Don's Intro

I guess I should have started all along like this...

Hi. I'm Don Riefler. You may remember me from such Amaz!ng Meetings as The Amaz!ing Meeting 7, where I was honored with the privilege to give a presentation on the program I developed for teaching critical thinking to at-risk youth, the details of which can be found on the web at the .Kids Thinking Critically website. I developed the program because I've been working with at-risk kids at the Cary Home for Children in Lafayette, Indiana for the last five years and I felt they both needed and deserved it, plus an aspect of their therapy ("Thinking Errors") is a fantastic context with which they are already familiar that is basically critical thinking reframed to personal interactions and self-esteem.

I have a degree in philosophy from Purdue University in 2006, and I'm currently attending again for another degree in anthropology with my eye on a master's in museum studies and probably a Ph.D in something-or-other.

I and my co-administrators (who will join this damn forum eventually) organized, developed, and presented the first skeptical event in the history of Gen Con Indy (as far as I know, and I've been to all of them) this past August. It was called "Skepticism, Critical Thinking, and Pop Culture," and it was pretty well-received. Definitely more than we expected. We covered some basics of critical thinking, some fun stuff like bigfoot, and some important stuff like the anti-vaccination movement.

We're hoping to expand next year and have quite the skeptical presence at Gen Con 2010 with panels, presentations, and (in my wildest dreams) our own info table. I'm also working on organizing a vaccination drive with one of the contacts I made at TAM7. That would be a truly awesome piece of positive skeptical activism, and I think it has a pretty good chance of working out.