I have to disagree with you here. I've found the vast majority of what I was taught followed a progression from the basics, up towards more advanced stuff, and included the "revelations" in between. There wasn't much stuff pulled out of thin air.

If something did seem to be pulled out of thin air, I asked critical questions, did my own research, or just made a mental note that it's note quite as much a fact as it's made out to be. I can't think of any examples off-hand, but probably it was with stuff in sociology, where (I feel) there are so many variables it's nearly impossible to attribute an outcome to a specific type of behavior.

I think it's up to each person to think critically, and I think each person has the power to control whether or not they "switch off" their brain. It just so happens most people choose not to.

Upvoted for agreement. It is extremely difficult to get fully grown adults to reconsider any wild opinion they've heard from a teacher. But if one must get an undergraduate education, at least get it in a research university environment where not all the professors agree with one another, even in the same department, and where the enrolled students are diverse enough to bring on campus a lot of different points of view.

The concern you have about most educational environments is why I'm an "unschooling"-leaning eclectic homeschooler for my own children. There are at least biological drives ensuring that my children will disagree with me [smile], so they all learn to question one teacher.

Most of what you learn (in school) is stuff you HAVE to take on faith. Are you going to empirically verify the concept of covalent bonding? Are you going to figure out Kreb's cycle from first principles? Will you deduce the results of the Civil War based on it's causes?

If it was limited to subjects where students could study the evidence and come to their own conclusions, school would quickly end up being useless...

We would still have math. Or most of it.

I haven't had any professor in an upper level (300 or 400) class expect anyone to take in what they say as absolute truth. They usually welcome students questions as an opportunity for discussion. The only times they don't seem to is when trying to cover something new and someone doesn't want to move on.

In lower level courses, where straight up lectures are more common, professors are more inclined to simply teach the facts instead of trying to create a(n unmanageable) discussion between 50+ people. Which is understandable. And they (usually, at the beginning of the semester, at least) stress that they have office hours or are available at other times if someone wants to continue talking about a topic for whatever reason.

But these are my experiences, maybe I've just been lucky?

Man, I've been in large lectures where there 200 students in a classroom and the professor tolerated completely inane arguments to try and teach just one student the material.

If you're in a class and you don't think what the professor is saying is right, either ask a question or write a note so you can follow up on it later.

Not once in my undergraduate career was I expected to turn off my brain and go on cruise control just because the guy down in front was an expert.

Honesstly, I feel like my whole benefit of my academic career was taken from sitting in a class, not understanding what the fuck was going on and then struggling to understand or contradict what I was being taught.

that's a big problem I had with undergrad, and is directly related to the reason I dropped out.

Critical thinking has become a second-class citizen in our educational system.

I'm not just being flip by saying this: You went to the wrong school.