Category: Critical Thinking

We all know the term Critical thinking but do we all apply and think in all different scenarios. Is it required to apply in all things? I used to apply and questions certain things only when it comes to certain important decisions like parenting, career or choosing a good college/university for my daughters or where money was concerned. When it comes to certain values, tradition or belief system we do not question much even though I do not agree with it sometimes. But is it always necessary to question even if it affects certain relationships.Is it wrong to follow certain traditions. Sometimes we just operate with our biases, without thinking. In this workshop I realised, you can still operate or take decisions based on your biases or relations but it important  to question or analyse your thoughts critically to make an informed decision.

Critical thinking needs high order thinking and that it is an important tool for our learning process.

https://medium.com/@vsmith.bennett/are-you-a-puppet-on-your-emotional-strings-d136e579d460

“Whether we like it or not, we are puppets of our emotions. We make complex decisions by consulting our feelings, not our thoughts. Against our best intentions, we substitute the question, “What do I think about this?” with “How do I feel about this?” So, smile! Your future depends on it.”

― Rolf Dobelli, The Art of Thinking Clearly

This is isn’t a surprise to all, but we fail to be objective while we are making choices, even the most basic ones, what to eat, how to eat, when to eat and how much to eat. Turn around and you could cite various incidences in Diwali vacation where your emotions  hijacked thinking skills, forget critical thinking skills and you blame vacation, friends, family for your weight gain or indigestion issues. 

So with me, I would get easily influenced by someone who is knowledgeable, highly qualified, or someone who is well read as an authority. When I tracked my beliefs behind my choices, I realised that my culture and my upbringing was the root cause to condition my behaviour which made me such a dependent person who would always look up to superiors for affirmation and suggestions. I did not learn how to fish, and hence was hungry everyday, the knowledgeable person fished for me and I enjoyed ready made fish. Completely lazy to evaluate information or thoughts, my thought process was on a vacation, as my expert had already done the detailed research, I was only required to follow the path laid  by the superior. Bhai! kyo itni hazamat karni? I had the option to cooly put all the responsibility on the shoulder of the expert if the outcome is not favourable. Why to employing critical thinking skills? “Taayar bhojan khaoo” 

 So I came to realise this flaw in my approach and my attitude when I took up financial investments as a Goal. There I bumped into another bias and a very common one, gender bias.. all male members of my family, Father, Father in law , husband and brother were financial experts and their decisions related to future planning, investments were well thought and unchallenged. 

Bugging colleagues, guest speakers, and snatching every possible opportunity to learn about finance and investments got the best over me. My questions were received with scepticism, at times. The struggle is still on as the ones involved are my close ones and where family and relationship are involved, being puppet of emotions is common.

Similarly, I would also take IB workshop leaders as intellectual entity, and what they shared was taken word to word (tathasthu) without giving much thought. For me it was, ” yeh karna, hai and yeh nahi karna hai. Bol diya toh baas bol diyya”.There was no grey area, everything was black and white.  Over a period of time, I realised the flaw, It did not happen overnight, not till I took responsibility for my thinking. However it is still WIP. (work in progress) 

“Patience is indeed a virtue.”

― Rolf Dobelli, The Art of Thinking Clearly

 

My prior knowledge of critically thinking was during any discussion or decision making first I looked things very deeply as I want nothing should go wrong. I take out points what if not, negative most of the time. This leads to multiple thoughts whether I should go ahead or not and some where emotional  aspects were also affecting. This affected my decision making. I cannot make decision.. I generally used to get affected by people. Generally I ask others to help out to make any small decision also. I was lacking in finding out or generating evidences why it makes me say that thing or feel that way. I was not able to give or put my logical arguments against it. With help of this critically thinking classes I started  slowly looking for  strong evidences, reasonable logical arguments and then try to make decision.

 

We do a lot of thinking, analyzing and checking the pros and cons before taking any decision in our lives. But in few things we just blindly follow others or go with the blind belief system that we have. Here in critical thinking sessions we did few exercises that helped us analyse and dig deep to find and look into all the aspects of that particular situation. It gave me the understanding that before getting into any conclusions, how to check all the aspects 360 degree. I came to know about the different biases, we work with and how it influence us in our decision making. Of course it is not easy at all. But it will  definitely have an impact on the way we think now.

Initially, Critical thinking seemed to be just another familiar jargon. As it is rightly said by Scribe in Soliloquy – We are all critical to the world around. But we seldom think critically.
I assumed i am a critical thinker just because i critically think when it comes to buying a product. Looking for reviews, new trends, negative reviews, thinking of biased reviews, asking some known person about it and what not. But i think i am selective because if my decision to buy a product was incorrect i just have to face monetary loss which is bearable. But Critical thinking is more than that and i have often compromised it when it comes to emotions and relationships. Questioning my Mom about her blind faith in God has always been a  bitter experience for both of us. In such cases at any point of time my priority would always be relations/importance of that person in my life. I just wish that by too much of critical thinking , i do not stop believing in most of the things which i have believed for so many years. I am sure my closed ones would find it difficult to accept me with this new change in me.

On the contrary, “Thinking Fast and Slow” seemed to be more of similar to being reactive and proactive if i had to compare it as an extension to Seven Habits session. It would take a lot of efforts to train our mind to respond appropriately. But as per our discussions during the session, it is always easier said than done. There are a lot of biases and situations in life where we have to rely on intuitions. But at least giving it a thought to analyse the situation critically can be worthy.

Critical thinking sessions/content has helped me in conducting TOK classes with students and seemed to be very effective. I am glad that i have applied something that i have learned. One thing that i wish to change in me is to not to be gullible at times. Hoping for more lovely discussions to happen in coming sessions.

Till then keep questioning and critically thinking !!!

-Mayur

On a lighter note 🙂

Source – https://twitter.com/zain92580972/status/1051371467819106305

As per my understanding about CT was that i need to analyze each and every thought that came to your mind but then there was paradigm shift that ,yes it requires analysis but it doesn’t mean that you put everything under lens and scrutinize it.i also came across lots of bias during session,Confirmation bias was one which i may come across number of times in life.As per this bias we take up information from one source and then unconsciously accept it.This also lead us to take decision whether good or bad,But then we can also take more information before taking decision based on gravity of condition.Bandwagon bias is where people agree on one decision if they are working in same group for long.This may distract group members from correct decision.As a leader this also questions me that whether a decision that i take is correct or just taken for sake of group interest……….

Thanks to Shezin Ma’am and Mariyam Ma’am for being good facilitators …

I had a belief that decisions are to be taken by keeping the emotions at bay. But after attending the first day of the critical thinking workshop I got an insight that a person should think emotionally also while concluding or making decisions.

 

Moving forward with the type of biases I have been operating I could relate to this after my recent family gathering at my place on Raksha Bandhan is “social desirability” bias. On the last day of our family gathering, we all 3 families(brother in law/sister in law/mine) sat together to decide upon our next gathering which was planned for Diwali vacation. As usual most of the family members decided to go to the nearby place spending some amount of money in order to get a break from the routine and have leisure time. In this case, I always had and still have the opinion of visiting different locations/places rather than visiting the same place every year. In order to be accepted by all the members of the family, I agreed to them and quit in arguing or discussing my own views. I do agree that here I was having the fear of being a sole odd one out in the entire family and wanted to be with them at any cost. But as this workshop has ignited the spark of convincing people around and persuade them with some logical reasons  I would definitely try out this time and take a chance of visiting some different place.

This is the 5th/6th attempt to write my reflection on the Critical Thinking sessions. And still I am not clear or sure as to what to write because I am scrutinizing my each and every thought. I feel like that child who got an out of the box toy and is wondering and figuring out what to do? how to do? why to do? when to do?

Today after the half the session, I now know few things, first, whatever I am thinking or whatever thought process goes in in my decision making is “NOT MY FAULT” Thank God!!!! (Some bias is working here, will find out which one). Second, now that I know there is some manufacturing defect in me and that’s the reason I think in a certain manner, I need to do something about it so that that or any other type of defect is not passed on to my off-springs because that’s how it has passed on to me.(Well I know it’s late, because my off–springs are already 13 and 7) but ummeed pa duniya kaayam hae!!!! I still have time (hopefully) to make a difference in their lives. Third, whatever I decide to do to change my way of thinking there will be some bias working. IT’S OK. Because being human I just trying to SURVIVE in my own way, but at least I am aware of what I am doing and why I am doing. Fourth, It’s good to have people with diverse opinion for the best result. That’s one way to grow.

I really like this session because it has given me 2 more roles to play – a convincer – which I am very good at, and – a convincee – which is my struggle area, I don’t give in easily again because I am trying to SURVIVE.

To end it, I am learning about who I am and why I am like this? It’s good way to start re-building myself again.

The world gets more complex every day. There is only one way to cope:through command of our mind by doing enough critical thinking. Thinking more effectively gives us greater control over our life and helps us deal better. Critical thinking is no mystery now as it consists of practical skills that anyone can learn, practice and improve. The first step to improving our thinking skills is to evaluate the information that we receive on a daily basis. Before doing something based on information that someone else told us, we do our research!. Everyday work and life are an endless patterns of decisions. Some of the decisions are small while some are large and life-changing. When our patterns of decision-making are rational, we live a rational life. When our patterns are irrational, we live an irrational life. While rational decisions maximize the quality of our life and our chances of happiness and successful living. Critical thinking improves our decision-making abilities by raising our patterns of decision-making to the level of conscious choice.

This thought keeps coming to me again and again.- Is Critical Thinking always necessary?

Learning critical thinking can be a lifelong process, but unless one knows when and where it should not be applied, it may result into complicating matters as far as social/ family situations are concerned.

Understanding the basis of reasoning and how has the human ability to reason evolved with time for a purpose, does give a rationale for Critical thinking being an essential skill for survival as well as to form well informed decisions and beliefs.

Biases and Critical thinking go hand in hand. The impact of biases on decision making is something that we fail to realize unless we involve people having opinion which is not in alignment with ours. The best decisions can be made if they are made by a group of individuals not necessarily having the same belief system.

Overcoming the biases will definitely help make informed analysis and apply critical thinking. To find out the biases and then thinking critically in any situation will be helpful, because it will give a scope for different perspectives.

When I took up the quiz shared by Mariyam Ma’am, the result was that I have “Negativity Bias” which I do agree to a certain extent. And I could very well introspect and relate to certain decisions where this bias has played a role.

Critical thinking is not necessary to be applied in all situations but definitely essential skill to develop to be able to read our thoughts, train them and make informed choices/decisions.