Category: Critical Thinking

Our brain is just amazing, provided we give our actions and our thoughts, a critical consideration! Isn’t it?

Well, did you know that your mind is like a gearbox, though with two gears only? Yes, that’s true! Operating from System 1 or System 2. While the first one relates to your impulses, your immediate reactions even animal urges (if I can put it in a not-so-polite way). Something like you reached home from work in your thoughts and reaching your door-step you wonder, “How did I reach? I don’t even remember what I saw on my way?” that was your system 1 guiding you. Your system 2 allows you to prove that Yes! You are human. Thoughtful computation, careful efforts, deliberate practice and consciousness in the action. Here, you are not just reacting, you are responding. When you respond, “Hold on a second, let me think this through.” You are in your gear 2, I mean system 2.

We say that every child is different, well our minds are different too. So, one may see an ace of spade, another may see a floral design! Of course, both the minds are right, they are looking at a member of a deck of cards. This is about perspectives. When you want to give critical thought to something, you likely want to look at the matter from all the different angles. In fact, you may also want to be open-minded to other people’s perspective. However, that’s going to be debatable and why not? We are doing critical thinking.

While your beautiful brain is smarting out for being smart, psychiatrists have given an endless list of ‘cognitive biases’ – a systemic error in your thinking for all the worldly reasons. When you thought your husband left a wet towel on the bed, just to tease you, you might be experiencing intentionality bias or when your parents just do not wish to visit the doctor with a variety of excuse, they might have an ostrich effect going on. In a way, hiding away from reality.

And finally, when you learn to be a critical thinker, this is what you do – “Murder your darling.” That’s what we did, we deliberately researched, keeping our confirmation biases aside, about the true picture of our favourite product or a brand. Something like looking at the flip side of the coin. A side that you are most likely not going to like. In between of these, we debated on China and Covid-19 and gave our opinions on politics (not so the favourite subject of mine). At the end of Day 3, we halted at culture and critical thinking.

Critical thinking is the ability to think critically and rationally about what to do and what to believe. These workshops  helped me to think objectively. “The Debate  and Murder your darling! was something that intrigued me!” Thinking about our cognitive bias, critical thinking, and values of our traditions. It was an enriching experience. It is not only expanding our reach, but also developing our learning skills. I look forward to more informative sessions.

Thank you Aman sir and Shraddha maam

‘अत्याधिक सोच हानिकारक है लेकिन गहन सोच इलाज है’ – अमोल 

‘Critical thinking’ सभी कौशल में सब से demanding कौशल है। पहले मेरी सोच थी कि गहन सोच हमेशा ‘आलोचनात्मक’ होती है। लेकिन जब मैंने यह वर्कशॉप अटेंड किया मैंने सीखा  कि यह हमें कोई भी चीजों के दोनों पहलुओं को गौर से जांचने का अवसर प्रदान करती है और हमें सिखाती है कि कोई भी निर्णय लेने से पहले उसे कैसे जाँचा या परखा जा सकता है। इससे हमारी सोच बहुत गहन और अर्थपूर्ण होती है।  हम इस कौशल का प्रयोग करके अपनी निजी जीवन में काफ़ी बदलाव ला सकते है और तो और हमारा नजरिया भी बदल सकता है। ‘murder my darling’  गतिविधि थी जहाँ पर मैंने अपने विचारों के सामने अपने अन्य विचारों की सेना युद्ध के लिए तैयार की और फिर महसूस किया कि जो हम देखते है या जानते है चीजे इतनी ही नहीं होती। कभी कभी अपनी सोच से ऊपर उठना बहुत आवश्यक होता है। मुझे यह अवसर प्रदान करने के लिए शुक्रिया अमन जी और श्रद्धा जी।  आपने डिजिटल सेट अप में भी इस वर्कशॉप को उतना ही रसप्रद बनाए रखा जितना भौतिक सेट आप में होता है। समूह के सभी लोगोने अपने अनुभव सक्रियरूप से साझा किए जिससे सोच और गहन होती गई और वास्तविक जीवन के अनुभवों से बहुत कुछ सीखने मिला। इस प्रक्रिया के लिए अपने मन को पूर्वाग्रह मुक्त बनाकर सोचने की आवश्यकता होती है और जिसके लिए हम अपने मन को खुला रककर अपने आपसे क्यों, कैसे और क्या(inquiry questions) के जवाब दे सके और अपने तर्क को और मजबूती प्रदान कर सके। हमने अलग-अलग bias के बारेमे जानकारी हांसिल की जिससे हमने अपनी निजी जीवन में लिए निर्णय और अनुवभावों से सीखा कि कहाँ हमने कैसे bias का अनुशरण किया था। मेरे लिए यह अनुभव कोई रोमांच से काम नहीं रहा।  आप सभीका धन्यवाद !

It was newer understanding about the definition of critical thinking. The tuning in activities were interesting. The exercise where we have to do research about our favorite brand – ‘To murder our darling’ gave insight to research in and out of any product before using it by keeping in mind key words. It is also fine that you may or may not continue using same product – brand after research work. Even the exercise where to identify types of biases with our real life situation to get better clarity and to be conscious about it. Listening to others examples were also fruitful to make connection with confirmation and cognitive bias.

If I have to share my opinion about Critical thinking, It is all about understanding, analyzing, and creating perspective about any certain issue/thing from 360 degrees. This gives us better clarity about the situation, which may also lead us to take an effective decision. One of the interesting things from the last session was ‘kill your darlings’ where it is to select a product which I like and then killing it by researching its negative aspect. In the current era, there are still a lot of ancient mythologies which is being practiced and have no rationale They exist only due to misconception among people. So as per me, it is always important to use rationale in everything which comes our way before creating in any perception or learning instead of vise versa.

Critical Thinking:2020 – specifically mentioned 2020 as they virtual classes.

This year I had no option but had to opt for “Critical Thinking” as its compulsory. I was wondering what is it , whole day we spend for planning , teaching and thinking at school.

To my suprise I attended the first sessions and wanted to know more, and I do agree CT is a need in our day to day life. Critical thinking helped me know what is confirmation Bias and Cognitive Bias and many additional learnings , where in I was able to make personal connections with my personal life and the vast sharing done by the team members was really mind boggling.

As is said, bring life to the workshop and take workshop to life, I have started thinking critically in all the decisions I make or for the products we use.

Lastly, I like to thank Shradda ma’am and Aman Sir for making these sessions interesting.

 

Regards,

Anupama

 

 

 

Well, this year has started with a lot of chaos and in between this pandemic, we started our new academic year with full grit! This year Critical thinking has been one of the elements that I have chosen to work upon in professional and personal life. So far the journey has been interesting. The first thing that I have understood is that we all think and we all think critically too. But the catch is that we need to rewire our beliefs and value and paradigms to make our critical thinking skills more useful.

In our journey of critical thinking class so far we have got to know about the types of cognitive biases we all use in our day-to-day life. It is just that all of us think differently about different things. From the sharings, I can infer that all of us go through a lot of different experiences and that molds our ability to think critically in certain situations.

What I’m interested now in is to learn is how we can sharpen this saw of critical thinking skills by applying different strategies. Like ‘Murder your darling’ was a really interesting activity that makes you forcefully keep your emotions, likings, and beliefs aside and look at things in a more 360-degree manner view to better make decisions. Look forward to more interesting learnings!

One of the biggest hallmarks of critical thinking is the capacity for independent thought. It’s easy to believe or agree without consideration. Nevertheless, when we choose to think independently, as per our previous experiences.
Thinking critically opens up your mind for visualizing a particular situation from different perspectives. One develops acceptance and understanding about other people’s perspectives. When we did the ‘See, think and wonder’ activity, we came to know how each one of us saw the same thing with a different lens. It was an enriching experience. It’s not only broadening our horizon but also developing our research skills. The ‘Murder your darling’ activity definitely made us do so!! Looking forward for more of these enlightening sessions ..

 

Is it high time to encourage more critical thinking in our daily life? Most probably, yes. When we open the news tomorrow print or electronic, when we get tempted to the “no cost EMI” in flipkart, amazon this year or go out during the pandemic we need to weigh out all the possibilities before our decision. Are you blaming a particular group or Govt of your state or central for this pandemic? Are you confused whether Rahul Gandhi is right when he says “even Bangladesh is ahead of us in GDP” or “Pakistan handled Covid better than us”, don’t show your confirmation bias to look for evidences supporting your pre-determined view-point, please read the report on different websites of Pro-Govt as well as anti-Modi media houses before you reach the conclusion. Constructive criticism of the rituals that you follow might help you to understand the distinction between culture and religion. Critical thinking is something which is still lacking from our basic education system or neglected which needs to improve. Superstitions can’t be justified by fitting reasons behind it. The first few sessions of critical thinking talked about bias or having selective thinking and how to get rid of it. Overall, it was good to think critically in different corners of our personal and professional life.

Abheek C