Critical Thinking and Creativity

Teaching Critical Thinking Without Destroying the Creative Thought Process

By Lance Winslow

Critical thinking skills are absolutely important to survive in such a complex and chaotic society. No one can deny that in the United States we are bombarded with instant information, and challenged by all the events going on around us at all times. And, company marketing and advertising is always trying to get us to do impulse buying, and market to our emotions rather than to our critical thinking.

Now then, I have a serious question; how you teach critical thinking without destroying the creative thought process which is also needed to survive in our society?

If you’ll stop right here and go to YouTube and watch “Sir Ken Robinson, Creativity in Schools” video and then come back to this article, I’d like to continue knowing you have the knowledge to follow along with my comments here today. It’s an 18-minute video and the best one you’ll ever watch on this topic.

Okay so, Ken Robinson asks why we don’t teach creativity in schools as we should, and I am asking the opposite question with a caveat; (1) why don’t we teach critical thinking properly in our schools, and (2) how can we teach critical thinking without destroying the creative thought process which is so valuable to the individual? Easier said than done, but I do believe it’s possible.

In fact, I would say that creatively solving problems and then taking that information to form questions is a very important part of the critical thinking process. In fact, there’s a very good book on this subject called; “Critical Thinking Asking the Right Questions,” by M. Neil Brown and Stuart M. Keeley – which is well worth reading also.

If we use our creativity to help us come up with a number of questions, and then use our critical thinking skills to eliminate the silly questions, and keep the good ones, then we can combine the two, without destroying one or the other. We are teaching that they are both very important, and can be used together, and they should be used together, and they should also be challenged against each other to test to see if the answers or the questions chosen are correct. I hope you will please be thinking here as you teach critical thinking to your students.

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Critical Thinking and Creativity

Teaching Critical Thinking Without Destroying the Creative Thought Process

By Lance Winslow

Critical thinking skills are absolutely important to survive in such a complex and chaotic society. No one can deny that in the United States we are bombarded with instant information, and challenged by all the events going on around us at all times. And, company marketing and advertising is always trying to get us to do impulse buying, and market to our emotions rather than to our critical thinking.

Now then, I have a serious question; how you teach critical thinking without destroying the creative thought process which is also needed to survive in our society?

If you’ll stop right here and go to YouTube and watch “Sir Ken Robinson, Creativity in Schools” video and then come back to this article, I’d like to continue knowing you have the knowledge to follow along with my comments here today. It’s an 18-minute video and the best one you’ll ever watch on this topic.

Okay so, Ken Robinson asks why we don’t teach creativity in schools as we should, and I am asking the opposite question with a caveat; (1) why don’t we teach critical thinking properly in our schools, and (2) how can we teach critical thinking without destroying the creative thought process which is so valuable to the individual? Easier said than done, but I do believe it’s possible.

In fact, I would say that creatively solving problems and then taking that information to form questions is a very important part of the critical thinking process. In fact, there’s a very good book on this subject called; “Critical Thinking Asking the Right Questions,” by M. Neil Brown and Stuart M. Keeley – which is well worth reading also.

If we use our creativity to help us come up with a number of questions, and then use our critical thinking skills to eliminate the silly questions, and keep the good ones, then we can combine the two, without destroying one or the other. We are teaching that they are both very important, and can be used together, and they should be used together, and they should also be challenged against each other to test to see if the answers or the questions chosen are correct. I hope you will please be thinking here as you teach critical thinking to your students.

Related articles

• How Do You Define Critical Thinking?


• Critical Thinking


• Teaching Critical Thinking


• Thinking Critically About Critical Thinking


• Using Crowdsourcing to Counter the Spread of False Rumors on Social Media During Crises


• Was Socrates a Hunter Education Instructor?


• Discussing Performance Art, Critical Thinking & Curiosity ~ June 2013


• New Study: Employers Rate Their Employees’ Critical Thinking Skills as Only Average


• Rethinking Creativity in Education


• Critical Thinking in the ELT Classroom

Robert Recommends...

• “The Secret” of Personal Change


• Master Critical Thinking


• Building Strategic Versus Tactical Leaders


• The Language of the Soul


• The Co-Creative


• You Have To Make Things Right

What Is Bullying?

by: Sarah Miles

Bullying is any form of intended hurtful behaviour inflicted on another person. Whether it is violence, name calling or threats, if you are intimidated by it then it is unacceptable and you need not suffer because of it.

The different types of bullying include :

Name Calling

Making things up to get you into trouble

Any forceful physical contact from hitting to being shoved

Taking things away from you

Damaging your belongings

Stealing your money

Taking friends away from you

Spreading rumours

Threats and intimidation

Making silent or abusive phone calls

Sending you offensive texts

Posting insulting messages on the internet or Instant Messenger

Bullies can also frighten you enough to make you not want to go to school so you’ll pretend to be ill to avoid them.

The new Craze in the world of the bullies is ‘Happy Slapping’, a definite wrong description of the events that take place during one of these attacks.

English: Bullying on IRFE in March 5, 2007, the first class day. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The new form of assault, a victim is usually hit or punched while the bullies take pictures or record the attack with mobile phones, then circulate the footage via other mobile phones or place it on the internet.

Yet another cruel and callous way to inflict shame and hurt on another undeserved victim and it is lucky that no one has been killed so far. If you have suffered an attack such at this, don’t be ashamed or feel isolated, there are other people who have also been on the receiving end. It is a relatively new ‘craze’ so often the victims feel they cant tell anyone because either no one would believe them or that it was an isolated incident. It isn’t so please tell someone.

About The Author

Sarah Miles has been a victim of bullying in the past and has now set up her own site to attempt to help fellow victims of bullying at http://ift.tt/1hqLLPz.

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