Transcript Pre-launch – people need to understand just what it means

WHO ARE YOU?
OVERVIEW OF CRITICAL THINKING CLASS
KWHS – FALL 2013
OVERVIEW
• The purpose of this critical thinking course is to help
you
• Explore rhetorical situations as you seek to know the truth
• Understand how to research and reason logically about
moral dilemmas and social issues
• Learn about “pitfalls” when thinking critically, and how to
avoid them
• Realize the difference between “thinking” and “feeling”
• Discover why you think the way you do, so you have the
power to choose what you believe
• Develop strategies for making your beliefs clear and
accessible to others
CONTEXT, PITFALLS,
STRATEGY
THE APPROACH
CONTEXT
• Involves answering these seven questions
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Who are you?
What is critical thinking?
What is truth?
What does it mean, “to know”?
How good are your opinions?
What is evidence?
What is argument?
CONTEXT (CONT.)
• Much of what is commonly believed about these
seven concepts is mistaken
• Whoever examines them carefully is always
rewarded with fresh insights into arriving at the
knowledge of the truth
• The more thorough your knowledge of these
concepts, the more proficient you will be in your
thinking and studying
RESULTS OF UNDERSTANDING
“CONTEXT”
• Individuality doesn’t come automatically, but has to
be renewed again and again
• Who you are now is not who you will be down the road
• Critical thinking is as applicable to your own ideas
as it is to other people’s
• Are you as critical of your own thinking as you are of
others’?
• The truth is discovered, not created
• This means, you don’t get to make up the truth, contrary to
what you otherwise believe – it’s not relative! It’s fixed, and
it’s knowable, and we are pursuing it together in this
community, as a family
RESULTS OF UNDERSTANDING
“CONTEXT” (CONT.)
• Genuine knowledge is elusive
• It takes effort to come to the knowledge of the truth
• Opinions are only as good as the evidence that
supports them
• No matter how strongly you “feel” about something,
evidence is king in this arena
• Argument is not a matter of scoring points or
shouting others down, but compiling accurate
information and reasoning logically about it
PITFALLS
• There is one basic problem, which causes us to fall
into one of four different kinds of judgment errors
• This basic problem is one that, once we recognize it,
will cause trouble for our ego
• The problem is, we tend to operate on the principle
that “mine is better” when it comes to considering
alternative points of view
PITFALLS (CONT.)
• This causes us to err in one of these ways
• Perspective – erroneous notions about reality that are
present in our minds more or less continuously
• Procedure – occur when we are dealing with specific issues
• Expression – occur when we put our thoughts into words
• Reaction – occur when someone criticizes or challenges a
statement or argument we have made
PITFALLS (CONT.)
• Things can get really tricky when these errors occur
in combination!
• After covering the material in this course, you will
understand the various errors that impair thinking
• You will learn how to best discover them in other
people’s writing and speaking (and in your own)
and, more important, how to avoid them
SUMMARY, SO FAR
• Examining “context” presents fundamental “tools
and rules” for critical thinking
• Examining “pitfalls” explains the many ways in which
thinking can go wrong, and what we can do to
avoid them
• Finally, “strategy” will teach us a step-by-step
approach to use when studying or examining issues
that are important to us
STRATEGY
• This involves examining six areas
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Knowing yourself
Being observant
Selecting an issue
Conducting an inquiry
Forming a judgment
Persuading others
STRATEGY (CONT.)
• Following this approach will enable us to smoothly
and effectively integrate the habits and skills we
learned when studying “context” and “pitfalls”
• Remember, thinking is an active use of the mind, a
performance activity, every bit as much as is
playing basketball, driving a car, or preparing
dinner
• The quality of our thinking is reflected by how we
approach problem solving
PROCEDURE
• We will work through this course for the rest of the
semester, perhaps even into next semester,
alongside other writing assignments you will have
• You will be provided with exercises after each
lesson, for placing in your dual-entry notebook, so
you can apply what you have learned and
demonstrate your understanding
FIRST THINGS FIRST
WH O A R E Y O U ?
WHO ARE YOU?
• External details
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Age, height, weight
Hair and eye color
Overall health
Date of birth and birth
order in family
Ancestry and citizenship
Marital status
Education, occupation
Special skills
Languages
• Internal details
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Thoughts and feelings
Experiences
Values and attitudes
Lifestyle
Preferences
Strengths and weaknesses
Spiritual life
Goals and dreams
Hopes and fears
WHO ARE YOU?
• These external and internal characteristics form your
“perspective,” your “point of view,” your “mental
framework,” or your “schema”
• Your degree of awareness of these characteristics
influences your perception of reality
• It is important to understand the influences on your mind so
you can be aware of how those influences affect your
perception
• But we need to start by asking the question: How
did I get to be the way I am?
THE INFLUENCE OF TIME AND PLACE
• You exist at a particular time in history, and at a
particular location on planet Earth
• This time and this place are defined by specific
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Circumstances
Understandings
Beliefs
Customs
• All of these limit your experience and influence your
thought patterns
COLONIAL AMERICA - TIME
• If you lived in America during colonial times, you
would likely have had no objection to the practice
of barring women from
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Serving on a jury
Entering into a legal contract
Working for pay outside the home
Owning property
Voting
• Some of you may yet object to these practices,
which reveals your values and tells us about who
you are
THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE HANDSHAKE
In which of the following countries is shaking hands NOT the
traditional business greeting?
Finland
• Greetings are formal, with a firm
handshake, direct eye contact, and a
smile.
Portugal
• A handshake at the beginning and end
of the meeting is an accepted custom;
care should be taken to shake hands
with everyone present at the meeting.
Japan
• While foreigners are expected to shake
hands, the traditional form of greeting is
the bow.
Argentina
• Protocol is to greet the eldest or most
important person first with handshake,
direct eye contact, and a welcoming
smile.
South Korea
• Many South Koreans shake hands with
expatriates after the bow, thereby
blending both cultural styles.
Poland
• It is usual to firmly shake hands and
make eye contact with everyone upon
arriving and leaving.
WHAT’S GOING ON WITH THIS PICTURE?
Question:
Is it customary for an Arab man to shake
the hand of a woman?
Answer:
We don’t know, based on information
from our previous slide.
Question:
What do you notice about him, and how
does it relate to what we just learned?
Answer:
He is bowing, the traditional and proper
greeting toward an Asian citizen.
Question:
Can we make a hard and fast conclusion
about Arab customs from the information
we currently have?
Answer:
Probably not, given the limited amount of
data we currently have, even though we
might LIKE to come to a conclusion based
on how we feel about the man.
SO WHAT?
• Living in a different age or culture would make you
a different person
• Even if you rebelled against the values of your time
and place, they would still represent the context of
your life
• More important, they would will still influence your
responses and define who you are
THE INFLUENCE OF MASS CULTURE
• Less than 150 years ago, the main influences on
children were simple: family and teachers
• Today, the influence of mass culture is often greater
that the influence of family
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Broadcast media
Newspapers and magazines
Internet
Popular music and movies
Athletes
“Stars”
Schools
SOME BOGGLING FACTS
• By age 18, the average teen has spent 11,000 hours
in the classroom and 22,000 hours in front of the
television set
• Has had perhaps 13,000 school lessons, yet has watched
more than 750,000 commercials
• By age 35, that same person has had fewer than
20,000 school lessons, yet has watched
• 45,000 hours of television
• 2,000,000 commercials
WHAT IS THE EFFECT OF MASS
CULTURE?
• Consider not “what” but “how” it is delivered to us
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Frequent scene shifts and sensory appeals
Shifts in story lines and camera angles
Commercial to program to commercial
Slogans and testimonials by celebrities
• Appeals are aimed not at logic, but to emotion
• Derived from the “science” of manipulation, or
behavioral theory
WHAT IS THE EFFECT OF MASS
CULTURE? (CONT.)
• The constant “shifting” of perspective causes a short
attention span
• The commercial interruptions work to
• Diminish our understanding to “sound byte” amounts
• Cause us to respond in ways that are emotional, impulsive,
and from a place of gullibility
• All this affects our ability to critically analyze our
environment and all it contains
WHAT IS THE EFFECT OF MASS
CULTURE? (CONT.)
• News has become more about “spin” and
“opinion” and less about verified facts
• We end up being easily manipulated by advertisers,
and all those for whom they work, including
politicians and religious leaders
• We are affected by the culture, even if we don’t
watch television, surf the Internet, listen to music or
talk radio, or read books and magazines
MASS CULTURE AFFECTS OUR BELIEFS
• Pre-1960s, people were urged to be self-disciplined,
self-critical, and self-effacing
• Encouraged to practice self-denial, to aspire to selfknowledge, and to behave in a manner that ensured they
maintained self-respect
• Self-centeredness was considered a vice
• Humility was considered a virtue
• Hard work was what lead to achievement, which then lead
to satisfaction and self-confidence
MASS CULTURE AFFECTS OUR BELIEFS
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• Post-1960s, we see an about-face
• Self-esteem is considered an imperative
• Self-centeredness has been transformed from a vice to a
virtue (witness “reality shows”)
• The formula for success and happiness begins with “feeling
good about ourselves” instead of feeling good about our
own accomplishments AFTER we’ve actually DONE
something!
• These theories cause people to behave PRIDEFULLY instead
of walking with humility and compassion, making it more
likely to have a coherent and functional community
WHAT IS THE PRICE WE HAVE PAID?
• We live in a culture that conditions us to behave in
ways that are often contrary to our own best
interests
• Indoctrination vs education in schools – kids become
“zombified” rather than intuitive, creative, thinking people
• Assumption is that truth is relative, and disconnected from
any historical standards, that it is “created” individually and
not “discovered” as a fact of history and community
• Welfare mentality (I deserve, it’s my right) and selfish
attitudes (I don’t care what you think) abound
• Broken families and fragmented communities
• “Alternative” lifestyles and subcultures flourish in the discord
WHAT IS THE PRICE WE HAVE PAID?
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• We know this affects us because we live in it
• We know this conditioning causes us to see each
other with skewed eyes
• We know we have to overcome these effects
because if we don’t, they will hinder our success in
life
WHEN WE LOOK AT EACH OTHER, WHOM DO WE SEE?
There’s the surface, who we are on the outside, then there’s all the stuff
underneath, on our insides, that is affected by our upbringing, ancestry,
education, language, attitudes, values, hopes and fears and dreams
WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?
• Deal with your issues
• Purpose in your heart, this day, that you will do everything
you can to understand who you are and what you need to
do so you can grow and change
• Be deliberate and accountable
• Decide that you are, this day, going to become the person
you know you should be, and find someone who will hold
you accountable in this process
A SANE APPROACH TO ISSUES
1. Treat your first reaction to any person, issue, or
situation as tentative. No matter how appealing it
may be, refuse to embrace it until you have
thoroughly examined it.
2. Decide why you reacted initially as you did.
Consider whether you borrowed the reaction from
someone else, or if it stems from an unresolved
issue in your heart. If possible, determine what
specific experiences have conditioned you to
react this way.
A SANE APPROACH TO ISSUES (CONT.)
3. Think of other possible reactions you might have
had to the person, issue, or situation. In other
words, consider alternatives to the “mine is better”
monkey living between your ears.
4. Ask yourself whether one of the other reactions is
more appropriate than your first reaction. And
when you answer, resist the influence of your
conditioning. Use your brain and think it through
and don’t give up until you weigh your evidence.
FOR NEXT TIME
• What is Critical Thinking?
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The difference between the brain and the mind
Critical thinking defined
Characteristics of critical thinkers
The role of intuition
Basic activities in critical thinking
Critical thinking and writing
Critical thinking and discussion