About Fairminded Fran
This is the story of Fairminded Fran and her experience in learning about
community cats. On her journey Fran must
try to convince Selfish Sam to help with the cats, Sam, who cares only for
himself. She must also convince Naïve Nancy to get involved, Nancy, who doesn’t want to make waves and always goes along with the crowd. Fran, Sam, and Nancy
are
creations originally of Dr. Richard Paul, international
authority on critical thinking. These characters were
developed to help young children understand the importance of not only critical
thinking, but fairminded or ethical critical thinking. In the past 20 years,
Dr. Elder has developed many publications and materials to help educators and
parents understand how to foster critical thinking in children (as well as in
older students and adults).
Fairminded Fran and the three small black Community Cats adds to this library of materials. It can be used in the classroom to help
students understand community cats and how best to help them; it can also be
used to help students understand the importance of critical thinking in that
process.
