TL;DR: Try to question what you do whenever you can, especially in education

We often do things simply because that’s what we’ve always done. Rational Thinking asks us to consider why we do things and reevaluate them as times change (“update your beliefs”). You see this all the time in Methods of Rationality; as Harry is introduced to a new society, he is constantly asking, “Why do we do it this way?”

In my own life, I was eating an Apple one day, and reached the core. I went to throw it away, and Ellie asked me why. She then proceeded to eat the apple’s core. It had never occurred to me to wonder whether the Apple core was edible; no one else ate apple cores, so I didn’t eat them.

In the context of education: why do you teach the way you do? Because you saw one of your professors using this technique? Do they have evidence that it works better than other techniques? How do you know that lecture works better than interactive activities? “Because that’s what everyone’s been doing” is not a rational reason!