Critically uncritical. Reforming education in Central and Eastern Europe

A classroom in Moscow, USSR, in 1964. Photo: Thomas T. Hammond / University of Virginia Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. (CC) commons.wikimedia.org

Clearly, higher education in the region has a not-so-subtle competitiveness issue. Why is this? The first reason could be poor funding. Yet, university funding and fees structures are comparable within the EU despite large discrepancies of education quality. While many CEE institutions, including those in Slovakia, experienced funding cuts after the 2008 recession, so did the rest of European universities. One could also argue that the leading, most prestigious institutions are older and more established than those in Eastern Europe and hence, have a better reputation. However, this assumption is incorrect. The top-rated Charles University in Prague, for example, was established in 1348. The Jagiellonian University in Poland dates back to 1364, while Slovakia’s Comenius University was founded in 1919, the same year as UCLA. So, if this is not about money or heritage, then what are CEE universities missing? And more importantly, how can it be fixed? According to one new innovative project launched at Bel Matej University, the answer is critical thinking.

Four key skills

 Critical thinking has become somewhat of a catchphrase in the field of education. It has infiltrated many spheres of life. It can be found in work, school, or everyday conversations about politics. Nevertheless, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what this broad and rich skill is. On the one hand, it demands accurate and unbiased analysis of information while, on the other, it involves gathering accurate and diverse observations about the world. It becomes even more complicated if you consider all the sub-skills it encompasses, ranging from communications to creativity.

Thus, in developing a new project at Bel Matej University focused on critical thinking, we drafted a framework which identifies four key target skills for critical thinking. The first skill – analysis – describes the essential element of interpreting information, evaluating its validity and understanding information manipulation. Second is dialogue, which enables students to have open conversations and hear other points of view. The third category is understanding self-biases, which describes the skill of critically evaluating one’s own views for hidden prejudices. Finally, praxis describes the willingness to take action to improve the world around us and participate in civil society building. In our definition, critical thinking combines all four of these elements to enable us to make better decisions.

As these skills demonstrate, critical thinking is crucial far beyond academia and the corporate sector. Even if we ignore multiple individual-level benefits of this skill in our daily lives, there is still much to discuss. For instance, from a sociological point of view, critical thinking helps us adapt to the ever-changing modern world. Recent research focuses on the importance of critical thinking for functioning in today’s world, which is characterised by sociologist Anthony Giddens’ call “a society in flux”. The traditional societal values and the dominant narratives, which many of us might have been born and raised into, are disappearing as the world is becoming more diverse than ever. Abilities like deconstructing arguments, re-thinking concepts and approaches are of the utmost importance in navigating everyday life, avoiding misinformation and interacting with other cultures.

On a more practical level, however, critical thinkers are the ultimate defence against political ills. Critical citizens foster democratic development through monitoring government measures, rejecting manipulation and xenophobic narratives, challenging any unjust actions and engaging in healthy dialogue, something that is needed now more than ever. Democratic backsliding, for example, is very much a concern within the region as countries experience erosion of institutions, suppression of civil society, political polarisation and susceptibility to misinformation. Critical citizens are less prone to populism and political manipulation that often brings and keeps autocrats in power. They have a deeper understanding of democratic principles, are willing to question authorities and are more active in the lives of their communities. Without critical citizens many countries risk a similar fate to what is unfolding in Hungary and Poland, especially in the aftermath of the economic downturn as a result of COVID-19. Critical thinking may as well be one of the most crucial aspects of global and democratic citizenship. Yet, the vast majority of schools and universities in the region fail to recognise this simple fact.

Soviet legacy

The problem of education in Central and Eastern Europe has deep historical roots that date back to Soviet times. While it is, of course, important to avoid any sweeping generalisations when assessing the Soviet legacy, it is impossible to dismiss path dependency responsible for issues with the current curricula. Yet, the case of Soviet education is rather puzzling. On the one hand, the system formulated through the maths and sciences curriculum trained leading scientists and engineers and almost eradicated illiteracy. On the other hand, it severely undermined free-thinking humanities, limited academic freedom, promoted propaganda and ultimately failed to develop critical thinking and analysis amongst pupils.

The philosophy behind Soviet education pushed for functionality, uniformity and the memorisation of information at the expense of individualism, self-expression and critical thinking. To this day, post-communist Eastern Europe leads in literacy, maths and sciences in various international student assessments. Yet, the region underperforms in reading comprehension, defined as reading and critically-engaging with material. 

Slovakia is one of the countries where this legacy is especially noticeable. The communist philosophy of memorisation over critical thinking shaped how teaching is done in the country. From primary school to university, students come to class to take notes and listen to the teacher. Assessments are aimed to test how well students memorised and understood the material rather than encouraging them to interact with it and apply to the real world.

This approach is not much different at higher education level. While materials are more complex there, classes still follow the same listen-memorize-reiterate pattern. The effects of this are found in student satisfaction rates. One 2014 survey, for example, notes that the most frequent complaints about Slovak higher education were the lack of space for discussion, a non-engaging and overly theoretic curriculum, and “superior-subordinate” relationship between lecturers and students. More recently, Comenius University’s questionnaire returned some worrying results indicating that nearly 41 per cent of current students would transfer to a university abroad if given the chance. The main complaint was the emphasis on pointless theory over practical applications and critical skills. Perhaps the memorisation approach worked well back in the pre-Google days when knowledge directly impacted one’s productivity. Yet, the human-encyclopaedia ideal of the post-Soviet education system can now hardly compete with Wikipedia. The obsolete system fails to prepare students for the constantly changing contemporary world.

While Eastern European students train to compete with encyclopaedias, many western schools have adopted a different approach. Since the 1970s, a new approach to education, critical pedagogy, became a powerful force in shaping school and university curricula. In a nutshell, the technique aims to develop efficient ways of teaching critical thinking to students. Pioneered by Paulo Freire, a Brazilian philosopher and educator, in 1968, critical pedagogy aims to promote deep reflection on modern society. It encourages students to interact with teaching materials, question them and apply their knowledge to the betterment of the real world. In recent years, critical pedagogy developed to include more methods and aims. Alongside the traditional focus on power and structure, the discipline now aims to teach students to identify misinformation and propaganda, bolster dialogue skills and encourage them to become active members of their communities. 

In one sense, educators in Central and Eastern Europe are lucky to have a massive body of literature already developed on critical pedagogy to build upon. Ultimately, filling the gap between post-Soviet and western education systems is by no means an impossible task.  Catching up will require structural curriculum changes on the part of CEE policymakers, experience shows that a little effort can go a long way.

Promising beginnings

One critical pedagogy pioneer institution in Slovakia is the Matej Bel University, which recently launched a critical thinking course for a cohort of MA students. As a part of their project titled “Developing critical thinking in higher education through a coaching approach”, we designed and tested a pilot project for critical thinking and critical citizenship for one class of university students. The pilot aimed to foster critical thinking as defined by the four-part model outlined above. The overarching goal was, however, to address the wider socio-political implications of critical thinking and educate critical citizens.  Going back to the model of critical thinking, the course focused on the skills of analysis, dialogue, self-evaluation and praxis. Ranging from analysing two polarising articles on migration and debating policy proposals, to testing for benevolent sexism and self-analysing biases, the teaching methods were creative and engaging. For other classes, the goal was to initiate discussion so that the students would have to debate each other. Throughout the course, we worked with both written and spoken texts to address two channels of opinion-forming: the ever more prevalent internet and social circles like family and friends.

We could not, however, simply adopt the critical pedagogy models without making adjustments to the Slovak context. We wanted to break with the outdated trend to force the East to imitate the West as much as we wanted to break away from Soviet-style education. The chosen topics for the course, for example, mirrored contested societal issues in Central and Eastern Europe. We relied on sociological studies of societies in the region and current political developments, which frame the dominant narratives on culturally-contested issues as well as statistical data from polls like the European Social Survey (ESS).

The testing during the first class on migration uncovered positive internalised biases towards migrants. The students, however, failed to provide arguments for their opinions. They were also reluctant to alter their attitudes after reading opposing views. This suggests that their opinions widely stemmed from social circles and personal milieu, not from reflection and structural analysis. We focused on argument analysis in later classes. We also attempted to deconstruct claims, conclusions and identify the origins of stigmas and biases.

Our students were later challenged to reflect on their arguments and encouraged to challenge each other’s claims. They were more comfortable doing this as classes progressed. For instance, one of our students – who self-identified as somewhat conservative – reflected on his perception of trans-gendered people through the dominant societal narrative. Even though he was not open to having his beliefs fully challenged, they were able to trace back their origins and identify the root of the problem. We consider this a significant leap in the student’s critical thinking abilities and a move closer towards becoming a critical citizen.

Progress starts somewhere

The pilot study has shown considerable progress in our students’ ability to reflect on their worldview, as well as their ability to challenge and deconstruct opposing views. We were surprised by the significant transformation and development they made and were encouraged to see a constructive, reflective discussion forming. The course also received overly positive feedback. Our students felt challenged and heard. Yet, we were also surprised to hear, quite explicitly, that some of our students did not feel ready to change their opinions despite recognising societal and family biases. This taught us a lesson as well. As educators, we should not instil one opinion among our students. Quite the contrary. As our students demonstrated a willingness to reflect on their worldviews, educators ought to provide guidance and space for such reflections.

Seeing the progress of our framework, we are staying true to our belief that critical citizenship can contribute to positive social changes in Eastern Europe. We aspire to expand this initiative to other countries in the region. If we were able to see this progress in only two months, imagine what can be accomplished within an academic year. Critical thinking is an essential part of modern education whether CEE policy-makers agree or not. Through educating the next generation of active, open, analytical, self-aware citizens, we can insure ourselves against multiple political and social risks.

Critical thinking courses are certainly only a small step towards reforming the entire Slovak system. Yet, it is a good place to start. Let it thus serve as an inspiration to educators and policy-makers. After all, with more initiatives like this, the region may soon get to take part in the exciting business of university ranking snobbery.

Darya Podgoretskaya is a Politics, Sociology, and East European Studies student at University College London.

Anna Theodoulides is a student at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London.

critical thinking, education