CMP Review 2025-12-09

December 9, 2025

Critical thinking: it’s a skill that we want our children to have, and it’s a skill that’s in short supply.

When employers were surveyed in 2021 about which skills they valued most in prospective employees, teamwork and critical thinking led the list. But these employers also reported that recent graduates tended to fall short in this skill — more than in any other skill they highlighted.

In 1922, H. W. Household noted a similar problem in his day. “Few people see the truth of things, or really try to find it,” he wrote. “They are contented to hold opinions which are rooted in prejudice.”

But Household was not merely airing a complaint. He was proposing a solution. Writing for the popular journal The Contemporary Review, he argued that Charlotte Mason had the answer.

Read or hear Household’s vintage argument for a Charlotte Mason education — an argument that speaks to a skill gap that we still face today. Find it here.

@artmiddlekauff