thinking for yourself exist other than
attention span, the ability to focus.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
I think there's an invidious sense of influences and people
whose views they are getting monetizing making things show and
monetizing making things extreme and telling a really good, easy
(09:32):
story that people can just flow into, whether whether that's
about their gender, whether it's about their race, whatever, whatever
it is, and people can can just go, yeah, I can.
I can sink into this more extreme story and get
a little bit angry and it's yeah, and you get
you get a sense of I call it membership or
(09:54):
ownership or a sense of belonging by just being part
of that group and not not thinking about it, not
playing girl's advocate, not pushing against it, not doing that
that that hard work.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Identity politics. That's really what it is. Somebody is saying,
I'm part of this group, so therefore the group's done
the thinking for me. I'll just go along with what
the group is saying.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's that's right.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
My my, my political party says it, or the the
influencers that I'm listening to says it.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
So so I'm I'm going along with it. And you
can get that.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
You know, there's this you know, I talk about two
different types. There, there's the there's the one who radicalizes
you and I'm thinking about the Andrew Takes.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Of the world and so on. And then there's the
influencers who who just.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Talk about really bland stuff really quickly. Uh and and
that takes you away from from deep and substantial thinking
as well.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I'm talking to Michael Parker. Michael is the head of
Newington College and has written a brand new book called
Thinking for Yourself, very focused on critical thinking. Michael, when
we think about other obstacles, one one thing that really
jumps out at me is just the biases. The way
that that great quote from Ann in we don't see
the world as it is, we see the world as
we are, tell me about the biases or the one
(11:16):
bias to rule them all. If there was one bias
that really impacted our thinking and our ability to think critically,
what would what would be The one that stands out
to you is most impactful, the one that's the greatest obstacle, The.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Most impactful one is probably confirmation bias.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, yeah, I was hoping you'd say that that confirms
everything that I believed. So, so you were right, I
was right along, that's right.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
So and you've so good, I've got to be careful
with it. If there's an idea that comes from a
political party that I'm more aligned with, I go, yeah, Yeah,
that's a that's a that's a great idea. And if
I hear the same idea from the political party I
agree with less, I go, ah, I don't know about
that one.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, what's their agenda?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
What are they getting?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Why are they saying that.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Once you've got a position, as I think a lot
of people know you, you accumulate more data and more
things to confirm that story. And you're one of your
biases is you just shed information and you shed perspectives
that don't agree with it.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
And it's so easy.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
And as we as well as people more and more
get into their news echo chambers and their views echo
chambers and just talk to people who who agree with them, that.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
That confirmation bias happens more and more.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
And I try to make it a real point of
reading and listening to things that I disagree with and
looking for what a point of commonality is or what
I can learn from it because I'm disagreeing with it.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
But it's hard.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
It really is not the most interesting bias though I
can tell you about the most interesting one, Lafe.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Well let's say that one now, because they don't want
to step into a lightning round. And I mean lightning
rounds aren't known for provoking the deepest of thinking, but
they can certainly lead to provocative answers. What do you
think is the most interesting bias? And then we do
the lightning round.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Probably it's peak end by us, where the last part
of your experience takes on much more relevance or importance
in your head than the first partner. But it's the
way they found this out that was the most bizarre
they did. Yeah, it was decades ago. The researchers did
colonoscopy experiments. They got they got two groups.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Do you know I do. It's a terrible, terrible I mean,
they don't do colonoscary's this way anymore, thank goodness. But
it's a real pain in the butt, this story. But
tell it anyway.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
The story is back in the days when it was
much more painful. They got the control group and they
just did the colin oscary win for about eight minutes.
And then they got another and it was quite painful,
and they got people to chart their pain from one
to ten and it was really quite painful in the
last couple of minutes up to eight. They got another
group and they did the whole colonoscope that took about
(14:04):
ten minutes and quite painful at the end. And then
they just kept jiggling around for about another ten minutes
so that the person kept enduring more pain for much
longer that the pain wasn't as extreme. And then and
those colin os s took twenty five minutes. And then
they asked both groups who felt more pain, and it
was that first group who finished with more extreme pain
(14:28):
that said they had more pain. The second group clearly
had more pain because they had all the pain of
the first ten minutes and an other fifteen minutes thrown
on top of it, but because the pain wasn't as
bad at the end, they registered that their whole experience
was less painful. So this just this says what happens
at the end is really important, and you can take
like a family. So if you're going on a family holiday,
(14:50):
you make sure the last couple of days is where
you've got the best accommodation, the best site, the best experiences,
because that's the.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Only bit that anyone's going to remember. So that's some
practical advice.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Love it. Okay, let's ste a lightning round. This is
ten seconds or less, really really quick short answers, provocative
if you'd like to be. I mean, some of these
questions are designed to be that way. I'm going to
hit you with just a handful of them, and I'd
love to get your thoughts on these issues around thinking
nice and quickly. They're they're related to kids and education.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Okay, it usually takes me about ten seconds just to
think anything, So anyway, I'll see how we go.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Let's see how we go. What's the one moment in
school where we accidentally teach kids not to think for themselves?
Speaker 3 (15:29):
I want to say uniform hair, lateness or all those
procedural things.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Huh. What's the hardest age to teach independent thinking?
Speaker 2 (15:37):
You're nine?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Can you tell me why in one or two quick sentences.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Yeah, because they're their most tribal there least impact of
their family, but not yet looking at the whole world.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
They've just gone into what their friends think. And that's
that's something that makes you pray all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Love it absolutely Developmentally, I'm right there with you at
name one sacred in education that needs to be rethought,
but nobody's really thinking enough about it.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Subject.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Oh gosh, I want to go deeper with you on
that one. It's a lightning round. I can't do that.
I've got I've got to break the rules to do it,
and I'm not willing to. I won't rethink the rules.
I've got to come and I'm.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Not even doing ten sentence. I'm even doing ten seconds.
I'm doing it in one second.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
You're doing so well your book in one sentence, stop
X and start? Why what would the X and Y be?
Even though the book is called Thinking for Yourself? Stop
X and start? Why?
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Stop listening to the loudest and most extreme voices, Start
thinking for yourself?
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Beautiful name of thinking? Skill that matters more than knowing
the capital of New Zealand?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
That could be anything? Okay, thinking skill?
Speaker 1 (16:46):
But is it that matters more than knowing some arbitrary
fact like the capital of New Zealand?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Playing Devil's Advocate?
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Oh yeah, nice, excellent? Okay? Two more? Two more? Which
subject teachers thinking better at school and which one desperately
needs to rethink.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Philosophy is easily the best one?
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Uh huh? And at hardly any schools are offering philosophy.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, that's right. It's a big shame. I don't want
to chuck any department in it.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Come on, go out on a limb.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
What needs to rethink maths?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
You walk into a classroom, this is the last one
you walk into a classroom.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
It's really bad. I really like our math's department or
our mastages.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Well, you walk into a classroom, what's the one thing
that you look for that tells you that kids are
actually thinking?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
They're listening to each other?
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Interesting? Interesting. The book is called Thinking for Yourself. The
book is by Michael Parker and his wife Fianna Morrison. Michael,
let's wrap this up with one last What I hope
is a thoughtful question AI in schools, technology generally, but
especially the explosion of AI in schools disaster for thinking
(17:56):
or opportunity for thinking.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
In an ideal world, I think AI offers enormous potential speed, efficiencies,
but given the venalities and laziness of people, it is
I think going to end up being overwhelmingly in education
(18:18):
a problematic or even negative phenomenon. Because all of the
things that you do in things like if I can
use an essay as an example.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, the things that AI offers to do. It doesn't
that I'll write your whole essay for you, although it
does that too, But.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
You can get really legitimate things that say, let me
help you get some ideas for this, let me help
brainstorm with you. And then it's a let me get
let me like they put together a first draft.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Let me they get together. I'm writing, yeps you and
so you do that.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Let me order your thoughts for you. So it does that,
let me help edit all your thoughts, so it does
get the final polished draft, let you know, and then
the grammar and whatever, and so bit by bit it
has done the whole thing, and it's got you know,
it's got all these sort of you know, nice names
like co pilot and stuff, which makes you feel like
(19:07):
you're still in control, but really it has done the
whole thing, and we're sort of tacitly said, yep, that's
that's okay, or it's not so problematic for it to
do that. And I think that you do that, you
know often enough, and you're not learning that. The kids
aren't learning the skills at least as adults.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
We got to do it.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
And so you know, if we get it, if we
get it to you know, write a paragraph for us.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
At least we've written thousands of paragraphs.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
They the kids are learning it, and they'll they'll they'll
they'll never learn it. All.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
All they'll get is though you know, AI will do
the task for them.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
And I keep thinking, it's like Tetris blocks, Like all
the bits of thinking, they're like closed Tetris blocks, so
you know how to move them around, but you don't
know what's in any of the boxes. You don't know
what the thinking is or how to do that thinking.
So I am very can concerned about the impact of
AI on education. I accept and agree that it's individualization
(20:11):
and it's potential to be a coach and so on.
Can get all sorts of kids in different less advantaged
educational environments. It can give them a huge turbo boost
because they've got all that attention for the first time.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
But I've got a lot of concern So what do
you think?
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, thanks for asking, Michael. There are two things that
stand out to me. The first is this, what is
the purpose of education? If education is about getting the
outcome having the essay written, then AI is fantastic. But
I don't see that as the purpose of education. I
see the purpose of education is helping children to learn
how to think, learn how to structure, learn how to
collect resources, learn how to collate ideas, learn how to brainstorm,
(20:52):
learn how to do that, because that will make the
more effective more. I mean, your book is called Thinking
for Yourself. That will help them to think for themselves.
AI does not for ceutate thinking for yourself. And the
second thought that I have is in line with what
the I guess the big tech industrial complex has done
for the last twenty years in Australia, and that is
that they've bordozed their way in. They've said, we've got
(21:13):
this great new technology and everybody needs it. If you
don't get on board, you're going to get left behind.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
But at no point have they ever stood up and said,
and we have the evidence to show how this is
going to be beneficial. Yeah yeah, And right now I
just don't see any evidence that there's benefit to it
other than getting out comes faster. But that's not the
purpose of education. Education is not about getting out I
mean it is eventually, but it's about thinking for yourself
to get the outcomes out.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
I mean when the teacher sets the essay what are
the causes of World War Two? Yeah, it's not like
they're sitting around waiting for you to let them know
what the causes of World War two are.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
They that they want you to figure it out.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
They want you to they want to see how you're
going with it.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
And you're figuring out and if you get if you
get AI or whatever to do it, you haven't done
what the task was meant to do, which was get
you to chew it out yourself.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, I mean, I think that it would be so
much fun to sit around the dining table and have
a four hour, eight course diggas station while we have
an eight course discussion at the same time. Michael. I
love I love our conversations. I love the way that
you think. I love the things that you share. The
book is good.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
It's really good being able to talk and talk with you.
And yeah, you've got you've got a really good, good
frame on it all too.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
So I appreciate that the book is called Thinking for Yourself.
The author Michael Parker with his wife Fianna Morrison. You
can get it online and everywhere that you buye books. Michael,
Thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
It's pleasure, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Rowland for
Bridge Media. Mim Hammond's provides additional research, admin and other support,
and if you'd like more info to make your family happier,
check out Michael's book Thinking for Yourself. Will link to
them in the show notes and other resources at happy
families dot com dot a
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