Midway through a lesson in one of Houston’s ISD’s newest and most contentious courses, Ajani Spiller’s classroom of 22 third-graders erupts into a debate over their favorite kind of Starburst.

Spiller, a teacher at Shadydale Elementary School, asks students in his Art of Thinking class to elaborate on why they prefer lemon, strawberry, orange or any other flavor of candy. In doing so, Spiller aims to teach students the difference between a subjective statement (their flavor preference) and an objective statement (the number of Starburst in a package, which totals 14, for those wondering).

“If you notice, this is an opinion. This is based on how I taste,” Spiller says. “I might like yellow and Kevin might like red.”

Although the example may be sugary, the lesson is all meat and potatoes — and sits at the center of debates over the future of work, teaching and the controversial HISD intervention.

Teachers in 85 HISD schools are delivering similar lessons about logic, bias, correlation and other elements of critical thinking to tens of thousands of students this year — all part of state-appointed superintendent Mike Miles’ overhaul of the district. Thousands more are set to enroll in the course next year as Miles expands his transformation of HISD.

Miles, who took the helm of HISD last summer as part of state sanctions against the district, contends the Art of Thinking classes are vital to preparing students for jobs that will increasingly rely on problem-solving and creative thinking. He’s put such a premium on the course that its instructors rank among the highest-paid teachers in the district. The district also has replaced social studies courses with Art of Thinking classes in grades 3 through 5 at most elementary schools teaching the class.

“I think information literacy, critical thinking, problem solving, which we call ‘Art of Thinking,’ is going to be just as important, or maybe as important, as reading as a skill that kids need,” Miles said in an interview with the Abdelraoufsinno.

Yet, in installing Art of Thinking throughout the district, Miles is banking on a relatively novel approach to teaching high-level concepts — many of which are usually reserved for college-aged students — to children as young as 8.

There’s scant research justifying the high level of investment in the course, which Miles conceived himself and previously implemented at a handful of charter schools he ran. Some education researchers also warn that the lessons embedded in the classes are difficult to effectively teach.

Miles’ critics see Art of Thinking as another example of him deploying an untested concept on a mostly Black, Latino and lower-income district led by unelected officials who don’t represent the community.

“Where did it come from? What is it based on? Nobody seems to know,” Houston Federation of Teachers President Jackie Anderson said. “I think this is one of (Miles’) experiments.”

Art of Thinking, explained

Since Miles’ installation at the helm of HISD, the superintendent has said his goal is to prepare students for the year 2035, when the current class of first-graders will graduate from high school. Miles argues American education is behind the curve on helping young people navigate a world increasingly defined by social media and artificial intelligence — and Art of Thinking is the course needed to provide that preparation.

“AI is going to continue to impact our world and schools and kids,” Miles said. “In order to use AI well, you have to be a critical thinker.”

Third- through 10th-graders at the 85 HISD schools under Miles’ transformation model take Art of Thinking three times per week, typically for an hour per class.

Elementary students learn about inference, correlation, propaganda and how to think about their thinking, according to HISD’s written plan for the course. By high school, students cover logical fallacies, conflict management, the scientific method and using data in problem solving. Many of the concepts overlap across grade levels.

The class challenges students to think in new ways, Shadydale Elementary Principal Pandora Agnew said. She tells her teachers to focus more on encouraging students to use sound logic than getting the right answer, she said.

“Especially starting for third- and fourth-graders, that idea is new to them,” Agnew said. “They're so used to, ‘The answer’s A, the answer’s B.’”

Still, several unit exams obtained by the Landing showed teachers were testing students using multiple-choice questions, typically with only one correct response.

Due to the course’s importance and complexity, Agnew said HISD instructed her to assign her most-skilled teachers to Art of Thinking.

Teachers of the subject next year will earn $80,000 to $91,000 in base salary, with up to $4,000 extra for returning teachers as a retention stipend, according to HISD’s salary schedules — among the most lucrative teaching roles in the district.

‘A little experimental’

Despite the heavy emphasis on the new course, several educators tasked with carrying it out said they have felt confused at times about what Art of Thinking is meant to teach. HISD’s curriculum writers produce daily lesson plans and PowerPoint slides for teachers. But when the year began, most of the materials had not yet been created, leaving some educators with an unsteady grasp of the full scope of the class.

Miles has insisted that Art of Thinking’s main purpose is to teach critical thinking, but a principal and several teachers characterized the class as largely about reinforcing literacy. Another jokingly described it to his class as “soft statistics” during a lesson.

Wesley Wallace, who teaches Art of Thinking at Sam Houston Math, Science and Technology Center High School, said he’s received limited instruction about how to teach the course, leaving him to make judgment calls about what he wants to emphasize. He’s chosen to develop students’ writing skills, which seems to satisfy his supervisors, he said, but he’s not sure whether it’s the focus HISD intended for the class.

“What's just a struggle sometimes is knowing exactly what the district wants as far as Art of Thinking,” Wallace said. “I just think it's a consequence of Art of Thinking ninth grade and 10th grade being novel courses, so this year feels a little experimental.”

Wallace, a 20-year-old first-year teacher, acknowledged that several educators at his campus, including himself, originally preferred to teach other subjects. They spent the beginning of the school year trying to get their heads around what the Art of Thinking was supposed to cover.

Since then, HISD has provided more materials that have helped him and his colleagues get a better understanding, he said.

Some HISD families have voiced concerns about the course and its content.

In November, the Landing reported that an Art of Thinking lesson created by the district included a video from the conservative-leaning educational nonprofit PragerU that mocked the idea of human-caused climate change. HISD said it would no longer include content from PragerU in its lessons amid criticism from some parents about the video.

Other families said they have received little information about Art of Thinking despite its addition to their child’s schedule.

Pugh Elementary School mother Roxana Cabrera said she had not heard much about the class until she started looking into it recently. Cabrera agrees that students should learn critical thinking, but she believes the Art of Thinking course has flaws. Her fifth-grade daughter has brought home assignments that, in Cabrera’s estimation, seem more appropriate for high school students than elementary schoolers, leaving the whole class confused.

“A lot of (my daughter’s) friends copy off her because they don’t understand what’s going on,” Cabrera said. “So, it's not like they're really using their brain. … It's more like, ‘Hey, what did you put down? OK, I'll put it down.’”

Ready or not?

Training students to think critically is difficult from a teaching standpoint, said University of Virginia psychology professor Daniel Willingham, who published a 2008 peer-reviewed research paper on the topic in the Arts Education Policy Review. As a profession, education has seen many fads come and go about how to hone students’ thinking, including teaching Latin in the early 19th and 20th centuries and teaching logic in the 1970s, Willingham said.

“It’s much easier to learn facts than it is to learn how to think,” Willingham said. “You're probably better off trying to teach this in the context of other subject matter, rather than in a stand-alone course.”

Miles, however, disagrees. He designed Art of Thinking to be separate from other courses because he saw the key aims get devalued when they were folded into traditional classes.

“Everybody thought, ‘Well, let's just add the objectives into science or math or language arts.’ And they got short shrift, partly because teachers were so overloaded,” Miles said.

Before Art of Thinking came to HISD, virtually no one had experienced the course — save for a handful of educators and students at the charter network Miles used to run, Third Future Schools.

Three educators who taught Art of Thinking at Ector College Prep in Odessa said the course pushed kids to improve their out-of-the-box thinking — and it was unlike any subject they had previously taught.

“I have no idea where (Miles) came up with all this stuff. I just know it works,” said DeeDee Arnzen, who taught Art of Thinking at the middle school from 2021 to 2023 before switching to a district closer to her home this year. “I think it's a huge value for kids.”

Spiller, the Shadydale Elementary Art of Thinking teacher, understands many families may be confused about the new course, but he believes families will soon see the results. Through weeks and months of his classes, which include frequent back-and-forth checks for comprehension, their children will begin developing skills they can carry with them for a lifetime, Spiller said.

“Processing information matters,” he said. “A lot of times, you don't learn that until you get older — and a lot of people don't learn that, period.”

Asher Lehrer-Small covers education for the Landing and would love to hear your tips, questions and story ideas about Houston ISD. Reach him at [email protected].

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