The need for enhanced critical thinking among Kenyan secondary school students as a solution to the problem of drug abuse

Abstract

This research project sought to philosophically investigate the role of inherent capacity of a student to think critically as a possible solution to drug abuse among Kenyan secondary school students. The study uses the analytical method alongside the Cartesian methodic doubt in examining the student as an inherent critical thinker, the inefficiencies of current solutions to menace of drug abuse and in proposing a better way out of drug abuse. It has been the undertaking of this research to argue that since all human beings are endowed with the rational capacity they are ontologically free beings. Given that secondary school students are human beings and given that they have the capacity to think critically, they are ontologically free. The research project found out that the solution to drug abuse is not to be found outside the drug abuser but in provocation of the actual and the potential abuser’s mind to think critically. The first cause of drug abuse has been observed in this study to be the perversion of curiosity and therefore the solution to the problem should be based on addressing ‘incorrect thinking’ through pedagogies that seriously promote critical thinking. It is the opinion of this researcher that if critical pedagogy is used over a period of time there will be no need of talking about drug supply since the probable consumers will have developed the capacity to question themselves and others before taking the illicit drugs. The students who undergo serious training in critical thinking are in themselves a solution to drug abuse. Thus drug abuse is not a drug problem but a human problem. This study offers two recommendations necessary for the prevention of drug abuse among Kenyan secondary school students: First, training and in servicing teachers in critical pedagogy and critical thinking should be undertaken by bodies responsible for teacher education. Secondly, the content and method in educating teenagers in secondary schools should in themselves be oriented towards making learners critical thinkers.