Bias and our hard to reach students

A friend recently posted this article about Critical Thinking:

Critical Thinking is Emotional Thinking: Reflections on a Post Truth Society by TTW Contributor Troy Swanson

When the author talks about emphasizing the need for students to begin with examining personal biases, I think he is discussing a very important thing we struggle with in higher education. I know this from personal experience because I was there as an undergraduate student. I get where they are coming from.

I think that here in Kansas, some of our more resistant students are coming from a place where they see academia and professors as liberal, biased, and hostile to their own beliefs. Again and again our students are told to examine their own biases and to question authority, which they understand to mean that they should throw out everything they hold dear. We professors don’t model this behavior very often for them. Why shouldn’t they think professors are hypocritical if we don’t ever show them how to do it?

When was the last time a professor described a time when they changed their mind because new evidence suggested they should? Students are not dumb and they sense that oftentimes we don’t practice what we preach. If we do practice it, why don’t we show them? If we don’t then shame on us.