Thinking Critically, Challenging Cultural Myths Essay

According to Paul & Elder, “critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a vision of improving it.” Their argument for the need to utilize critical thinking is the fact that without focus, most of the thinking done by people is partial, many times uninformed, biased, distorted, and prejudiced. What is not easily recognized is the fact that the very fabric of life is

Starting college as a Freshman is exciting; it is also unnerving. The comfort of everything I know is going to disappear and it will be time to grow up and face reality. However, reality isn’t doomed to be negative if I prepare for my future and

To survive in such a multifaceted and diverse world we as people must possess the ability to think critically in highly complex situations. The world is an extremely challenging place, all of us are forced to adapt by constantly challenging existing principles and performing certain methods to ensure our growth both physically and mentally. Many claim that contemporary society needs a skill called critical thinking to adapt and survive. Critical thinking is a higher level of intellectual progression that makes use of diverse information, skills and attitudes in interpreting situations and confronting problems. Critical thinking is done

For first year students coming straight from high school, college life can either be very exciting or overwhelming depending on how well one prepares for it. Some have the notion that college is fun and is all about partying, while some believe that it is an environment in which they can achieve the ultimate freedom thus escape the stringent rules made by their parents at home. Others look forward to experiencing a different learning environment while being exposed to different cultures and sharing different academic knowledge. Successful assimilation into college life is determined by the student’s capability to transform into the new role of a college student. Numerous students face challenges they have never experienced before which can

Everyone has a different perception of critical thinking. The editors explain the real meaning of thinking critically and point out that thinking from the different viewpoints and various aspects with creating the ability to form perception is critical thinking. Talking about the power of cultural myths, the editors tell that cultural myths hold people together and influence in the way we relate to others. Greek mythology is maintained by the editors to compare it with American culture. Both Greek and American culture can benefit the society but they can also restrain the society in modern life. Although both give understanding in society about how they should react, their definition of success is different. According to the editors' definition of success, America is distinguished on the origin of salaries, achievement of academic goals or the pathways of their ambition. In short, we each interpret success in our own way.

self-correcting. Similarly, I believe that critical thinking is judgement, specific to the current situation, that has substance based upon the principles used to critique it. Put another way, critical thinking depends on standards to guide its solution or response; these standards include “clarity, relevance, accuracy, fairness, completeness, precision, depth, breadth, and adequacy.” (Jones, Elizabeth A.|Ratcliff, 1993). I also believe that critical thinking is self-correcting, because it is based in logic and reasoning; vague solutions will always exist, but a sharp critical thinker will always find the correct answer through the precise application of reasoning.

Graduating from high school is what every student is looking forward to. However, going to college is a big accomplishment for all students. The first day of freshman high school and college feels the same, the excitement and pressured. As many students experienced, both high school and college could be compared their similarities. First, both students in college and high school are expected to behave in well mannered, attend to every class on time, and respect the teachers or professors. Second, being prepared in class is needed for the success whether the students are in high school or college. Third, high school and college allow the students to figure out and pursue their career. In contrary, high school and college have a lot of differences to each other. Unlike high school, students in college can choose a college they would prefer, they can manage their own time, and students be able to learn how to balance their responsibilities and priorities.

The main concepts presented in the article are the varying definitions of each author on the concept of critical thinking. The information the author uses are definitions which are the opinions of varied authors and are similar in foundation in that to apply critical thinking one must be able to identify a problem, pose a question(s), provide valid supporting evidence, and come to a conclusion. Although the author’s definitions do not identify a problem, questions, evidence, or conclusions, the relationship Petress (2004) shows is that the reader must apply this process themselves as it is not always given. The information used does appear to be relevant, significant, and valid. The references the author listed does provide enough information for me to come to this conclusion. Since this work is a literature review and not a case study, numerical data are not necessary to determine validity of the information.

Critical thinking is a vital task that must be done in our everyday lives. In “Becoming a Critic Of Your Thinking” found at criticalthinking.org, Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Richard Paul explain critical thinking as “the disciplined art of ensuring that you use the best thinking you are capable of in any set of circumstances”. Even tough there are many different types of methods to achieve a better quality of critical thinking, Dr. Elder and Dr. Paul discuss four specific ones in the article. All strategies, however, force you to put yourself in an uncomfortable and difficult position to develop a better quality of thinking.

Even though this is not a complete list, the list includes a wide range of fallacies and biases that can be addressed through the use of critical thinking. In sum, critical thinking does not possess all of the solutions, but critical thinking does offer a means by which to identify and reject the careless answers in the examination of a psychological comparison of cultures.

Some of the challenges of becoming a critical thinker in our contemporary world are being able to become more objective in how you think rather than being subjective. As a human being, it is difficult for us to think critically about a situation without the thinking process to be affected by the subjective opinion, emotions or interfering with the clarity of a rational thinking process. The challenge is exacerbated by the facts that the information we retrieve in our contemporary world has already been filtered by other individuals, which makes it difficult to trust much of the information received and affects the motivation to become critical thinkers. For instance, the media is where many people derive a great deal of information which should

There are proposed reasons for the emphasis that is currently on critical thinking. Many factors can be related to this emphasis. They include the societal factors of economic shifts

Critical thinking are peoples deep thoughts and of how they think and reason. Each offers a paramount variable that derives its own direction of language. Descriptions are impartial to one another; personal biases have an influence on our language, judgments, and our values. Yet, none of these recognize other people’s values through their behaviors or language. Critical thinking offers a remedy to these downfalls of language within different cultures. According to helium.com (2010) other bias and skewed occurrences that critical thinking is helpful, is by differentiating between fundamental acknowledgement, self-fulfilling insight, the difference between cause and connection, naturalistic fallacy, and the belief perseverance effect. Critical thinking is an important role in cross-cultural psychology because when psychologists are looking at different cultures there are many different thoughts that go on about each culture and their differences between other cultures, it is important that the psychologists are critical and think about all the cultures and their different ways independently and when they compare them it is important that they

For the first week, we read a few materials and watched a video. This class is really good with the start of the video about critical thinking. “Critical thinkers cultivate an attitude of curiosity and eagerness to widen their perspective and broaden their knowledge and also critical thinking embraces skepticism which doubting and suspending our judgment about claims with which we’re presented. “ (Critical Thinking Youtube). I noticed that most different opinions from materials of this class are because of critical thinking. From Barlow’s article, Barlow talked about how Cultural Revolution influenced Chinese people at that time. “The decade of the GPCR saw conflicts and countermovements, countless deaths and personal sufferings, and social groups at cross purposes with each other. “ (Barlow 1987, xii). People were living in China which was in the horrible situation. They wanted to fight against the government but they couldn’t because they didn’t how and where to speak out their feelings. When Barlow went to Shanghai Teachers College, “she found out it was not the China they had expected.” “Because at first, they arrived in Shanghai thinking about at least where America was concerned they were the experts.” (Barlow 1987, xv). They finally found out that they and students in Shanghai Teachers College couldn’t accept all each other’s vision. The different cultural backgrounds leaded to different feeling and opinions. For example, she talked about a Women’s Day celebration in

What is critical thinking to you? To some it may mean making wiser choices, taking time to critically analyze a situation, or to just put greater thought in your everyday life. According to Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Richard Pauls’ article, “Becoming a Critic Of Your Thinking”, critical thinking is defined as the disciplined art of ensuring that you use the best thinking you are capable of in any set of circumstances. To us, critical thinking is a very important aspect of life and something we can all improve on. It allows us to think outside the box and put ourselves in others shoes and really look at things differently. We made sure to think about our own thinking habits while discussing these articles and to notice if we were ever being close-minded.