(Re)Searching Critical Thinking in a Hong Kong Classroom: A Postfoundational Reflection on Ignorant Modernity

Abstract

Purpose This article takes a postfoundational lens to reflect upon my ethnographic (re)searching experience in a Hong Kong high school biology classroom to expose ignorant theoretical–methodological assumptions of researchers and teachers on critical thinking for new realizations. Design/Approach/Methods Using an encountered embodied thinking moment as a trigger, this article examines the texts/discourses collected from teachers/teaching and students/learning to unpack underlying philosophical–theoretical–methodological traps and ignorance. Findings The analysis exposes three ignorant assumptions. First is a mind–body dualism that has historically disembodied thinking as an abstract and invisible mind/cognitive activity. Second is a knowledge–skill/thinking divide that upgrades critical thinking as a transferrable higher-order skill above and external to knowledge. Third is a naturalized assumption that didactic instructions in Asian classrooms are not as conducive to thinking cultivation as (Western) student-centered pedagogies. Originality/Value My postfoundational reflections interrogate and expand these philosophical–theoretical–methodological grounds to reconstruct effective thinking curricula and classrooms.