Six Reasons Your Child Should Learn Logic
In Star Trek, there’s the purely logical guy, Mr. Spock, and the purely emotional guy, who is just about any other character. Real life isn’t like that–we need to be able to function both ways, with our minds and with our emotions.
Unfortunately, learning logical thinking doesn’t just come naturally for most people. But it’s an important skill. Logic traps are everywhere.
Here’s what you can do about it: teach logic to your child. Why?
1. Learning about cause and effect, your child will be able to make better choices. For example, “friends” who urge him to misuse his money and his time may find he understands what the logical consequences of such behavior are.
2. Problem-solving will be something your child can do as he grows older. Faced with any problem, such as dealing with a plugged-up sink or a broken-down car, your child will be able to list options and pick one.
3. In a media culture, your child will be better equipped to evaluate advertising. He will be able to identify circular reasoning fallacies, for example. Such a fallacy would be in the advertising slogan “Happy people buy Sloan’s coffee.” What the advertiser is actually saying is, “Buy Sloan’s coffee, and you’ll be happy.” Can your child identify circular logic like this?
4. Your child will be able to evaluate generalizations made in the media. Perhaps he sees a reporter interviewing five people about illegal immigration. All five think illegal immigrants should be given amnesty. Then the reporter announces that everyone thinks illegal immigrants should get amnesty. But that’s another logic error–generalizing from too small a sample group. Does your child see this error?
5. Your child can evaluate the qualifications of an advisor in order to evaluate the advice. For example, his dentist may tell him to floss his teeth. The dentist is an expert, so it’s a good idea to believe him. But the dentist is not an expert in car repair. Any advice he may give about your car, you should weigh carefully.
6. Your child will be able to understand how computers think. Computers think in nitty-gritty ways: if statement A is true, then do action B. Otherwise, do action C. Our brains tend to skip around in comparison. But learning to program a computer to follow a logical sequence helps the child learn to think logically, too. In the Information Age, this is a very useful skill to develop, now or later. The more your child knows about computers, the more he will be master of that device that is mastering our lives.
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