Critical Thinking: Beyond Textbook Learning

Have you ever wondered why sometimes we just get lost in our thinking about something and have questions regarding the same? Sometimes there is a reason to think and other times our minds wander around. When lost in thoughts, thinking about solving the problems and make some decisions, we ask as many questions to ourselves and reach certain points. This is what we call “Critical Thinking”.

What is Critical Thinking?

Critical Thinking is the ability to ponder upon something clearly and logically about what to do and what to believe. It involves standards, asking questions, trying to answer those questions by being reasonable basically in a search of truth, and believing the results of our reasoning.

For example, if you want to buy a car, you will consider many things like the color, model, features, price, and so on. Before making any decisions we have to think and come to a proper conclusion.

Why Critical Thinking is important?

As humans are social animals, critical thinking is one of the most important aspects to learn, to avoid any obstacles while communicating or making any arguments or facts. It plays an important role in social change. Although in some professions it requires, it is more important to have personally to garnish one’s lives as it empowers self-discovery, learning, educating, or upgrading the knowledge. It helps in identifying, understanding, constructing, and evaluating arguments to solve the problems systematically.

Barriers to critical thinking and how to improve them:

Critical thinking is a valuable asset to evaluate information and make decisions. Although, there can be roadblocks that affect our capability to think critically. Here are five crucial areas to be aware of:

1. Misunderstanding

This may arise due to differences in languages, ideas and approaches, culture, and a lack of awareness and information about the processes. When you are engaged in critical thinking, you should be aware of certain things that don’t lead to misunderstanding.

2. Reluctance to critique

You cannot be comfortable with everything around you; the same goes with critical thinking. You can be fearful of being wrong but you have to move beyond the comfort zone. If you want to be clear or rational you have to accept the critiques or rejections.

3. Insufficient knowledge

In one of the researches about critical thinking, it has been said that one has to have some knowledge regarding a certain thing to mark some judgments or to answer things; we can only use the facts if we know how to think about them.

4. Unnecessary assumptions

Many times we make assumptions which we think are true without knowing the real facts. And when we assume anything without knowledge, we may lose the end to think clearly and logically which may cause serious problems. Always ensure your knowledge or the basic facts without making any assumptions. This will not only lead to the solution of the problem but also make your thinking free and understandable.

5. Personal bias and emotions

Usual barriers include when we try to seek only information to support our views or make the decision emotionally whether it is logical or not. We should always differentiate our emotions and ideas so that we can come to a conclusion and solve the problem with transparency.

As already mentioned in one of the points, critical thinking involves asking questions, which is one of the basic and essential calls to reach any facts. Based on the situation and problems one should ask ‘wh-’ questions as to ‘why do I have these views about?’, ‘What are they based on?’, ‘Is thinking and reaching the solution this way makes sense?’, ‘Do I need more information to reach further?’, and so on.

 

Learning about Critical Thinking at Niche Advocacy Foundation

We had one of the Intensive training module sessions on critical thinking at Niche Advocacy Foundation as a part of our internship program. We were given some topics to think critically and discuss with fellow interns. Therefore, we concluded that critical thinking could be learned, taught, and improved not only with practice but also with intensive study over the years.

The Bottom Line

Critical Thinking is a broad subject and after mentioning all the points, we came to the conclusion that it is to think of a thing from all the aspects. Before making judgments or stating any facts, one should think clearly, rationally. It is about thinking about your thinking. Analyzing the situation, evaluating an option, and asking the ‘Wh-‘questions being the primary steps to critical thinking. Do not follow the arguments or people blindly for that matter. We have our minds to think so that we can solve the problem and come to a conclusion.

A famous Australian professor, Jon Stratton once said- “The purpose of critical thinking is rethinking: that is, reviewing, evaluating, and revising thought.”

 

References

·        Pearsonhighered.com

·        Images from pixabay.com

·        Wikipedia

·        philosophy.hku.hk

·        www.talentlens.co.uk