Gaston Introduces New Class to Teach Critical Thinking Skills around JFK Assassination

 “Critical thinking skills are skills that are beneficial to anyone and can be used on a daily basis, multiple times per day,” Fleetwood Area High School teacher Mr. Sean Gaston said. 

Starting in the 2024-2025 school year, Fleetwood will offer high school students a class entitled, “The JFK Assassination: A Journey in Critical Thinking,” taught by Gaston. 

Gaston currently teaches a course called “Conspiracy Theories.” Certain skills taught in this class will be expanded upon in the new course. 

“What I did was look at the skills being taught in Conspiracy Theories, (media literacy, research, critical thinking, etc.) and picked one skill that had multiple facets that we didn’t have time to cover in that course and paired it with the assassination of JFK and the mountain of conspiracy theories that come with that event. Then I created a course that strictly focuses on the two,” Gaston said. 

Developing critical thinking skills in high school prepares students for entering the real world full of real questions. This new class will utilize the book titled “Critical Thinking and Logical Mastery,” by Thinknetic, to improve students’ questioning and debate skills. 

By studying the assassination of John F. Kennedy, students will learn how to develop their own thoughts and theories about any topic. 

“It’s going to be a fun class, and students are going to learn a lot about the JFK assassination, but most importantly, they’ll learn how to think about it. I don’t want to tell them what to think about it. I want to teach them how they should think about it,” Gaston said.