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September 09, 2005
Critical Thinking
Cleaning out some old notebooks, I found these notes:
Critical Thinking Skills
1. gather complete information - more than one source
2. understand and define terms (make others define terms, too)
3. question the methods by which results were derived
4. question the conclusion: do the facts support it? is there evidence of bias? remember correlation does not equal causation.
5. uncover assumptions and biases
6. question the source of information
7. don't expect all the answers
8. examine the big picture
9. look for multiple cause and effect
10. watch for thought stopping sensationalism
11. understand your own biases and values
Where did I find these notes, you ask? One of the thousands of writing readers published in the last 10 years? A research guide? You'd think so, wouldn't you? I mean, this is a great little list of exactly the kinds of things we attempt to teach our students with respect to writing in both our first and second year studios, exactly the kinds of things the good folk in English and Cultural Studies try to get students to use with respect to reading, so it stands to reason that this nice summary should have come from such a course, right?
Not so. The origin of this list is...
Human Biology: Health, Homeostasis, and The Environment, 3rd Edition, by Daniel D. Chiras.
Who'd have thought to look in a biology textbook for this lovely, clear, succinct list. When I was building my teacher toolbox from prior assignments, prior courses, textbooks I don't plan to use, etc., it never occured to me to check my Biology 101 textbook. So I'm glad I found that note; glad I took the time years ago to copy that information out of the text so I could find it amongst notes I was tossing.
Daniel Chiras, by the way, has written some cool stuff with emphasis on sustainable living and building practices. Along the way, he has managed to ruffle some feathers, as this article notes. Now, if the conservative folks in Texas want to reject his work as “anti-free enterprise, anti-Christian and anti-American," I am definitely in favor of its wholesale adoption and widespread integration in a variety of school curricula. There is certainly an enterprise to be developed around sustainable living, just as there was around wasteful consumptive living. Not only is sustainability not anti-Christian, it reflects sound Christian doctrine, from God's first instruction to Adam to steward the earth through Christ's instruction to his disciples to travel with the bare minimum they needed, and to his believers everywhere lay up their treasures in heaven rather than accumulating things on the earth. Sustainability is also perfectly in line with Thomas Jefferson's vision of an American built as a society of yeoman farmers (leaving aside, of course, the obvious problems with slavery, etc.). It is American to have freedom to claim land (even if not fairly) and build wealth (even if not fairly). But it was, originally, also very American to conduct one's affairs after a moral imperative. That part seems to be missing in much of our history.
To return to the point, though, with Madeline and Becky's recent comments on sustainable living in the wake of Katrina, Dr. Chiras's work seems newly compelling. You can find him here. Other bios appear here and here, at sites of organizations who support sustainability.
Posted by cageyer at September 9, 2005 06:39 PM