Pralay -- Jefferson -- Declaration of Independence

Critical thinking Links

Critical Thinking on the Web List
http://www.austhink.org/critical/

Oxymorons

Reading Exercise: Sehtolc Gnihsaw

Sehtolc Gnihsaw


The procedure is actually quite simple. First, you arrange the items into different groups. Of course one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step; otherwise, you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem important but complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first, the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but then, one never can tell. After the procedure is completed one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually they will be used once more and the whole cycle will then have to be repeated. However, that is part of life.

How to be Thankful from Wiki How

Do you take many things in your life for granted? By looking at the world a little differently, you just might realize how much you have to be thankful for. Here's how to stop and smell the roses.

Steps
Look around and pay attention to the people around you. You will find that everybody has something to worry or complain about, not just you. It's easy to focus on those who seem to have it all, but you never know what's going on inside. They might look happy, but they might be miserable as well. Don't look at others and think "I should have it like they do." Look at those who aren't as fortunate as you are and count your blessings.

Practice acceptance. Stop dwelling on how things should be, what could've been, and what you don't have. Recognize what you do have--whether you like it or not, it's yours to keep or to change. Accepting your lot in life is not about resigning yourself to unhappiness. It's about not wasting time lamenting or denying your problems. Take them for what they are and...
Become a problem solver. Use your lemons to make lemonade. Get in the habit of asking yourself how you can turn the negative into a positive. The most successful people in life, and those who have the most to be grateful for, are also those who've endured tremendous trials and managed to persevere and turn it all around.

Learn to see hardship as a chance to develop character. Imagine yourself looking back ten years from now and recounting your difficult circumstances, and being proud of how you handled it and worked through it.

Focus on what you can control. Stop concentrating on your situation, and on conditions and incidents that happened to you and that you have no control over. Instead, shift your focus on what you can control: your response, and your behavior.

Take joy in the small things. Blow bubbles with your kids. Play with a puppy. Get lost in the park. Goof off and have a good laugh. Life's treasures are the small pleasures. Give thanks for each small gift you receive!

Tips
Avoid negative people whose social interaction consists of comparing their lives and competing for who has it worse.

Volunteering to help those in need will help put things in perspective.

Warnings
No matter how positive and thankful you are, remember that life will always have its ups and downs. You're going to have to take the good with the bad.

Related wikiHows
How to Thank Someone
How to Write a Thank You Speech
How to Write a Thank You Letter
How to Thank the Authors of a wikiHow Page
How to Stay Positive when You Know Your Life Sucks
How to Recreate Your Life

External Links
Optimist International - Always a smile and friends to share good things and uplifting events to participate in. They are in about 33 countries.

Link -- Skills Videos

Select skills /abilities videos at:
http://www.careerinfonet.org/acinet/videos_by_ability.asp?id=27,1&nodeid=31

I'm not a TV -- from David Jaffee

From: "David Jaffee"
Subject: Satire On Classroom Dynamics
Content-type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

PODers:

A colleague suggested I post the satirical piece below. It relates to some
recent postings and reminds us that a sense of humor is vital.

I should mention that I distribute this to the students in my mass lecture
class and it generates some very good discussion.

***************************************************************************
"I Am Not A TV": Confessions of A Professor

I am not a TV! That is what I repeatedly tell my students. But I'm not
sure they get it, because when I tell them this they continue to stare at me
with expressionless faces. Again, they have failed to see the profound
insight, or even the humor, of my observation. Again, they confirm my
thesis.

How did I come to the revelation that, in the eyes of my students, I am a
television set? As a sociologist I should probably say that I arrived at
this proposition after many years of careful data collection and observation
in undergraduates courses with disengaged students. But that would be
untrue. In fact, for many years I never really noticed student expressions
and demeanor. Fresh out of graduate school, with an abundance of
self-important intellectual energy coupled with some nervousness about
public speaking, the strategy was to lecture endlessly. I would just focus
on a spot above the students heads at the back of the class and pontificate
on things sociological. However, over time, as I became more self-confident
and also more concerned with classroom dynamics, I thought it might be worth
taking a peek at their faces. This was a big mistake.

Most of the students either stared at me with no expression whatsoever --
even when I attempted a joke, or asked a question, or launched into an
animated diatribe -- or they were looking elsewhere (like out the window,
or at their notebooks, or at one another). Occasionally, some would just get
up and walk out of the classroom and then return a few moments later.
Either no eye contact, glazed eye contact, or total disregard for my human
existence. And then it hit me -- they think I'm a TV.

How else can you explain this behavior? When we watch TV -- let's say a
standup comic -- we can wear any expression we want, we can fail to laugh at
the jokes, we can fall asleep, we can go the fridge for a beer. None of this
has any impact on the comic. It continues to perform because it cannot see
us. Students treat professors the same way. They assume we canÕt see them.
So, it makes no difference what they do. Under these circumstances, why
should students bother wasting valuable energy on social niceties like a nod
of the head, a smile, or any other social cue acknowledging the humanity of
the instructor.

I once had a student who sat in the front row sleeping through the
entire class period. At the end of class I told him he would be more
comfortable sleeping in a bed. He was incredibly embarrassed, horrified,
and shocked that I had caught him engaging in this deviant academic
behavior, even though he committed the crime directly beneath my nose. Did
he think I was blind? Did he think I was totally insensitive to his
behavior? No, he thought I was a talking head who could not see the
television audience.

Another form of antisocial classroom behavior, that further cements the
case for my thesis, is represented by the student who strolls (some actually
strut), into class ten minutes late, right in front of the lecturing
instructor. It is often the same student who, 15 minutes later, gets up to
leave the class, only to schlep (they are now getting tired) back in 5
minutes later, with absolutely no self-conscious awareness of the social
impact of these actions. I should report that this behavior is clearly on
the rise. There are a number of possible explanations. Maybe there is an
evolutionary process underway involving a shrinking bladder capacity. Maybe
students are much more active today in the stock market and must constantly
contact their broker. Or, what I really suspect, students donÕt believe a
TV set will mind one way or the other.

There is a well-known concept in sociology called the looking-glass self.
It says that our sense of self is shaped by the reactions of others. Now,
if my sense of self hinged on the reaction of my students, I would be
selling advertising time to commercial sponsors or maybe trying to figure
out a way to convert myself into a full screen model (it's a good thing I
don't come with a remote).

I am now in the habit of confronting students about their classroom
demeanor and making comments to students when they walk into class late.
Students really hate this. They long for the good old days when I stared at
the back of the room and lectured to the collective unconscious. But those
days are past and my student evaluations reflect it. After all, who wants a
TV that not only observes the viewer but evaluates their behavior. How would
you like it if your TV could comment on your posture (ÒdonÕt slouchÓ) or
your eating habits (Òdo you really need that second piece of cheesecake?Ó).

So, I am not sure what strategy to pursue. However, I have been
entertaining the idea of taping myself lecturing and then having media
services televise the lectures to my students. This would make student
behavior perfectly congruous with the educational delivery mode. I would
also be integrating technology and teaching (some people think this is
important). Yes, a true televersity! Don't worry, I would still hold
office hours and attend department meetings. And if students missed a
lecture they could always catch a rerun.

David Jaffee teaches sociology at SUNY-New Paltz.
**********************************************************

David Jaffee
Department of Sociology
SUNY-New Paltz
New Paltz, NY 12561
(914) 257-3509
email: jaffeed@npvm.newpaltz.edu

Defining Critical Thinking from criticalthinking.org

Defining Critical Thinking from http://www.criticalthinking.org

(A statement by Michael Scriven & Richard Paul for the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking Instruction)

Summary

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.




It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue; assumptions; concepts; empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions; implications and consequences; objections from alternative viewpoints; and frame of reference. Critical thinking - in being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes - is incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among them: scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and philosophical thinking.

Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior. It is thus to be contrasted with: 1) the mere acquisition and retention of information alone, because it involves a particular way in which information is sought and treated; 2) the mere possession of a set of skills, because it involves the continual use of them; and 3) the mere use of those skills ("as an exercise") without acceptance of their results.

Critical thinking varies according to the motivation underlying it. When grounded in selfish motives, it is often manifested in the skillful manipulation of ideas in service of one's own, or one's groups', vested interest. As such it is typically intellectually flawed, however pragmatically successful it might be. When grounded in fairmindedness and intellectual integrity, it is typically of a higher order intellectually, though subject to the charge of "idealism" by those habituated to its selfish use.

Critical thinking of any kind is never universal in any individual; everyone is subject to episodes of undisciplined or irrational thought. Its quality is therefore typically a matter of degree and dependent on , among other things, the quality and depth of experience in a given domain of thinking or with respect to a particular class of questions. No one is a critical thinker through-and-through, but only to such-and-such a degree, with such-and-such insights and blind spots, subject to such-and-such tendencies towards self-delusion. For this reason, the development of critical thinking skills and dispositions is a life-long endeavor.

Why Critical Thinking?
The Problem:
Everyone thinks; it is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or down-right prejudiced. Yet the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought. Shoddy thinking is costly, both in money and in quality of life. Excellence in thought, however, must be systematically cultivated.

A Definition:
Critical thinking is that mode of thinking - about any subject, content, or
problem - in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking
by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and
imposing intellectual standards upon them.

The Result:
A well cultivated critical thinker:

* raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and
precisely;
* gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to
interpret it effectively comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards;
* thinks openmindedly within alternative systems of thought,
recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; and
* communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems.

Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism.