摘要：“The proper business of school is to teach students to think!” has been the most widespread cliché in education over the last two decades (Squire, 1983; Paris, Lipson & Wixson, 1983; Spires et alli, 1993; Littlewood, 1996; Collins, 1998; Yang, 1998; Shneiderman, 1998). That is the bad news. In fact, despite all the rhetoric surrounding the major role assigned to education, the reality is that it is still struggling in the midst of a fundamental shift. The good news is that the cliché has a good chance to become more and more tangible among educators, materials designers and policy makers, who are starting to realise that in today’s Knowledge Era to think [critically] represents an asset which drastically shifts the traditional paradigms of power. Without a doubt, a learning environment which gives priority to the training of skills aiming at making students become critical thinkers can create and strengthen vantages of independence and autonomy for the students/future citizens belonging to that environment.
