Thinkers in my classrooms: Teaching critical thinking deductively

摘要

One of the paradox about humans thinking is that they are not simply the only "logical" animal, they are also the only "illogical" animal among all. They are the only animal that uses meanings ??? ideas, concepts, analogies, metaphors, models, theories, and explanations ??? to make sense of things, to understand, predict, and control things. They are also the only animal that uses meanings to negate, contradict, and deceive itself, to misconceive, distort, and stereotype, to become dogmatic, prejudiced and narrow-minded. Humans are the only animal whose thinking can be characterized in terms like clear, precise, accurate, relevant, consistent, profound, and fair; they are also the only animal whose thinking is often imprecise, vague, inaccurate, irrelevant, superficial, trivial, and biased. Critical thinking makes sense in light of this paradoxical dichotomy. Humans shouldn't simply trust their instincts. They shouldn't unquestioningly believe what spontaneously occurs to them. They shouldn't accept as true everything taught as true. They shouldn't assume their experience is unbiased. They need to form, they are not born with, intellectually sound standards for belief, for truth, for validity. They need to cultivate habits and traits which integrate these standards into their lives. It is s possible to achieve this by learning traits of Critical Thinking. Critical thinking is trainable skill. This paper is case-study of the endeavor to teach these skills-deductively to Ist year Engineering students. The multi-disciplinary and radical approach in terms of content and methodology has created inquisitive students with mind more open and thinking more precisely. The papers also show case the evidence of tthat this methodology is successful in inculcating the skill and ability to think critically.