Category: Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is the skill which can be developed with practice and experience. Critical thinking leads to research more and find the solution. We should think clearly and logically about an issue and then should come to decision. We should work without bias to keep the fact based solutions.
The class helped me to think critically but not necessary for everything you see or come across. I also experienced that if you ask yourself more questions about a thing, you learn more about that thing.

When it comes to take a decision, do you even consider the rationality of it ? Do you arrive at the conclusion based on facts ? And reasons ? Are you capable of seeing pros and cons of your decision ? Or opinions or conclusions? If yes, you are a thinker !

Unbiased analysis of facts to form a judgement or decision is critical thinking. It solves complex problems after employing logic and reasoning. Critical Thinking also encourages self-reflection.

We have evolved as human through logical reasoning and better decision makers.. Many development has occurred due to this . If we always agree with the opinions of the group, new development or perspective or better decisions may not happen..

We have heard the saying “think before you do” since childhood. How it was helpful? Did we ever do that? I don’t think so. But now if I consider so many aspects of life, we do it every day and night. There are many decisions where you apply critical thinking like, financial planning , Family planning, buying a new house, school admissions for your child, choosing a carrier etc;

Thinking about pros and cons in any circumstance is a good example of critical thinking. For example as I am planning to buy a house, The requirement according to the family is 3BHK but in monetary terms only 2BHK is affordable. Now here I need to apply critical thinking as to what is my necessity and what I actually want or afford. A family has to under go many expenses considering health, education, basic needs etc. So prioritizing things is very important, which again require critical thinking.  Most of the times it helps you to take a right decisions.

“Beliving is easier than thinking. Hence so many more believers than thinkers.” – Bruce Clavert. According to critical thinking depends on three things 1. Individual’s knowledge about it. 2. Situation (people around) and 3. How much time one can invest.

In this fast-moving life, we hardly take a pause and think. We have to take a quick decision and sometimes we are under a lot of pressure to make a decision. We have evolved as humans because we can think critically, but with the facilities and advancements, we have somewhere this skill is kept on the sideline. There are so many opinions available freely, it is difficult to whom to believe.

Nevertheless, we can exercise and that is our right as humans and responsibility we have as global citizens to think independently and critically.

Jay Kosambia

‘Parivartan sansaar ka niyam hai’. With each new generation there comes changes in customs and traditions, thoughts, ideas and perspectives but it takes time to understand and accept these changes, specially to the older generation. 

While reflecting on the last sessions, I realized that we have Bollywood as the best facilitator for making masses think critically. When we were discussing different issues there were examples coming up from Bollywood. I think movies create a spark in people that influences them to think and discuss the pros and cons of the issue.

I assume I do think critically most of the time, specially when comes to any investment or monetary decisions, but when it comes to emotions and relationships I tend to give more preference to the relations. 

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.