Critical Thinking + The X Factor: The Real Tao of Steve

The passing of Steve Jobs last week impacted me in more ways than I imagined. I think that we’ve all come to expect his innovation and gadgetry and take for granted the many tools he’s provided that have become essential to our daily lives. But reading the columns from his friends and admirers, and watching his 2005 Stanford commencement speech, I realized how much of a maverick and revolutionary he was, and how much of a nonconformist! In his own words (paraphrasing Robert Frost), he took the road less traveled by and that made all the difference.

Why this hits me so hard is that Jobs was not only a critical thinker on the deepest of levels but he believed firmly in pushing boundaries and turning commonly held beliefs on their ear. He literally thought outside the box and created computers that reflected that aesthetic. He was always thinking “what if?” and then working with his dynamic team to make it possible. He wasn’t afraid to fail, or to be well-ahead of the curve, and because of that he fell on his face more than a few times. But he succeeded far more than he failed, and, as he said himself, his failures or seeming mis-steps were key to his future triumphs.

The lessons from Steve Jobs’ life are those that we should be teaching our students today. We should be teaching them to be creative, to push the boundaries, and to think outside the box. We should be emphasizing critical thinking above all else and teaching students to follow their instincts. While I’m all for logic and reason, there is something that we’re losing when we emphasize those to the detriment of that unnamed factor that separates “genius” from “average.” All the logic and reason in the world would not lead to the invention of something like the iPhone or iPod. That took something else; and thank goodness Steve Jobs listened to it (as he put it, ‘your gut, heart, karma, destiny, or whatever you want to call it’).

In our small way, we are trying to do that with Gleeditions. We are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with digital texts, and we are promoting critical thinking skills by always returning students’ focus to the text itself so that students can deeply consider what is being said and why, and then apply that to the bigger picture. While we don’t claim to be in the same realm as Steve Jobs, we are proud to be on the same wavelength.

So, here’s to Steve Jobs and his amazing life and legacy. And here’s to all of the educators out there striving to provide more for their students to think about than rote memorization. And, finally, here’s to the hope that we become a nation of critical thinkers who will follow our hearts, rewrite current rules, and create the next wave of incredible literature and inventions.