When someone says critical thinking my first thoughts are of high school. In all our high school careers we were taught how to think critically and to analyze thoughtfully everything put in front of us. All the novels assigned to us had to be read between the lines, and meanings had to be found throughout the book. When throughout my early reading life I had simple read books and never looked for hidden meanings layered in the text. I thought books were just interesting stories and that’s it. Then when I took my first honors English class I realized oh how I was wrong. Almost everything in the books we read had hidden meanings and was supposed to represent something greater than it was. Needless to say this whole “read between the lines” and look for meaning took me awhile to grasp. Critically thinking to me now is simply reading and looking at things, and not taking them at face value; always looking for hidden meanings that may lay somewhere deep beneath the surface of things. To not believe everything we are told and to question and think about the things told to us. Simply put, to me, critical thinking is to be smart about things and use your head. To not be a sheep listening and believing everything we are fed by the world around us. These high school English classes are the ones who helped me realize that this whole “using your brain thing” had a name; and that is was critical thinking.
In my life today I try to watch as much news as possible and to really think about what is being presented to me. To think questions such as: whether this station is biased and which way is it biased, what would that cause if they were in favor of one political side, is this story believable, is this station a credible source of information? Though having my life though causes little to no time to watch the news and this is a regrettable fact. My main outlet to use critically thinking is in my classes. In my classes I can read papers from other students, novels and textbooks. I have to analyze the text I have been given and truly understand what I am reading to learn it. This is the major outlet I have to use critical thinking, though I should use it in every facet of my life.
Hopefully with this class my analytic skills will improve and I will learn how to use them more in everyday situations and not simply in my classes. Analyzing the things around us is a very important skill that most of us do not use all the time, though we should. And hopefully at the end of this semester this class will have helped me to learn to use critical thinking in every second of my life. With this better view on the world I might start to see things that I have missed before and become more in tune with the things going on around me.
Wow high school was a long time ago for some of us! But I do remember the critical thinking that was required when reading all of those novels and honestly all I could do was get through them. I would occasionally come across an idea that I would analyze a little more and waste too much time on it sometimes. You are right about using critical thinking to be smart about things and it applying to all areas of life. If you use the sheep fed approach to information in life, you will probably end up being taken advantage of like many do. Thinking critically is an essential habit and practice that should be taken with you everywhere. It can be a great defense mechanism and opportunity finder.
ReplyDeleteI also think that if we all use critical thinking it will lead us to becoming more in tune with no matter what is going on. Being in tune is very important and can come up when we least expect it. Things are changing at such a high rate of speed now that every once in a while we need to take a step back and use some critical thinking.