The Power of Critical Thinking: Barbara Mojica on Education, History, and Authorship

Determination and curiosity can transform a life. Just ask Barbara Mojica, who grew up in a modest New York City apartment to become the first college graduate in her family, an accomplished educator, historian, and author of children's books that inspire critical thinking through historical exploration.

Throughout our conversation, Barbara transports us to the breathtaking Hudson Valley where she now lives, painting vivid pictures of a region steeped in American history. From the spot where Henry Hudson first met native children (giving Kinderhook its name) to Martin Van Buren's residence and buildings bearing plaques of their original purposes, this living historical landscape provides the perfect backdrop for her writing. For anyone fascinated by American heritage, Barbara's insider perspective on this Dutch settlement founded in 1665 is worth the listen alone.

What truly distinguishes this episode is Barbara's passionate defense of historical literacy and critical thinking in an age of instant information. She articulates how modern education's focus on standardized testing has compromised students' ability to discern fact from opinion—a skill traditionally developed through historical inquiry. Drawing from her transition from general education to special education, Barbara offers thought-provoking insights about how different learning styles require flexible teaching approaches, something increasingly restricted in public education. Her motto, "If you don't know your history, you don't know what you're talking about," encapsulates her mission to equip children with tools to uncover truth beyond the algorithm-driven answers they typically accept without question.

Have you considered whether your child's education develops true critical thinking? Subscribe now to hear Barbara's recommendations for alternative educational approaches that might better serve your family, and discover how her "Little Miss History" book series is teaching children to explore forgotten historical facts while forming their own solutions to complex problems.

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Chapters

• 0:57 Meet Barbara Mojica
• 4:47 Life in Historic Hudson Valley
• 15:19 Building a Supportive Author Community
• 24:31 Why History Matters
• 33:19 Education System Challenges
• 39:30 Final Thoughts and Contact Information

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:38

Welcome back to one on one with Mr you. Of course, I'm your host, Mr Yu, in studio with us today, Educator, historian and author of several books. Barbara Mojica is in the house with us today. Barbara, good morning.

Speaker 2: 0:53

Good morning Yusuf. How are?

Speaker 1: 0:55

you.

Speaker 2: 0:57

I'm doing great today. How are you doing?

Speaker 1: 0:59

Fantastic, fantastic. We had a fantastic pre-interview chat and I definitely want to get into as much of that as we possibly can with the time that we have A lot of today, but great chatting with you so far and I think our listeners are going to love to hear a lot of your stories and your insights. So, as customary with our hosts and with our guests always ask tell us about your upbringing. What was life like for young Barbara? Where'd you come from? How'd you grow up? Tell us about that.

Speaker 2: 1:25

Well, okay, I grew up in Ridgewood, which is in New York City. It's a little town that straddles the Brooklyn and Queens boroughs of New York. I grew up in a brick attached six family apartment building which was I guess you would consider it a upper low class neighborhood. We didn't have a lot of money, but my parents were great. I was always very self-motivated and I think that that is the thing.

Speaker 2: 2:06

Determination and curiosity are the two things that pushed me along in life, and even though my parents were both children of the depression and they were not highly educated, neither of them finished high school.

Speaker 2: 2:23

Myself, I was very motivated to become the first in the entire family to graduate college, and I did that. So I pushed myself, and I firmly believe that anyone has the ability to succeed, no matter what their circumstances. So that also propelled my interest in travel and finding out about new people and new places. We didn't have a car, so we didn't do much travel, so I was determined that when I was on my own, that's exactly what I was going to do, and that's what I did. So, combined with my love of history, I got myself through college with graduate and undergraduate degrees in history, and then my love of travel also coincided with the history, so that blended into my career, and now that I am retired, I am combining those two passions by writing my books for children, which are intended to inspire them and entertain and also give them the skills that will enable them to become tomorrow's leaders.

Speaker 1: 3:46

I love it. I love it. A lot of what you shared brought back a lot of memories for me. I'm originally from Brooklyn. When I hear some of that I'm like, ok, I was in a brownstone, which is how I grew up, so they were very, very popular back then. I think they still have them around. So I don't think it's a phase, but that's how I grew up. I thought it was beautiful. I mean, I don't think we were rich. I'm pretty sure we weren't. I don't know if we were poor and just right above water. I don't really know what our status was. It was kind of hard to tell, but it was really a beautiful life. So to hear that, I love that.

Speaker 1: 4:22

I love hearing about where people come from and what they experienced in their life. And you, you've lived in, or you live in now, the historic Hudson Valley area, which I've always been kind of enamored with. I'd love for you to share briefly a little bit of history. The food that you have there kind of paint a picture for what it's like to live in the Hudson Valley area. A lot of folks that listen to our show, like myself, like their host. They love to travel, they love to experience new things, like you as well, and I love to kind of get a picture, a mosaic if you will, of what it's like in Hudson Valley the food, the views, the historical aspects of it. Share some of that briefly, if you can, that'd be great.

Speaker 2: 5:01

Okay Well, the Hudson Valley, if you can, that'd be great. Okay well, the hudson valley. Uh is a very historic area, of course, henry hudson's. He sailed up the hudson river and in fact I live not far from the spot where he got off the ship. And children, um of the of the natives who lived in the area, came out to greet him, and so he named that area Kinderhook, which means bend in the river and children. So it was the children who came out to greet him at the bend of the river, and that is where I live now.

Speaker 2: 5:43

I live in the town of Kindererhook oh okay, and uh, I can walk out my door and find historical markers everywhere, so almost within walking distance. Uh, I have um martin van buren's house, and he was the first president who was literally a native of America. He was the first native-born president. His home is here. We have an old Dutch schoolhouse. We have the tradition of Ichabod Crane. We have local everywhere you go. You'll Dutch village and it was founded in 1665. So it was originally a Dutch settlement.

Speaker 2: 6:54

We still have the waterfalls from the old lumber and cotton mills that were in the area and what's really interesting is when you walk through the town they've retained little placards on all the buildings that tell what the buildings were originally. So one will say furniture maker, one will say drugstore. They will tell you what they were originally. So it's really phenomenal. I can go to FDR's summer home and his historical museum in Hyde Park. The Vanderbilt mansions are near here. Uh, olana, the beautiful um architecture of Olana, which is a monument, also has uh the uh influences of the Hudson river school of painting Not familiar with that one no-transcript. So it's really amazing. And of course, the Revolutionary War a lot of it was fought in this area. You can go to Saratoga and see A lot of history there.

Speaker 1: 8:34

A lot of history in that area.

Speaker 2: 8:37

And as far as the food, well, it's pretty multicultural. Here you can find evidences of the traditions of Dutch, of English, but also there are a lot of people who come from New York City and visit, especially in the summer, so the culture has kind of blended that as well. So the culture has kind of blended that as well. So in our local families are our customs, our traditions, the clothes we wear, the food we eat. But then as children grow older, they learn how that fits into their local community, the community in which they live, and then of course, eventually they are able to see how that relates to the world. And by knowing where we came from and how we got to today, hopefully we can use that to create a plan, to create a better legacy for the future. So my little character in my books has a motto. Our motto is if you don't know your, your history, you don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 1: 10:06

And that's exactly the message that I'd like to get across okay and we'll definitely get into the history talks not quite yet, just yet, but we're definitely going to get there. I want to ask you a question, because there's so many millions and I guess I'm one of them now so many millions that lived in their hometown, especially in in the upper East Coast there, and when they become adults they move to the South or they move West. What made you stay in the New York area, where so many have left to maybe afford the snow or just because they want to retire in a sun-air climate? What made you stay?

Speaker 2: 10:46

Well, I like the seasons. You know, I liked the four seasons. I like change. I love the area of course, very long time from the time I was very young and it has always been my favorite place. So, while I did leave the city and I do enjoy the calm and the peacefulness- Of course, great place for a writer that just makes sense. Oh, yes, yeah, it is.

Speaker 2: 11:39

It's hard to write in the city and neither of, well, my children, neither of them live in the city any longer either. One of them has gone down south and, uh, the for work and, and the other is also in the Hudson Valley, but not particularly close to me, but also in the Hudson Valley. So I kind of, in that one strange sense, wanted to stay with my roots there.

Speaker 1: 12:15

That makes sense.

Speaker 2: 12:16

I still do travel. I still love to travel and because I do write these books, I travel to the sites that I visit. So I still do a lot of traveling. I mean no, I'll never see everywhere that I want to see. I have visited, I would say, more than half of the states and I've visited probably 30 plus countries in the world. Wow, that's astounding. Yeah, I have done a lot of traveling.

Speaker 1: 13:33

That's a lifetime for most people. That's great.

Speaker 2: 13:38

Well, a lot of it was done in connection with tours. Originally, way back when I first started to travel, I did a lot of touring, some of which was you would consider your classic tour, and some tours that were kind of very unusual, very, very out there.

Speaker 1: 14:04

Wow, sounded like a story I'm going to have you come back to here about that. So put a pin in that story about the tour. That was unusual. I think I'm going to come back to that, but you have so much of a passion, in my opinion, about history and the education process. I want to step away from those two for a second. We'll close the episode out with questions regarding those.

Speaker 1: 14:26

I want to ask you something about, because I'm an author and creator as well, and I want to ask you about community. We talked about it in our pre-interview chat. I'd love for you to describe what the community is like for you when it comes to authors and creators of content that do what you do. Is it supportive, is it nurturing, is it competitive? Because people who I've been around in recent years, it always seems like it was the battle of the fittest, trying to find out who's going to you know kind of survive in the community and be at the top, as opposed to a nurturing, supportive or reciprocal kind of environment. Talk to me about the community of authors and content creators that you're associated with. Is it that kind of community? Is it supportive, is it nurturing, is it competitive? Do you decide that you're not going to be a part of a community at all. How do you approach that as an author?

Speaker 2: 15:25

Well, I would say that on the whole, it is nurturing and supportive.

Speaker 1: 15:31

Okay, what does that look like?

Speaker 2: 15:34

Well, I believe that authors can do a lot to help and support each other, because it is a super competitive business and unless you are one of the very, very small percentage of authors who happens to connect with one of the major publishing companies, they're not going to do very much for you.

Speaker 2: 16:09

You are going to have to learn to do it yourself. So if you are not with a company and there are only about four of them left in terms of children's book companies, because most of them have merged and swallowed each other up, so there are only about four of them left as we have developed the access to more and more tools of technology, these companies expect you to do it yourself. So I have spent quite a bit of time with fellow authors, you know, like myself, who are pretty much doing everything on their own, and we have developed kind of networking abilities to reach out and help each other. So one of the things I do have on my YouTube channel are a couple of videos that I did with another one, christine Calabrese, and we did a few videos helping authors to find links and to find avenues where you could look for opportunities to do book signing events.

Speaker 1: 17:45

Ah, okay, I'm with you, and that kind of thing. Okay.

Speaker 2: 17:48

And we also did a video for teachers who might be interested in writing or educators who were interested in aspects of teaching for children. So there's also a very good book which I found, unfortunately a few years after I started writing, Navigating Indie World, and that was written by another children's book author, Carol P Roman, and that was written by another children's book author, Carol P Roman, and a marketing expert, Julie Gerber, and that book is fantastic.

Speaker 2: 18:45

It tells the new writer, how to write the blurb to pitch your book, how to do marketing on social media channels like Twitter and Facebook, youtube, how to get your idea for your topic. And the most important point to me is that if you don't have a real passion for what you are writing about, don't bother doing it. So what gets me really upset when I see these ads for AI technology? Oh, you can write a children, real passion, a real curiosity, a real determination in something you are not going to be successful at it.

Speaker 1: 19:33

So I really don't understand that argument at all.

Speaker 2: 19:37

So I believe in helping fellow authors. So I believe in helping fellow authors. I do lots of book reviews for parents and teachers and I review other authors' books and I appreciate it when they review mine. I have beta readers. I have a group of authors who are willing to read my books before they come out, are willing to read my books before they come out, and I think that's a very important networking tool for people who are writing to get a group of authors. They're not really your competitors, they're really your best asset, because who knows better than another author in your genre who understands the audience better?

Speaker 2: 20:23

So I really believe that you can do a lot to help, absolutely A lot. Then, you know, because we all have our own fine way of approaching the topic. So no matter how many people are in the genre of approaching the topic, so no matter how many people are in the genre, each author in that genre is unique in many ways. So there are more ways to uplift each other and to support each other. It doesn't really pay to tear each other down, it's not necessary.

Speaker 1: 21:02

It just seems to be a constant in in. In this area, at least from what you know, my perspective has been over many years, of kind of yeah, maybe that could be true again if you are with one.

Speaker 2: 21:16

If you are with one of these, uh, major publishing houses, there's a lot less control over what you do. So if you are with them, they're going to tell you this is the illustrator you're going to use. Now you may or may not jive with that illustrator. It can create a lot of friction because your vision for the book may not coincide with their vision for the book. And in some instances that can totally change the mood and the feeling.

Speaker 1: 21:52

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 21:54

And then, of course, the marketing. They're going to tell you you're going to go to this event, you're going to go to that event, and they're going to require you to go to a event. You're going to go to that event, uh, and they're going to require you to go to a certain number of events per year they may of course, may not be the ones that you would choose to go to.

Speaker 2: 22:13

So, uh, if you're on your your own, if you're more independent or you're with a small publishing company, you're going to have a lot more input and control over your message and how it's presented.

Speaker 1: 22:30

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 22:30

Which to me is a big advantage.

Speaker 1: 22:32

Absolutely. We got some friends that have jumped in and said hello to us. The Triple B podcast is an outstanding group of content creators. They say hello to us. It's an outstanding group of content creators. They say hello to us. I remind them JB's in the house. It's an afternoon of all great insights from you, barbara. Good to hear that from our listeners and viewers. We've got time for a small handful of questions left.

Speaker 1: 22:55

One thing that I love that you talk about is the need for us to learn and understand history. Help me out. We had some controversy in recent years about certain aspects of history being erased so that people can feel better about where they are in life. But just answer this for us, if you can. Why should anybody care about history? I think, before you answer that, just think about this in context.

Speaker 1: 23:23

A lot of people feel as though if they see and hear things about bad history or negative history, they feel as though it somehow hinders what they can learn and grow in now, which I don't think is totally accurate. But I guess it's better to put things away that make you sad. I think as humans, we do that. We put away things that make us sad, things that we don't like we get away from a piece of TV show or a podcast or something through the media. We just cut it off so we don't have to see it. I think people try to do the same thing with history. Tell us us one why you're passionate about history, and also, why should anybody care about history, whether it's positive or negative? Go ahead, barbara.

Speaker 2: 24:10

OK, well, we learn a lot more from our failures than we do from our successes.

Speaker 2: 24:33

Certainly, in life, when you think about it, when you make a mistake and it impacts you, that's usually something that you're not going to forget about that easily and you will probably incorporate the lessons you learned from that mistake. Lessons you learn from that mistake. Uh, if you are successful, you're happy about that success, but you don't really force yourself to think about what were the reasons behind that success. You, if you have a failure, you think about what were the reasons that things didn't go the way I wanted them to go and how can I remedy that, how can I make it better in the future? And I mentioned before that I think, uh, we need to learn from our history so that we can prepare better for the future.

Speaker 2: 25:25

It's not that history is what a lot of people have a false impression about. It's just a series of dates and facts and useless information that, once it's over, how is that going to benefit me in the future? But the real nature of history, what a historian does, is to try to uncover the truth, and that's the basis of critical thinking which history has to have as its major premise. So the first thing you do as a historian is you try to ascertain the truth. And how do you ascertain the truth? Well, you have to figure out what was really going on.

Speaker 2: 26:21

So you have to go back to those primary sources. You have to go back to the time. You have to look at the people who were involved and how those people were connected to each other. What kind of connections did they have to each other? You will learn that from looking at the original sources the diaries, the letters that they wrote, the communications. And in early history, of course, that could have been written or unwritten, it could have been archaeology and it could have been connected with the history of a lot of other things. So it could be connected to art, it could be connected to architecture, it could be connected to music.

Speaker 2: 27:12

It could be connected to everything in the world has a history. There's always something that comes before where we are now. So that's one thing. It's the people who were living together and the influences they had on each other, how they communicated with each other and in early history, of course, there were different ways. And then, of course, written communication, telegraph, and now we have telephone, we have Internet. We have a vast variety of sources. The problem is that today it's a lot more difficult to ascertain what is really true.

Speaker 2: 27:58

Because, the communication of the Internet. We are being flooded with information, but we are not given all sides of the story. So on the internet, we go on the internet and we receive information based on what we respond to or those people that we happen to connect with on the internet, or those people that we happen to connect with on the internet, and we are being fed that algorithm. We're being fed the information that we seem to respond to because the algorithm wants us to do more. So we get one side of the story very often. So we're not getting true history, we're getting a subjective point of view.

Speaker 2: 28:44

So one of the things that we have to teach our kids, besides looking at those primary sources, is to be able to differentiate between facts and opinions. Because a group of people say it doesn't mean that it's true. And we can't come to any conclusion until we see all the events that are going on, how they're connected to each other, how the people are connected or not connected, how they're communicating with each other, what are the other influences going on. And if we just go to the internet and type in a question and go to page one on Google and find the first answer, that's not necessarily the truth, and it may or may not be a fact. It may be a bunch of information that a lot of people have responded to and have given us the impression.

Speaker 2: 29:56

Well, that's got to be the answer, and that's what most kids do. They'll go to Google, they'll type in the question and they'll look at the first page of what they see and they'll just assume that that's the truth. That's the definitive answer, whereas I would. I might go down to page 10 or 12 and find a lot of other information, because, being a baby boomer, I did not grow up with the Internet, so I did research. I had to go to the library.

Speaker 1: 30:28

Use encyclopedias.

Speaker 2: 30:30

And go through books and get all of the different interpretations. Then I had to collate all this information, look at all of those things that I talked about the connections, the primary sources, the primary sources, the other things that were going on at the time and then I had to figure out from all of that, well, which of these can I say is actually true to get my answer.

Speaker 1: 30:58

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 31:00

We don't do that today. So our kids have really not learned to do careful research and they haven't, in school, developed those critical thinking skills to the extent that they need to in order to really come to the truth about something. So one of the things I try to do in my book series is to ask them questions, to ask for their opinions, to find things in history which they may not have heard about, little known facts or little known people, people that were largely ignored or forgotten or maybe not even uncovered in history, and to bring out those examples to them and then to ask them what they think, and sometimes I'll ask them to come up with solutions to problems, or what do you think? What could we possibly do to solve this problem? Makes sense.

Speaker 2: 32:05

And that's my ultimate aim to develop those skills which are not really being developed in education today. We're largely teaching to the test. We're so obsessed with, you know, getting the reading scores up and the math scores up. And what has happened? The reading scores up and the math scores up, and they, what has happened? The reading scores have not gone up, the math scores have not gone up. We've fallen from number one I'm talking about the United States public education system to we're now about number 40.

Speaker 2: 32:40

Number 40, right Incredible In the world view, and so we're spending more and more money per dollar per pupil, and our results have gotten worse and worse.

Speaker 2: 32:55

So there's definitely something wrong. We're not meeting kids' needs and we're not allowing them to learn in the best possible venue for themselves. So some kids learn in different ways and we have to provide them different ways of learning, not this kind of one size fits all. Well, this is how you learn Sit in the classroom and do it this way and do it this way. That doesn't work for all kids which. During my career, I changed careers many times because I went from general education to special education to working with a whole support staff of not only special educators but PTs and OTs and psychologists and a whole multidisciplinary way of learning, and I discovered that children, whether they have a quote, disability or whether they are a highly functioning children, they learn in different ways and there's always a unique way that works best for each child. So I think we have to get into more of that, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 34:15

We have to have different options for parents and teachers. Teachers very often in large public schools are told this is the curriculum, you teach it this way. You cannot deviate from that curriculum, whereas it would would be a lot better if the teacher were allowed some leeway. These are the topics I'm going to cover, but I'm not necessarily going to cover it exactly the same way for every student, because not every student is going to achieve their maximum potential if we're all doing it from this one little cookie cutter mold. And I think teachers today are largely frustrated because their ability to do that has been hampered to a great degree by this conglomerate of administrators who are told this is what we're doing, this is the curriculum. Here you go, teach it teacher.

Speaker 2: 35:23

In fact, I was working in one public school before I retired and I was actually told I was in a classroom that had children with special needs and children in the general population and I was in the role of the special needs teacher and I was actually told by the administration that I could not modify the curriculum for the special needs child who was not able to learn at all with the regular curriculum and I was told you just can't do it.

Speaker 2: 36:03

I had the child re-evaluated and I actually got him put into a different type of classroom where he would get a special needs curriculum, because the administration wouldn't let me do it. So I mean teachers are largely frustrated because a lot of the creativity of a teacher is to be able to know their student and to be able, of course, and a lot of that's been lost. So parents today, you know, I encourage them to explore all the options and to look at homeschooling, to look at community schools, to look at micro schools, to look at charter schools, all the different ways of approaching education, because the traditional public school may not be the best fit for their child.

Speaker 1: 37:06

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for this. We're way over our time. I'm going to have everybody go to our YouTube channel where the episode is going to be and you can find. Drop your link there for your website where they can reach out to you, learn more about history, connect with you about the educational system. I think it's B-A-M. Authorme right, is that correct?

Speaker 2: 37:32

Well, it's littlemisshistorycom is the website I have you added in.

Speaker 1: 37:38

I have you added in on the YouTube channel there. That way they can go there and find it.

Speaker 2: 37:41

Oh, I've been also. Yes, from everywhere. They can connect from that.

Speaker 1: 37:47

Perfect, perfect. Well, this has been fantastic. Thank you for the time about education and history and being a published author. You got a lot of insights and a lot you can share and give, and I hope that our listeners and viewers will be reaching out to you. I know one said he's going to buy one of your books, so I was excited to see that in the comments section today. So I think it was excited to see that in the comments section today. So I think it was true. So he's excited about checking your book out and some of your literary work, so pretty excited there. But thanks for jumping in and being a part of this, barbara. We had a lot of insights from you.

Speaker 1: 38:18

We hope that we hear more from you in the future, more good literary work from you and more things about educational system and more ideas about history. It's been fantastic. Thanks again for joining us.

Speaker 2: 38:30

Well, thank you, I enjoyed our conversation very much. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 1: 38:33

Absolutely my pleasure. Everybody's watching and listening. You can, of course, find, if you go to our YouTube channel, youtubecom at they call me Mr U You'll see the link that Barbara's going to leave there today and, of course, all of us have our is found there as well and all links to social media. Thanks for listening and joining us. Barbara and Mr U are out of here. Have a great day.