Thinking Critically

While reading Coming of Age I was startled by the amount of money we spend on incarcerated people compared to students (Brighton, 103).While there is no debate over the fact that we are not spending money effectively and with proper education we would have to spend less money on Correctional facilities, you also need to look at the facts they gave us critically (which I didn't do at first). I was very intrigued by this fact so I was sharing it with some friends, when they made me analyze it deeper. We provide 24 hour a day care with all meals to incarcerated people, while we only spend 7 hours a day on students with few amenities. If you break it down that way, we spend $1,125/hr on a person in jail, while we spend $1,242 on a student per hour. I bring this up, because later on in this chapter it discusses how we need to train students to be "discerning about media they consume and the advertising to which they are exposed." (Brighton, 114) When I first read the stats on page 103 I was shocked, but I didn't analyze it critically like the chapter later on says we need to train students to do. I find myself being very critical of some things I read (i.e. political articles) but then are less observant at other times, how can we teach constant critical thinking skills?