Teaching Teens to Think in a World That Doesn’t Want Them To

Public schools are failing to teach independent thought. I built a course to change that.

The Theory I Set Out to Test

This summer, I set out to test a theory I’ve held for years: that teenagers want to learn how to think — but they haven’t been given the opportunity.

Beneath the eye-rolling cynicism they often perform in public, there’s a quiet fear that they don’t know enough to survive in the real world, and worse, that no one expects them to.

I’ll go a step further: I believe many young people are drawn to ideas like communism not because they’ve reasoned their way toward them, but because they’ve been demoralized. Too many adults have underestimated them — inflating their grades, tiptoeing around their emotions, and doing their thinking for them in the name of “protection.” Protection from discomfort. Protection from disagreement. Protection from exclusion.

But what happens when kids are treated as if they’re fragile and incompetent?
Why wouldn’t the idea of looting “the producers” sound appealing to someone who’s never been taught to produce anything of value themselves?

Why wouldn’t a call to “join the movement” sound empowering to someone who’s been told that inclusion is more important than knowledge, or that belonging matters more than intellectual integrity?

And why wouldn’t cynicism, envy, resentment, and helplessness feel like the only honest responses to a world where you’re never taught to think for yourself?

What I Saw in the Classroom

I asked these questions last spring as I watched thousands of college students set up encampments, defend terrorists, and call for a communist revolution in America. The answer seemed obvious: we haven’t given them any reason to think differently.

In most high schools, students aren’t asked to grapple with conflicting viewpoints by unbiased teachers or curricula. Each year they’re assigned less reading overall, and what they do read pushes a single, distorted worldview—one that ignores observable reality and trains them to see the world only through an agenda-driven lens. They’re being purposed, not taught.

My tutoring students bring me homework prompts like: “How does the author illustrate the problem of systemic racism?” or “In what ways does Character A’s misogyny affect Character B?”

These questions presume a conclusion before the student has a chance to think. Their task isn’t to examine whether racism or misogyny exist in the work—it’s to find them, regardless of evidence. When I suggest writing, “There isn’t any” or “I reject the premise,” students say, “I’d fail if I did that,” or ask, “What’s a premise?”

If I press them to define terms like “racism,” some parrot the teacher’s words, others admit, “I don’t know.” That’s often why they’re asking me for help in the first place. My answer—“I don’t know what your teacher meant either, maybe you should ask”—is meant to nudge them toward curiosity. But it rarely occurs to them that they have the right, let alone the responsibility, to ask. No one’s told them that their education belongs to them or that they have the authority to question a premise before accepting it.

Challenging Students to Question Everything

In almost every case, I’ve challenged these students directly. They come to me for help with homework, but end up in Socratic discussions about the definitions of terms, the narratives embedded in their assignments, and their right to question all of it. Sadly, many still tell me they feel obligated to complete the assignments as written—even after admitting that our conversations made them think more deeply and question not just the assignment, but what they’ve been told about a lot of things.

Still, they thank me for “making [them] think,” and often ask, “Why don’t they teach us like this in school?”

My answer is always the same: “That’s a good question; you should ask them.”

Designing the Pilot Course

I realized I wasn’t content to wait for these moments to happen by chance, during one-on-one tutoring sessions. If students were this hungry to think more deeply, I needed to create those opportunities on purpose—and make them available to as many young people as possible, not just the ones who happened to land on my schedule for some other purpose. That meant building something structured, intentional, and scalable—something I could offer to small groups, even up to eight students at a time.

So I created a four-week pilot called Words Matter: How Words Shape Thought, Influence Society, and Frame Reality. Since the core of the problem is that students are asked to accept definitions of important words without question, my course would give them permission to question these definitions, and the chance to practice doing it.

I wanted them to ask better questions, moving from “What does this mean?” to “Why would someone use this meaning?” To make that possible, I assigned readings in which different writers used the same words in different ways, for different ends.

To help them break the habit of “going along to get along,” I stripped away the high-stakes elements that shut down curiosity—no grades, no quizzes, no tests, not even formal writing assignments. The focus was on note-taking for their own benefit, and on open discussion where they could challenge me as freely as I challenged them.

Why Words Matter

Each week, we focused on one word. For the pilot, I chose rights, democracy, fairness, and empathy—four words you can’t escape in modern discourse. We hear them so often that even adults forget to ask, “What do they mean by that, exactly?” That’s the danger of repetition: it dulls curiosity. You start to assume everyone defines the word the same way you do. Worse, you might believe you know its meaning simply because it’s familiar—without ever having examined it.

We took each word in turn, examining it closely and testing what my students thought they knew about it. In our week on rights, students said it was the first time they’d ever heard about property rights from anyone, never mind John Locke, or understood why they mattered to individual freedom. Several told me it made them seriously question everything they’d been taught about capitalism being “evil,” or housing and healthcare being “rights.”

When we discussed democracy, students admitted they’d always wondered why we didn’t just use a popular vote for president or decide every issue directly—until reading Madison’s Federalist 10. One even said the idea of direct democracy now scared her, when before she’d thought it sounded perfect.

The week on empathy sparked the most personal discussion. Students shared how they’d been pressured to show empathy, and how that left them feeling violated. When I introduced the idea of “suicidal empathy,” they grasped instantly how irrational self-sacrifice on a mass scale could destabilize an entire society.

Every week, they needed almost no prompting—they were eager, engaged, and often shocked by how much of what they thought they knew had to be unlearned before they could be sure their thoughts, never mind their beliefs, were their own.

What Students Said

As confident as I was that high school students would crave the opportunities I planned to give them, I worried that four weeks might not be enough time to truly test my theory. Still, I pressed ahead—trying to convince students to commit more time to a non-credit enrichment course would have been nearly impossible.

My other concern was whether students who had been held to such low expectations for so long would balk at or struggle to grasp challenging works by writers like John Locke, James Madison, George Orwell, and Ayn Rand. But here too, I had to take my chances—otherwise I’d be no better than the teachers they already had, the ones who were setting the bar too low in the first place.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait the full four weeks to see results. After the very first session, my students were smiling, thanking me, and saying things like:

“I had never heard of positive and negative rights before.”
“Now that I understand the difference, I don’t think I’ll ever hear the word rights the same way again—I’ll have to think about which kind the person is talking about.”

To say these comments were music to my ears would be an understatement. The next three sessions ended the same way—with similar remarks about how helpful the discussions were, and how much they enjoyed learning a new way to think. They weren’t just saying it was useful or informative; they were telling me they were having fun.

Still, I wasn’t quite ready to declare victory. Maybe they were just being polite. The real test would be whether they responded to my optional follow-up feedback survey—and whether they gave detailed, specific answers.

After the final class, I sent out the survey and held my breath. Within 24 hours, I had my answer: a resounding yes.

Here’s a sampling of my questions, and their responses:

Which author or reading challenged your views the most? Why?

“FDR’s speech challenged my views the most because I didn’t fully agree with his idea that things like housing or healthcare are ‘freedoms.’ I saw those more as goals or needs, not rights, so it made me rethink how people define freedom.”

“James Madison in Federalist 10. He not only taught me the literal meaning of Democracy and a Republic, but also how those government systems would most likely apply in a society.”

Did this class change how you listen to or interpret political language in real life?

“I’m more aware now of how language can be used to manipulate or distract from real issues.”
“After reading Orwell’s essay on how English is misused, I cannot read anything ever again without thinking, ‘Is this good writing? Does it get its point across well?’”

Do you feel more prepared to discuss complex or controversial topics with clarity and respect?

“I learned how to ask better questions, listen without immediately reacting emotionally, and use specific language to explain my thinking.”
“Even though this will sound selfish, I feel I have a better understanding of all these words than the majority of the population.”

What skills or ideas from this class will be useful to you outside of school?

“The ability to think critically about language, avoid emotional traps, and explain complex ideas clearly will help me in conversations, writing, and even decision-making.”
“If someone asked me out on the street why I wasn’t a Marxist anymore, I would directly cite Ayn Rand’s Man’s Rights. I think people need to understand that equal opportunity should not mean equal outcome.”

The results spoke for themselves: students valued and enjoyed the chance to think for themselves in ways school rarely allows. My theory had passed the test.

What I Learned

If this pilot taught me anything, it’s that high school students don’t just need this kind of class—they want it, even if they don’t know how to say so, or even know it exists. They light up when given the chance to think for themselves, to wrestle with big ideas, and to discover that their questions matter.

That’s why I’m now offering Words Matter as a twelve-week course, available in three four-week units, each examining four new words. Students can take the full course or choose a single unit if they prefer. There’s no busywork. Instead, they’ll read works they are almost certain never to encounter in school—works that will stretch their thinking, strengthen their vocabulary, and sharpen their note-taking skills without the artificial pressure of grades. They’ll get out of it what they put into it, and discussions will be richer, more engaging, and more fun when they’ve done the reading. That much will be obvious from day one.

I’ve made the cost accessible—just $45 per week, payable weekly—because I want as many students as possible to have this opportunity. The benefits they’ll take away are, in truth, priceless.

Public schools are not doing this. I am filling a gap that desperately needs to be filled, because if young people step into adulthood unable to think independently, they will be unable to tell truth from narrative. And in the words of Mon Mothma in Andor, Season 2:

“The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.”

We can do better for our children—and we must. Our freedom depends on it.

---

Learn More or Register Now

Thanks to the overwhelmingly positive response from families, our Words Matter course is officially scheduled for Fall 2025 — with two sections to choose from:

• Sunday Evenings: 7:00–8:00 PM Eastern

• Wednesday Mornings: 10:00–11:00 AM Eastern (ideal for homeschool and flexible schedules)

Seats are limited to 8 students per section and will be filled on a first‑come, first‑served basis.
Register here.

Interested in my other enrichment tutoring offerings? Visit the Cogito Learning Center website.