Garlando Scott
Professor Carolyn Kennedy
English 101
December 12, 2013
Should critical thinking be taught in college? Or in High School?
What is Critical Thinking?
Critical thinking is a process that relates to seeing both sides of an issue, being open to new evidence that disconfirms your ideas, reasoning dispassionately, demanding that claims be backed by evidence, deducing and inferring conclusions from available facts, solving problems, and so forth.(Willingham) “Critical Thinking why is is so hard?”
Our first instances with critical thinking comes within the first stages of life when as toddlers develop into the “Why” phase and everything is questioned. Why is the sky blue? Where do babies come from? How things work? “ It is a type of thought that even 3-year olds can engage in –and even trained scientist can fail in. (Willingham”) Etc. Our minds are growing and we are inquisitive about how and why things are? This laborious effort has been known to make the strongest of parents cry with the constant question and answer period that leads to more question and answers..seemingly never ending. Somewhere along the line as we grow from toddler to adolescent we lose the ability to bring forth questions and just go with the opinion of someone else. We no longer question or take a position against those in authority, nor seek any deeper than what we’re told. We no longer try to do a deep dive for reasoning. We take it as it is. This is where we’ve lost the ability to do critical thinking. Fast forward.