By As part of the New Education System (NES), Houston ISD has introduced the Art of Thinking course to help students develop critical-thinking and problem-solving skills.
The course, currently offered at 85 schools across the district, is part of Superintendent Mike Miles’ initiative to prepare students for a future increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence (AI) and the demands of the modern workplace.
In the Art of Thinking class, students as young as third grade are learning how to assess, evaluate, and use information effectively. The course is designed to teach them to differentiate between subjective and objective statements, identify bias, understand logical fallacies, and apply these skills to various scenarios.
These lessons are aimed at fostering information literacy and preparing students to think critically.
“I think information literacy, critical thinking, problem-solving, which we call ‘Art of Thinking,’ is going to be just as important, or maybe as important, as reading as a skill that kids need,” Miles said in an interview with the Houston Landing.
HISD has replaced traditional social studies courses with Art of Thinking for grades 3 through 5 in most schools offering the class. Students in third through tenth grade attend the course three times a week, where they learn about topics such as inference, correlation, and how to think about their thinking.
By high school, the focus shifts to more advanced concepts like conflict management, the scientific method, and using data to solve problems.
“AI is going to continue to impact our world and schools and kids,” Miles told Houston Landing. “In order to use AI well, you have to be a critical thinker.”
While the course is still new and evolving, it has already become one of the most prominent aspects of Miles’ transformation of HISD. Teachers assigned to the Art of Thinking course are among the highest-paid in the district. With salaries ranging from $80,000 to $91,000, plus additional stipends for retention, these teachers are expected to deliver high-quality instruction in a course that is central to the district’s overall strategy.
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