I hope we can all agree the information available for critical thinking is vast. After reading through some of the articles available, I am faced with a massive wall of information. What do I do with this information? I certainly know what qualities define a good critical thinker, and ways to approach information and dissect it with a critical thinking knife and digest it.
One class I could not get out of my head was a psychology class called Thinking during my undergraduate years. One of the most prominent sections we researched and discussed was on medical decisions made by oncologists and other doctors faced with life altering decisions. One can only hope that in that physical state you have the best and most informed doctor but do not forget, doctors are humans too and humans make mistakes. Let's say that you have been diagnosed with a rare type of cancer. The doctor suggests you undergo a battery of chemo treatments as well as other medicines. You are not sick and are hardly aware that anything is wrong with you. What do you do? In the medical world, this is called informed consent wherein the doctor presents hopefully an option or two and makes a suggestion towards one of those options. Is this really informed consent if the doctor is biases his/her decision for you? Not everyone is a doctor and may not fully understand the consequences of medical decisions, hence patients place heavy emphasis on what doctors say. This is just one brief example of how critical thinking has world applications and is not merely restricted to the classroom.
Everyone can think but you must be taught how to critically think.
As per an earlier response I made to the forum, what if some people are not hard-wired to be critical thinkers? Everyone's brain is different, everyone has different experiences, different memories, and different backgrounds. Therefore, the fact that I can be taught how to think more critically does not mean my neighbor can follow suit.
As you are reading this, what are you thinking? Do you agree with what I have said, disagree? Is there a flaw in my logic? Does the fact that I have had classroom experience with thinking in a psychological manner improves my ability to think critically? As you can tell, I love answering questions with questions.
To apply my own definition: critical thinking is being mindful of processed information one experiences.
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