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RE: What is fascism? A lot is said about it. How much do you actually know?
Critical thinking was a required course in my first year of university. I aced the course because it was already somewhat familiar to me from my last year of high school math classes.
Sadly. It is required in universities. Yet unless you get a good teacher it usually doesn't really teach it.
We have a guy here on steemit who has taught the course in college several times yet if you watch his material (generally videos) it is clear he either doesn't know it, or he is intentionally exploiting it.
The required course I had of it in college was "Public Speaking and Critical Thinking". It was a 1st year course that I didn't take until my 3rd or 4th year.
There was this professor (old guy) named T.C. Johnson and people said "Don't take the class if he teaches it, it is a nightmare class, take it from some other professor"
I took it from him. It is likely the single most important class I took in all of my college. That was largely due to him. Yes, it was brutal. Yet it opened doors in my mind that I didn't even know existed. Some of them it took me years to see.
We would give speeches. He would be actively outlining the speech as you gave it on a chalk board somewhere else in the room. When you were done he would eviscerate it using critical thinking.
He would point out the Glittering Generalities, and many more things.
I don't recall learning the appeal to authority, appeal to popularity, etc in his class or in my Arguments and Conflict Resolution class. I encountered those within the last decade or more on my own. I do remember the glittering generality though as it was something I used in my speech and was eviscerated for.
I got an A in the class. Prior to that class I was terrified of public speaking so much so that I would generally shake quite a bit. After it, it was easy. :)
EDIT: Time frame. I took that class likely in 1992 or 1993.
EDIT 2: It is also a very huge subject that takes time and practice to learn. So a single class if done correctly is just nudging the door open as far as I am concerned. We still need to step through the door and keep practicing it and getting better at it. That is not something universities really do for us. We have to choose to do so on our own.