Pamela Benitez, Conversation 1: Critical Thinking

In the first video, the speaker says that critical thinking has multiple definitions, especially since it depends on who you ask and their personality. However, he admits that the most basic definition of critical thinking can be referred to Dr. Richard Paul who says “Critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improve it.” The speaker says that critical thinking can help us connect and understand one another better. He says that to be able to think critically a person must practice and be creative especially seeing how he explained such thinking as art. Art is subjective and you need to be creative to do such, which is why I will use this creativity note to speak about the TED talk video. The speaker explains how students are being taught how to think, and it goes back to the Industrial Age when people didn’t know or fully understand what they were doing. They were teaching the children how to think, and lose their creativity and as generations passed sure there were a few people who thought outside of the box, that’s how we have new things such as cellphones, cars, and airplanes. At the end of the speech he gives, he says that the best thing we can do is teach them why they are being taught what they are. Instead of focusing on what and how we should also implement the behavior of asking why. I agree with both videos, to be a critical thinker you have to think outside of the box, to put yourself in a different set of shoes to get a better understanding. We must practice and take the time to question things, especially without the fear of being wrong or judged.