Erin,
You make a very good point about how critical thinking is refined and expanded with experience. So much of what is perceived as critical thinking is just a superficial approach rather than in-depth critical thinking. Your example of the allergy symptoms verses allergen source is a good way to explain how "critical thinking" is often done.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I believe critical thinkers can adjust to the ever changing situation. For example if you work in an emergency room and a patient comes in with a problem, a critical thinker takes in all the details and then goes through all the possible outcomes. What could they have? They begin through research or analysis to build a knowledge base to determine a diagnosis. One can't just look at a problem and say I think the answer is this. They need to analyze the facts and then look at all incoming factors to put forth the best answer or solution to the problem. So many times the students want to give the simple answer to a problem which in the long run is wrong. They don't take into account why something is happening therefore they aren't resolving all of the problem just bits and pieces. An example I like is allergies. We often just want to mask (alleviate) the allergy symptoms without finding out what the allergen was and can it be eliminated.
Larry,
I so agree. I am amazed at how many students today want to be "given" solutions rather than going through the process you describe to solve problems. The crawling inside of the problem I think causes them a lot of grief because they don't want to spend time inside the problem they only want to hit a button and solve it so they can move on.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
One of my professors once said to me that if I hadn't turned the problem inside out, looked at it from every angle, and crawled inside it, I couldn't be sure that I really understood the full ramifications and therefore my solution might be flawed. From that I learned that probing analysis is essential to critical thinking. Later, while attending a seminar on writing mysteries conducted by the late Ross Thomas, he said that he never writes from an outline, for if he isn't surprised the reader can hardly be expected to be surprised. While all good solutions need to be valid, creative solutions are not always obvious simplifications. The groundwork is analysis. And sometimes the reward is a surprise: unique and valid. And finally, as I learned form writing a few novels, self editing is the toughest skill to acquire. It is also the most valuable. Elmore Leonard famously said that he knew what to eliminate by what he labored over the most, or what he felt was the most beautiful line he'd every written, since in neither case did he feel they advanced the story. In the critical thinking process, we need to davance the narrative toward solution. While there may be many comments or views, not all move toward solution. Doesn't mean we should toss them, since they may prove valuable at some later time.
The critical thinker researches, verifiies sources, crawls inside the problem and explores alternatives, before proposing solutions, and then, finally, he verifies and edits. Hard to learn, hard to teach, but it is the best education.
