Teaching for critical thinking by Stephen D. Brookfield
What is the critical thinking?
I want to introduce what I understand as the basic process of critical thinking
1. Identifying the assumptions that frame our thinking and determine our actions
2. Checking out the degree to which these assumptions are accurate and valid
3. Looking at our ideas and decisions from several different perspectives
4. On the basis of all this, taking informed actions.
I also propose a basic typology of different kinds informed assumptions that critical thinking unearth and scrutinizes-paradigmatic, prescriptive, and causal.
If you can’t think critically your survival is in peril because you risk living a life that-without your being aware of it-hurts you and serves the interests of those who wish you harm. If you can’t think critically you have no chance of recognizing, let alone pushing back on, those times you are being manipulated. And if you can’t think critically you will behave in way that have less chance of achieving the results you want. So critical thinking is not just an academic process that leads to good score on SATs, elegantly argues essays, or experimental hypotheses that can stand the toughest scrutiny. It is a way of living that helps you stay intact when any number of organizations are trying to get you to think and act in way their purposes.