critical thinking

[Adam Blatner]

Dear Ed, thank you for this quote: 

Today education cannot afford to proceed along the lines of tradition, but must elicit the ability to make independent and authentic decisions. -- Viktor Frankl

I am preparing a series of talks to my lifelong learning group about critical thinking. A fair amount of lip service is given to this but very little is taught in the way of what is involved: Semantics, semiotics, rhetoric---the art of persuasion---one of the classical elements in the curriculum--- modern psychology and the ways people distort their own thinking to be accepted by others, and to maintain their own biases, the psychology of prejudice, the nature of belief, 
      It's all mildly subversive, of course. 

 What if a class was asked to think critically? What if one of the students asked the teacher, "What is the relevance of what you are supposed to be teaching us?"  Would the teacher be able to respond? 
        If the class was on critical thinking, the teacher could say, "I was hoping you'd ask that question!  How are we going to decide on what is relevant and what is not? In a changing world, let us not assume that people over 30 know all the answers. Nor should we assume that people under thirty know all the answers. 
         Nor should we assume that there are any answers per se, but rather just more or less useful propositions that again need to be subjected to critical thinking!"

    The process of creativity is thus vivified in the realm of thinking. 

Good quote!  Warmly Adam
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