Critical Thinking Classes – The Journey So Far…
Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim & Namashkar,
The critical thinking classes seemed to be an extension of what we have learnt in 7 habits, love, integrity and other life classes. We were introduced with the way our brain responds to situations. It tries to respond as quickly as possible depending upon the past knowledge and experiences. Daniel Kahneman, the author of the book “Thinking Fast & Slow”, says that there are two systems working in our brain – Fast and Slow. For ex., if you are asked questions like What’s your name? or 2+1=?, etc., the brain would immediately respond as it has past knowledge and / or experience. But, if you are asked what is 31 x 21, your brain will take time to respond. Depending on the situation, we should use these systems to our advantage. In case of emergencies, one cannot afford to use the slow thinking system because there is not enough time to do that. Also, one has to evaluate options available keeping in mind the consequences. That’s referred as critical thinking. There are situations where we should use the slow system like buying something, relocating, relationship, etc. Our brain has a tendency to take impulsive choices and hence as Stephen Covey says, we need to take a pause, before we respond. We also carry in our heads something called cognitive biases which influences our choices / response to situations or events.
During the session of getting to know about different cognitive biases, I identified one of the cognitive biases I had (Sorry forgot the name!) and still have and I am working to overcome it. Whenever I find academically good students indisciplined, I lack the will to give them a consequence. So, that’s because my brain has good impression about those students and hence it makes it difficult for me to take the right decision of giving them a consequence and be unbiased. After I took a quiz shared by Mariyam mam, I also found that I have “Negativity Bias”, though I agree partially and not 100%. Negativity bias is more sensitivity towards negative or unpleasant things even when there is equal amount of positive things available. I agree that at times, I would think more of negative once I have had bad experience with a situation or person. It’s work in progress to overcome these biases or minimise its impact on the choices I make in future.
Looking forward to learn more in upcoming CT sessions
Special Thanks to our facilitators – Ms. Shezin Singaporia & Ms. Mariyam Baxamusa
Khuda Hafiz & Namaste!
– Nazim Pirani
I truely agree on the point of fast and slow thinking however even though we have the knowledge of this fact it does get difficult to implement the same in the daily life. I can very well connect to the fact that fast thinking does come from the past experiences and past knowledge due to which we as human beings don’t take much time to give everything a thought before we decide.
Nazim sir what you mentioned is a kind of Anchoring bias “The tendency to rely too heavily, or “anchor”, on one trait or piece of information when making decisions”. I know we can’t completely overcome these biases and trust me they are not bad always. However, understanding that one has a specific trait is essential.
Nazim Sir, I could resonate with the student example you mentioned. This is how we operate from our confirmation bias ( This student of mine is academically inclined and this matter the most to me. The other action of him/her takes a back seat).
Good connections made with 7 habits. You have identified the bias…governing your decisions,now you can make attempts to pause and reflect and make the necessary changes.
It is really true where some teachers may get into such inclination towards bright student and fail to give consequences but we can also think of some future consequence of such instances where student may develop dominance that i can do anything sort of mind set.so we can come out of such bias,even i need to do same in this case as it will be for betterment of student.
I agree with you that Critical thinking workshop indeed is an extension to all the three mandatory workshops. Now I know why I have paradigms and I can also explain them with the help of cognitive biases. I think the best cognitive bias which explains your forgiving nature is Courtesy bias.
I was about to ask that, “Is Negative Bias really bad?”. But thanks to Shezin ma’am she already answered the same in her comment. I agree with Jatin sir and Nazim sir’s point that CT workshop is an extension to the other three mandatory workshops that we have gone through.
Today through the discussion I also learned that Fast thinking and Slow thinking plays an important role in making patterns which gradually converts to strong paradigms and hamper our spiritual growth.