Critical Thinking

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Teaching critical thinking is a valuable and complex process that involves developing the skills necessary to analyze, evaluate, and interpret information effectively. Here's a detailed step-by-step guide to help you teach critical thinking:

1. Understand Critical Thinking: Before teaching others, ensure you have a clear understanding of what critical thinking is. It involves actively and objectively analyzing information, considering various perspectives, and making reasoned judgments.

2. Define Objectives: Determine what specific critical thinking skills you want to teach. These could include analyzing arguments, evaluating evidence, problem-solving, logical reasoning, and decision-making.

3. Create a Supportive Environment: Foster an open and respectful classroom or learning environment where students feel comfortable expressing their ideas and challenging assumptions.

4. Introduce Concepts: Start by introducing foundational concepts like logic, reasoning, evidence, bias, and fallacies. Use real-world examples to demonstrate these concepts in action.

5. Encourage Questioning: Teach students to question information, assumptions, and conclusions. Ask open-ended questions that encourage them to think deeper and explore different viewpoints.

6. Teach Analytical Skills: Provide exercises that require students to break down complex ideas into their component parts. Analyze different elements of an argument or issue to understand how they relate to each other.

7. Evaluate Evidence: Guide students in assessing the credibility and relevance of sources and evidence. Teach them how to differentiate between reliable sources and unreliable ones.

8. Discuss Bias and Assumptions: Explore the concept of bias and how it can influence thinking. Encourage students to identify their own biases and consider how they might affect their analysis.

9. Practice Problem-Solving: Present real-world problems that require critical thinking to solve. Encourage students to explore multiple solutions, weigh their pros and cons, and justify their choices.

10. Explore Counterarguments: Teach students to engage with counterarguments. This helps them understand opposing viewpoints and strengthens their ability to construct more persuasive arguments.

11. Foster Creative Thinking: Critical thinking also involves creativity. Encourage students to think outside the box, generate innovative solutions, and consider unconventional perspectives.

12. Teach Decision-Making: Guide students through the process of making informed decisions. Discuss factors like risks, benefits, ethical considerations, and long-term consequences.

13. Engage in Socratic Dialogue: Use the Socratic method, where you ask probing questions to guide students to discover answers themselves. This approach promotes active thinking and discussion.

14. Collaborative Learning: Encourage group discussions and debates. Collaborative learning helps students learn from each other's perspectives and enhances critical thinking through interaction.

15. Provide Feedback: Offer constructive feedback on students' arguments and analyses. Emphasize both strengths and areas for improvement.

16. Practice, Practice, Practice: Critical thinking is a skill that improves with practice. Assign regular assignments, case studies, debates, and projects that require students to apply critical thinking.

17. Reflect and Discuss: Periodically have reflective discussions where students share how their critical thinking skills have developed and how they've applied them outside the classroom.

18. Model Critical Thinking: Demonstrate critical thinking in your own discussions, lectures, and interactions. Be open to adjusting your views based on evidence and logical reasoning.

19. Provide Resources: Share books, articles, videos, and online resources that explore critical thinking and its applications.

20. Assess Progress: Use quizzes, exams, presentations, and projects to assess students' critical thinking skills. These assessments should reflect real-world problem-solving scenarios.

Here are some examples for each of the 20 points mentioned earlier:

1. Understand Critical Thinking:

• Example: Explain to students that critical thinking involves examining information from various angles before forming an opinion. Use a news article as an example and discuss how different people might interpret the same story differently based on their perspectives.

2. Define Objectives:

• Example: State that the objective is for students to be able to identify logical fallacies in arguments. Provide a list of common fallacies and ask them to find examples in advertisements or political speeches.

3. Create a Supportive Environment:

• Example: Establish a classroom rule that everyone's opinions will be respected and valued, even if they differ from the majority.

4. Introduce Concepts:

• Example: Teach students the concept of deductive reasoning using the classic example: "All humans are mortal. Socrates is a human. Therefore, Socrates is mortal."

5. Encourage Questioning:

• Example: Present a controversial statement like "Social media is beneficial for society." Ask students to write down reasons supporting and opposing this statement.

6. Teach Analytical Skills:

• Example: Provide a complex argument about climate change and ask students to break it down into its main premises and conclusions.

7. Evaluate Evidence:

• Example: Show students two articles about a scientific discovery, one from a reputable source and another from an unreliable blog. Discuss the differences in evidence and credibility.

8. Discuss Bias and Assumptions:

• Example: Show a news article covering a political event and discuss how the author's bias might have influenced the language used and the information included.

9. Practice Problem-Solving:

• Example: Present a scenario where a town is facing an environmental crisis. Ask students to brainstorm possible solutions, considering short-term and long-term consequences.

10. Explore Counterarguments:

• Example: Assign students a debate on a controversial topic like genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and require them to argue both in favor and against GMOs.

11. Foster Creative Thinking:

• Example: Ask students to imagine an alternative ending to a historical event and explain how it might have impacted the course of history.

12. Teach Decision-Making:

• Example: Present a scenario where a character has to choose between two job offers. Guide students through a decision-making process considering factors like salary, work-life balance, and career growth.

13. Engage in Socratic Dialogue:

• Example: Use the Socratic method to explore the concept of justice by asking a series of questions like "What is justice?" and "Can an unjust action ever be justified?"

14. Collaborative Learning:

• Example: Divide the class into groups to analyze a case study involving a complex ethical dilemma. Each group presents their analysis, and the class discusses different viewpoints.

15. Provide Feedback:

• Example: After a debate, give feedback to each student on their argumentation skills, acknowledging strengths like effective use of evidence and suggesting areas for improvement.

16. Practice, Practice, Practice:

• Example: Assign a weekly "critical thinking challenge" where students analyze a real-world news article, identifying logical fallacies and evaluating the evidence.

17. Reflect and Discuss:

• Example: Hold a class discussion at the end of the semester where students share instances when they applied critical thinking skills outside of the classroom.

18. Model Critical Thinking:

• Example: During a lecture, demonstrate your willingness to change your viewpoint based on strong evidence or compelling arguments from students.

19. Provide Resources:

• Example: Share a TED Talk or an article discussing cognitive biases and how they affect decision-making.

20. Assess Progress:

• Example: Create a final project where students have to analyze a complex issue, present their findings, and defend their conclusions using critical thinking skills.

Critical Thinking

 

The state of Pakistan: Isn't the support for BJP similar?

Fahd Hussain in The Dawn

Imran Khan’s supporters can see no wrong in what he says or does. We have witnessed this phenomenon unfurl itself like a lazy python these last few years, but more so with greater intensity during Khan’s pre- and post-ouster days. On display is a textbook case of blind devotion. Such devotion entails a deliberate — or perhaps subconscious — suspension of critical thinking. Only mass hysteria can explain absolute rejection of facts and a willing embrace of free-flying rhetoric untethered by verifiable information.

And yet, does this really make sense?

Bounce this explanation off actual people around you — friends, families, acquaintances — and you start to feel uncomfortable with the laziness of the explanation.

On your left, for instance, is the professor with a doctorate in natural sciences from one of the top universities in the world, someone whose entire educational foundation and career is based on the power of empirical evidence and scientific rationalism — and here he is hysterically arguing why the PTI deputy speaker’s violation of the constitution is no big deal. On your right is the top executive of a multinational company with an MBA from an Ivy League school, someone whose training and practice of craft is based on hard data crunched with power of sharp logic — and here he is frothing at the mouth in delirium while yelling that the Joe Biden administration actually conspired with the entire top leadership of the PDM to topple Imran Khan. 

These are rational people, you remind yourself. You have known them for years, and admired them for their academic and professional achievements — perhaps even been motivated by their pursuit of success — and yet you see them experiencing a strange quasi-psychedelic meltdown in full public glare. It just does not add up.

It is not just these metaphorical persons — resembling many real ones in all our lives, as it so happens — but hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis from all walks of life locked inside a massive groupthink spurred by sweeping generalisations dressed up as political narrative. No argument, no logic and no rationale — no, nothing makes sense, and nothing is acceptable or even worth considering if it does not gel perfectly with their preconceived notions.

What we are witnessing is a seminal moment in our political evolution — progressive or regressive is a matter of personal perspective — and this moment is situated bang in the centre of a social and political transformation so impactful that it could define the shape of our society for the years ahead.

In an acutely polarised environment, it is easy to pass judgement on those sitting across the fence. Most of us yield to this temptation. When we do, we help reinforce caricatures that have little resemblance to people around us, and these fail to explain why people believe what they believe.

So why do such a large number of people believe what they believe even when overwhelming evidence points towards the opposite conclusion? In our context, this may be due in part to the visceral politicisation of the national discourse and the deep personal loathing of rivals that the PTI has injected into what should otherwise be a contest of ideas and ideologies. At the heart of this is the revulsion against the system because it has not really delivered what it exists to deliver: improving the lives of citizens through protection of rights and provision of services. It is therefore easy and convenient to blame the system, and in turn all those institutions that constitute the system as a whole.

Imran Khan has modelled himself well as the anti-system crusader. He insists very persuasively that he has neither been co-opted nor corrupted by the system; that when he says he wants to change this system, it implies that there is nothing sacrosanct about the system, or for that matter, about the exalted institutions that make up the system. He has been able to establish this narrative successfully because the central theme of his narrative is, in fact, true: the system has not delivered.

But the argument is only half done here. The other half is perhaps even more crucial — diagnosing why it has not delivered. It is here that Imran Khan goes off tangent. And he does so not just in terms of his solutions, but his own shockingly weak performance as the prime minister who had it all but could not do much with it. In fact, after nearly four years in power, and having precious little to show for them, Imran has for all practical purposes joined the long line of those who are, in fact, responsible for the sad reality that the system has not delivered.

But someone forgot to break this news to the PTI supporters.

In essence then, if Pakistani society wants to row itself back from this stage where the electorate is at war with itself on a battlefield littered with semi-truths, partial facts and outright lies, it will need to face up to a bitter fact: what we see unfolding in front of us is the contamination of decades of social and educational decay injected with deadly and potent steroids of propaganda, brainwashing and ‘otherisation’ of anyone who looks, speaks, acts or believes differently.

Those social studies books you read in school and thought you would outgrow — well, now you know how wrong you were?

In this cesspool, everyone points fingers at everyone else when no one really has the right to do so. Seven decades of wrong governance laced with wrong priorities and fuelled by wrong policies have led us to a stage today where traditional parties cannot stomach the aspirations of a new generation, and new parties cannot digest the requirements of what constitutes governance, statecraft and institutional equilibrium within a democratic society.

And you thought holding elections was our biggest problem today. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Skepticism: Why critical thinking makes you smarter

 

History, Critical Thinking & Autonomy: Decolonizing Romila Thapar

Why footwork is overrated when keeping wicket

Deep Dasgupta in Cricinfo

I was recently asked for my opinion of Rishabh Pant's wicketkeeping. One of the things I spoke about then, apart from his good glovework, was how little he moved - which is the correct approach for English conditions. In general - and don't be shocked when I say this - footwork in keeping is overrated.

Don't get me wrong. Footwork is essential and an important facet of wicketkeeping, but the question is: how much and when should you move your feet? Since childhood I've been told about the importance of footwork and how good keepers never dive but rather just glide to the ball. "The less you dive, the better you are," I was told. That couldn't be further from the truth.

Like batting, with keeping too, it's your hands that will do the job. What footwork does is get you in good positions to catch or play the ball.

The problem with moving too much comes to light when the ball deviates from the predicted path - for example, when it takes an edge or if it changes direction after pitching, as it does when spin bowling is involved. If the keeper is on the move when the ball changes its predicted path, by the time he stabilises himself and reacts, it's often too late.

There are two critical phases when the keeper has to be stable - when the ball is pitching and when it is passing the bat. These are the two times when the ball is most likely to deviate. It is important to stay still, with a strong, stable base, at these times, to give yourself the best chance of reacting to likely changes.

Jos Buttler being dropped by Pant at Trent Bridge is an example of the keeper being on the move when the ball was edged. By the time Pant could stabilise and move, it was too late. (It was a tough chance, though.) If you take these two phases out, there isn't much time to move anyway, be it before the ball pitches or after it passes the bat.

The big argument for footwork is that it lets you cover a lot of ground. But how much ground does a keeper really need to cover for a seamer? On the off side, one would expect the keeper to reach till the first slip, and on the leg side a little bit more. First slip is about half a body length, so roughly one shuffling step away, or a dive. On the leg side, it's a step, then a dive - or another shuffling step or thereabouts. That is all the footwork the keeper needs. And that's all he will need, if he moves after the ball has passed the bat .Wriddhiman Saha's half-squat allows him remain stable and keep his eye on the ball Getty Images

Two of the best examples of not moving too much I can think of are MS Dhoni and Wriddhiman Saha. Against seamers, Saha doesn't squat fully. He stays still in a half-squat till the ball passes the bat. It is the same with Dhoni - his movements are minimal and his hand-eye coordination is among the best that I've seen. His keeping looks unorthodox but his basics are extremely good and solid: he stays still for as long as possible, keeps watching the ball till the last moment, and backs his hands to do the rest. At times, he and Saha catch the ball like outfielders, with one knee on the ground (or "long-barrier", in cricket parlance).

Another argument in favour of the keeper moving is the concept of catching the ball inside the body - that is, catching it between the body and the line of the stumps - promoted by a lot of coaches and pundits. This originated, if my memory serves me right, in Australia.

The carry and pace of Australian pitches means the keeper has substantially more time, because he is further back from the stumps, to take an extra step on either side. It's not the same on low and slow pitches, like you get in the subcontinent. The reason I'm not a big fan of catching the ball inside the body is that theoretically it sounds good but it isn't practical on most pitches. I must add, though, that I do encourage catching on either side of the body - just to make sure the hands have enough room to move.

Catching depends a lot on eye-hand coordination. The eyes are like cameras - the more you move, the more blurry the picture. For me, the best way to capture a moving ball is to stay still. The hands will catch what the eyes can see.

Though wicketkeeping is an important aspect of the game - and a tough one - unfortunately it does not get the attention that batting, bowling and fielding in general do. As long as the keeper is catching them, it's fine, but if it goes wrong, "his basics are wrong", as someone said to the media about me once. Sounds funny now but trust me, it wasn't at the time! Due to this lack of airtime in the public discourse for wicketkeeping, discussion of it remains somewhat caught in a quagmire of age-old clichés and half-baked knowledge. I would like to see more people getting involved in the conversation and delving deeper into the thankless job called wicketkeeping.