#criticalthinking #ITARI #bestteachereducation

Watching people use critical thinking is a treat! Participating in a conversation where there is free flow of critical thinking is the most inspiring experience.  However, of late we see critical thinkers who serve two opposite ends: self-centeredness and fairmindedness.

It is not encouraging to watch people use critical thinking with a selfish intention. They use this unique gift to humankind to prove the opponent’s thinking as poor. Finding mistakes, loopholes or disproving others seems to be a misconstrued yet popular understanding of critical thinking. Unfortunately, school education encourages this understanding of critical thinking. Children learn early that winning means defeating others. They learn to argue, build weak evidence, shout down ideas, and become more self-indulgent. Let us not miss the point that this kind of critical thinkers engage in intellectual conversation as well, however, it is marked with lack of courage, lack of humility, and lack of empathy.

Critical thinkers who aim at being fair-minded, use their thinking to come up with ethical solutions. They look for strengths and virtues in others’ thinking. They are humble, honest, persevering, reasoning, and intellectually confident! This is the kind of critical thinking educators must role model, practice and inculcate.