"critical thinking" is what I think parents should teach to their kids. By that I mean giving cases of deception, gaslighting, etc. and asking the kid to discern the lie and the intent of the lie. I don't think schools teach this skill these days.
They punish this skill. I was literally expelled from my high school during senior year for arguing with a teacher over her misinterpretation of something stated pretty plainly in the textbook. The teacher got furious when I stated confidently that she was wrong, and within about 15 minutes I had been taken to the principal’s office and told to never tell a teacher that they are wrong, to which I said “even if they are wrong?” and she expelled me on the spot. The expulsion was overturned about a week later but it was a terrible week for me and my parents, and I got pretty behind in my schoolwork because of it. And to be clear the problem was that the teacher was saying something different from the textbook, so this was not a subjective matter, or a question of knowledge exactly. If she had just said “ignore the textbook” it would have been fine.
I think you are working in the right direction, but you have to include lies that are believed by the teller, semi-lies that were honestly conceived but lose their earnestness through determined avoidance of self-questioning, and even honest but harmful mistakes.
