Learning Landscape

By Dr. Judy Lombardi, California State University Northridge

The human mind is like an umbrella. It functions best when open.
Walter Gropins

Mario Rivera is sixteen and wants a new mp3 player.  He carefully researches his preferences online, talks to other mp3 owners, reads music and computer magazines, and finally settles on one that is economical, has all the features he wants, and fun to use.  Ben Thompson, also sixteen, sees an mp3 player he likes at school, does no research, goes to the electronics store the next day, and walks away with his new gadget.

In this example, Mario is open, optional, and flexible, while Ben is isolated, rigid, and impulsive.  For Ben, it’s my way or the highway, and this rigid attitude can be a bad habit that critical thinking (also referred to as evaluative thinking) helps to break.  Mario reaches out to solve his problem; Ben sticks to his own limited view.  Critical thinking tells us that some of the worst decisions we make are snap judgments, jumping to conclusions before we have all the facts.  Effective thinking is not a two-way street, but a twelve-lane highway, meaning that important decisions require a depth and complexity of thought, based on an acquired skill set with reflective consideration of many variables.

The National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking at Sonoma State University (www.criticalthinking.org), under the direction of Richard Paul, defines the critical thinking this way:

the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing,   and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.

Critical thinking has roots in ancient Greece, such as the philosophies of Socrates (dialectic and open-ended questioning), Plato (discussions of reality vs. perception), and Aristotle (emphasis on rhetoric or finding available means of persuasion). The word critical is based on two Greek roots: kriticos (discerning judgment) and kriterion (standards), thus connoting judgment based on standards.

A critical thinker gathers evidence before making decisions, seeks to enlarge personal viewpoints by entertaining others’ perspectives, and values truth over ego. Paul suggests these strategies to help students develop critical thinking:

1. Using recent events, mystery questions, or personal anecdotes to engage students at the start of lessons to “prime the thinking pump”
2. Looking for unusual combinations of ideas and concepts to create new solutions
3. Seeking alternative views and textual evidence to support key points
4. Using authentic activities that get students to do what people really do in the world, like write proposals, build models, and field test new products.
5. Using cooperative teaming to increase oral sharing and retention of ideas

Critical thinking and intelligence really don’t have anything to do with one another. According to Edward de Bono, one of the pioneers of the critical thinking field, “Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers.  Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers.  The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.”  A key problem with poor thinkers is that they see their preference as the standard- they shut out options, perspectives, and questions that might lead to more effective solutions.

Perhaps Paul put it best:

Everyone thinks. It is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed, or downright prejudiced…Excellence in thought…must be systematically cultivated.

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