Critical thinking is the analysis, questioning, and examining of thought processes and reasoning with the intention of understanding our world and society. The two speakers define critical thinking in different ways. The first speaker, who asked their viewers what critical thinking is, defined critical thinking as a close analysis of how our thinking affects how people (including ourselves) see the world. They emphasized the idea of deconstructing and reconstructing cognition and reasoning. To this speaker, it was important that we involve ourselves in critical thinking to help get into the minds of others and understand how someone’s thinking or actions reflect how people see the world. The second speaker, Jesse Richardson, discussed how to think and not what to think. He defined critical thinking as the ability to make new connections and incite curiosity with rigorous questioning, and critically identifying groundlessness and illogicality whilst also making it engaging. Richardson found importance in critical thinking because of its impact on learning and generating genuine curiosity that can create new concepts and innovations like Aristotle, Einstein, and Van Gough. He thought it was important that people learn to solve problems using what he liked to call ‘ Creative Thinking’. In a world where being wrong is strongly stigmatized, critical thinking creates a space where thinkers know that it is okay to be wrong and find liberation in being able to correct and/or change those ideas. He emphasized its impact on learning, especially for grade-aged children. I agree with both speakers on this topic. But I am inclined to strongly agree with Richardson more, because of his focus on the impact it has on our learning as we grow in life. The first speaker laid out the fundamentals of critical thinking and explained its purpose. However, Richardson explained in great detail its impact on people of all ages and what could happen if we were trained to think critically at a young age. As a person who had a teacher who taught us to think critically, and do our own research, as well as inciting curiosity in us to always want to learn more, I understand and resonate with this concept. It is curiosity and critical thinking that really light a flame in the learning experience. There are many moments where creativity is subdued in education. But what if we encouraged people to use that creativity to change our tomorrow? Critical thinking allows us to find the TRUTH behind “the truth”.
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After reading this, I can say critical thinking consists of many things, and are also beneficial in many ways as well. I have learned that critical thinking can impact relationships/friendships with others, general learning or things one would like to know out of curiosity, etc. I also learned that critical thinking is a form of giving people the comfortability to feel that there isn’t a right or wrong answer, and it’s okay to be wrong. I so far am liking the concept of critical thinking, the way it is conveyed by others, and how it can help others grow as people in the end. I agree with the author when she claims she was more on Richardson’s explanation, because he was able to give in depth reasons towards how he sees critical thinking from his POV, and us as readers are critical thinking as well, when analyzing the similarities/differences between Richardson’s speech, and Eintein’s speech, and which would be more valuable tooth outside world.