I feel like I was half-taught critical thinking, but mostly, I was taught to value it. I remember adults kept telling us to use our critical thinking skills and I knew it was important but I had no idea what they meant. I look back and see traces of being taught those skills here and there but it wasn't until later that I got a clearer picture. I think the closest was a media literacy class in HS where we were asked to sort news articles as either fact or opinion and that's where things began to click for me that got the ball rolling.

For all the shit people like to talk about public school, I think they did a good job overall. I had great teachers who were passionate about their jobs, had big hearts, and knew what we needed to learn.