How does a teacher create understanding that leads to empowerment in his or her students? What can be done to impart value on the urgency of seizing the moments we call hours and days?
Why should new generations of students care enough to make themselves mighty? Where are the Frederick Douglass’s of our time? Are we not them? Is the time of greatness past? What needs to be instilled to create champions out of ourselves?
Is it so that modern culture anticipates and downplays the rise of our greatness, switching it for a commercialized version of human achievement and performance?
Can it be so that we are oppressed, and don’t even know it?
What is a critical thinker and why are they so valuable to society?
What are critical thinkers capable of producing?
How do we teach critical thinking?
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The numbering of the above questions was not done in reverse of importance, but in reverse of impact to your intellectual digestion of the thought process being conveyed. A critical thinker is independent in thought and that requires intellectual bravery and ingenuity. These ask questions to themselves, seeking truth, observing balance, and introducing morality into each perspective. Critical thinkers lead in the establishment of setting parameters towards sensible, respectful discussion with others, acting as defacto umpires, even as they take the lead in edging conversation forward. More so, critical thinkers anchor their motives not to what is the best available outcome of a conversation, but to having conversations which communicate care above the development of verbal and written communication. In this manner, critical thinkers are identified by others as fair and balanced and independent of seeking self-advantage.
The value these bring to society is immeasurable. The ideal of democracy is sustained with critical thinkers because they call out unfair or shallow discussion points and introduce better tracks of communication which may lead to solid, practical solutions. Critical thinkers don’t just ‘get informed’ through the reading of newspapers, the listening in of television news shows, or combing over social media news, but are ‘output creators’ of content warping local and national conversation on social issues towards greater coherency and intellectual purity. Again, the ability to raise the democratic level of discourse, stop senseless ‘dead end’ sensationalism and re-compass discussion adds gravity to the founding principles on which the United States of America was founded upon.
Take for instance the discourse in both Continental Congress’s nearly two hundred and fifty years ago: John Adams, our second president and father to a future president in those times, appears to have been the driving force that pushed critical thinking amongst the congressional delegates. He was a Christian who read scripture and tirelessly circumvented between cities and towns spreading critical information that sustained and moved people to have hope in a future of self-governance. In the Continental Congress itself, it was Adams who cajoled Thomas Jefferson to greater rigor and action, it was Adams who realized that silent usurpers from England (now our political and cultural friend) crafted obstacles and looked to flummox conversation leading towards greater understanding that a better relationship with Britain was needed that respected the human dignity of its colonists in the ‘new world,’ and that if this was not possible, then eventually, full independence was needful. It was Adams, a simple man with no guile, who brought a zeal to the congressional conversation and throughout the colonies which got everyone from Samuel Adams to George Washington getting more serious about the endeavor to ascertain better human rights through better representation across the Atlantic in England, and ultimately complete political separation when this avenue was closed off by the English King George III.
Critical thinkers are so important then. They wake up the good fire within us and they help stoke it if and when it grows dim. Farming these intellects is not an easy task though. The temptation to make others think like us makes our thinking feel validated over the long run. Rather than having an innumerable cadre of like-minded thinkers, it is better to have a cadre of open-minds that are not subservient to one form of governmental direction, and one form of being fair and balanced, but that ARE adamantly (pun intended) resolute on thinking for themselves irrespective of the sway of a political party. Thus, the track records of decision making and political action of such will show no propensity to favor one politic over another, but to favor the caring of humanity OVER the caring of the constructs humans make. Be these constructs political parties with their perspectives, or popular social issues which have arisen from individuals at the local level or through national organizations and governmental agencies.
Each new generation of humanity ‘should be given the bone’ that critical thinking creates freedom and safeguards liberty, starting with their own individual freedom and liberty. Likewise, each new generation should be cautioned to be aware that efforts and constructs exist to codify such minds and hearts to magnetize towards particular special interests. This is important. You can’t achieve lasting and meaningful positive social breakthroughs if you have not first achieved intellectual liberty as an individual. To do so, the toning and strengthening of the mind is paramount. In 2017, Dinesh D’ Souza, an American of Indian descent, called out academic institutions across the United States of America for being steering students towards socialist doctrine. He put forth that each new generation of academic students was being afforded one political perspective in a consistent manner over another. He said, if I understood him clearly, that American academia was overly socialist-progressive, or leftist, instead of engendering students to be open-minded critical thinkers. In his very human way, sometimes with greater delicateness than at other times, Mr. D’ Souza emphasizes the need for a better political balance through the rise of genuine academic institutions that favor the respecting of human intellect as older generations help form and mold these. D’ Souza signals out that part of the great political divide of American citizenry is a consequence of such educational imbalance.
In such a fishbowl, can new and mighty men and women naturally rise to be leaders? Surely, we have a great many vociferous minds and hearts that lead in local, national and global discourse, but many of these pay tribute not to altruism, but again and again to one set of politics. I posit that the creation of critical thinking minds can happen at any time, and in any country that has respect and appreciation for the importance of human rights. Education is the key to this kind of intellectual liberation, though. How can we have the wherewithal and confidence to positively warp the direction of social issues if we ourselves do not have the understanding of how an individual can powerfully and positively affect society? Far too often, we see what happens in the absence; instead of using our words we get physical, we fight and kill each other.
“Knowledge is power,” then, but the critical, altruistic application of knowledge is power in motion. Teachers and parents are on the forefront of protecting and creating individual freedom and liberty. Better than getting our children to think like us, we teach them how to think about what they hear, see, and read. We teach them to ask questions that compare and contrast using real-world issues as appropriate as possible. We teach them to be intellectually strong and to stand on their own two feet before running with the crowd immediately. We support them being writers of words, that they may ponder and practice deliberation. We support their minds and hearts by not having them be constant receptors of information, which does not allow them to rest from informational digestion. We call on them and make family time to turn the tables and make them conscious creators of information. This starts at dinner time with a family conversation. Start small. As they get older, we seek to have them try new stations of creativity. The arts and music are excellent for this. We develop routines that build on their sense of accomplishment, that they may have a historical experience of success that makes them feel inwardly strong. We also support them through our living. How do we participate in the local and national discourse? How do we respond when others devolve discussion? Do we depart from using our thinking side and move straight into a reactionary response? Our choices matter at all times. It is a new era of caring. I will say that one more time, it is a new era of caring. We can do better for ourselves and each other in raising the quality of our hearts and minds. It starts at home, in school and in our community.
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